Management is obviously capable of long-term planning - there just aren't incentives in place for that.

Most of them aren't Machiavellian masterminds though. Most of them are barely passable managers who are mostly just reacting to what is right on front of their noses. Company is growing? Extrapolate linearly, and hire enough people to cover the projected growth over the next 12-18 months. Growth didn't increase linearly, costs have gone up due to inflation, and we can't borrow more cheap money? Lay off a bunch of people to stem the bleeding, hope the company makes it through alive.

> Most of them aren't Machiavellian masterminds though.

They also aren't squirrels. They're capable of foresight.

It’s a pretty common workflow for big business.

Wait till you hear how businesses intentionally pit employees against each other by granting different benefits at different levels so that the majority doesn’t feel as bad about things. This is, for example, how businesses got rid of comprehensive retirement packages.