It's easier to teach compliance than initiative

Seth Godin ponders why It's easier to teach compliance than initiative while noting:

...The economy has rewritten the rules, and smart organizations seek out intelligent problem solvers. Everything is different now. Except the part about how much easier it is to teach compliance.

The rules of the economy have not been rewritten. This is still a Capitalist economy. What has changed is the distribution of workers between Department I and Department II.

Department II workers are needed to perform rote jobs that can be easily taught and measured. These are the production workers whether they work in a factory or an office. The capitalist profit arises from the exploitation of these workers.

Department I workers are those who create, maintain, build, and improve the machines that the Department I workers use. These workers need initiative and creativity for problem-solving. Their work is not easily taught or measured.

Education not only teaches workers skills for use in the economy but also modes of thinking for political control. Compliance is a vital output of the Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) that is the education system.

As Godin notes, we are seeing a clash between the economic needs of initiative and the compliance that is the primary product of the education system. I would interpret this as a rift between the economic reality and the political superstructure which is based on compliance.