What kind of work is that? And why are the developers willingly not wanting to prioritize it, if the alternative of not doing it is becoming jobless? Do we need some kind of PM figure to say things like: "If we don't make this feature for the client, we are doomed, so start coding. Chop chop!". And do we need to keep that guy on the payroll for simply relaying a message?
Yes, and yes! I believe you're starting to see. Good management has value. Even if that is to deflect invalid criticism for devs.
"But if you don't do these things, the company fails!" Yeah, and look at all those small, engineering-heavy companies that do exactly that! And further--eventually, as you scale you reinvent division of labor because as much as we like to kid ourselves, software developers are not, universally, better at doing everyone else's job. (If you find yourself in a position where you are better at doing everyone else's job, you should probably find a new company to work at.)
In times of plenty, this works, and I think it can have high velocity. Especially with very small teams that all have high levels of direct investment in the result.
There are also times of famine, however, and the work that keeps the lights on is often not work that even invested software developers want to prioritize. When making money is on the line, there's always somebody who's there to make you eat your vegetables. Who, in your conception of the problem, is that?