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shminux comments on Why officers vs. enlisted? - Less Wrong
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If you look for the commonality between various multi-ladder systems (are there ever more than two ladders?), you will notice that it originates historically in the drawing from multiple pools of candidates into the same occupation (like fighting or healing). Eventually the ladder may become a lost purpose, preserved only because it's an integral part of the system (a deep local maximum of efficiency, for example). The pools could differ by land ownership, education and/or training level or even by gender. If the original reason for the double ladder no longer exists, people on the inside will justify it with the usual fake status quo-preservation arguments.
I could not find the origin of the US corporate division into senior and middle management., but it is by no means universal across the countries and economic systems. Or at least it wasn't until a few decades ago.
Traditionally the distinction is that employees do the work, the managers manage employees, and the executives manage managers.
In the XX century there was also real distinction between different ranks of managers in certain spheres, notably law firms and investment banks. They were organized as partnerships so the boundary was between employees (including managers) who were paid a salary and partners who had an equity stake in the company and received a share of profits besides the salary.
Actually, there are many non-exec managers who manage managers, so that can't be the defining distinction. There are also a tiny handful of execs who don't manage anyone, though that might be just an exceptional case.
The definition of "executive" is fuzzy and there has been some inflation over time. Look at titles, e.g. vice president. Fifty years ago it meant you're a big shot, nowadays it usually means you're a middle manager.
Note that there is also a separate, legal concept of "officers of the corporation" which is a different thing.
OK, so the two pools originally were the founders and the employees, then ("capitalists" and "workers" in Marxist terms). Before it all morphed together.
No. The basic definition of executives, from the perspective of the capitalists who own the company, is responsible employees who take care of the business.
Yes, this is one of the strongest candidates for an answer. Still, I think that organizations do change, sometimes keeping historical forms as an archaism.
I can easily imagine a counterfactual historicla shift where sergeants' social status rises and lieutenants' social status falls, to the point that de facto the strong boundary between officers and non-officers disappears.
So, just explaining the two-ladder system as a historical remnant doesn't quite answer it..
That's not a "still", it's exactly what I meant. After the original ladders take root, it is much harder to reform the whole system than to adapt it to the changing circumstances.
I would like to see such ladder inversion examples. While it is true that a new lieutenant has to learn from his or hers sergeant before really talking command, there is still a difference in the social status and education between them.