By Andrew Klein  26^th November 2025

The very term “Human Resources” (HR) is a confession. It reduces the vast, complex, beautiful, and messy reality of a human being to a single, cold function: a resource to be allocated, utilized, and ultimately, depleted. This is not an accident of language. It is the ideological bedrock of a neoliberal psychopathocracy that has perfected the art of extracting value while discarding humanity.

This article will trace how HR has transformed from an administrative function into a mechanism of control, pathologizing normal human behaviour and inflicting profound damage on individuals, families, and the very fabric of community.

1. The Rise of the Bureaucratic Gatekeeper

Historically, personnel decisions were often made by those with direct, lived experience in the field—a foreman who knew the trade, a senior engineer who understood the craft. The rise of a specialized HR class, disconnected from the operational reality of the roles they fill, represents a seismic shift.

· The Credentialed Inexperienced: HR professionals are often trained in generic management theory, psychology, and law, but lack deep, practical experience in the specific fields they recruit for. A 22-year-old HR graduate using a keyword algorithm to filter applications for a senior engineering position is not an anomaly; it is the system.

· The “Tagging” of Human Beings: People are no longer assessed; they are “tagged.” A resume is not a story of a life’s work; it is a data set to be mined for keywords. Psychometric tests like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which has been widely criticized in academic literature for its lack of reliability and validity (Pittenger, 2005), are used to pigeonhole individuals into simplistic categories, creating an illusion of scientific objectivity where none exists.

2. The God Complex of the System Administrator

Armed with dubious tools and institutional power, HR departments often operate with what can only be described as a “God complex”—the power to grant or deny a person’s livelihood based on flawed metrics.

· The Eichmann Parable: There is a chilling echo of Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil” in the modern HR office. It is not that HR staff are inherently evil; it is that they are functionaries within a system that rewards efficiency over empathy, compliance over compassion. They follow the process, and the process is designed for extraction, not nurturance.

· Pathologizing the Human: This system pathologizes normal human responses to a pathological work environment. Burnout becomes a “personal resilience issue.” Grief after a bereavement is an “attendance problem.” Righteous anger at injustice is “not a cultural fit.” This medicalization of moral injury shifts the blame from the toxic system to the individual’s “failure to cope,” further enabling the cycle of exploitation (Hari, 2018).

3. The Collateral Damage: Individuals, Families, and Communities

The human cost of this dehumanizing system is immeasurable.

· On the Individual: The constant anxiety of being “processed,” the humiliation of being reduced to a set of tags, and the trauma of sudden, impersonal termination cause profound psychological harm. This is not a byproduct; it is a feature of a system designed to keep labour compliant and disposable.

· On Families and Communities: When a primary breadwinner is ground down by this system—working excessive hours, suffering mental health crises, or being made redundant—the shockwaves devastate families. Financial instability, relational breakdown, and a loss of community standing are direct consequences. The system’s indifference to the individual has a fractal effect, damaging the entire social ecosystem.

4. The Insidious Spread: A Model for Other Industries

The HR mindset has metastasized, becoming the dominant model in other sectors.

· The Insurance Industry: Uses similar algorithmic “tagging” to deny claims or price individuals out of coverage, treating a person’s health as a risk profile rather than a human right.

· The Health Industry: Patients are often processed as “beds” or “DRG codes,” with their care determined by bureaucratic protocols rather than holistic, human-to-human consultation.

Conclusion: From Human Resources to Human Relationships

We must dismantle the myth of “Human Resources.” A human being is not a resource. A human being is a story, a potential, a node in a network of relationships.

The alternative is not to abolish organization, but to build systems on a different foundation. We must champion models where:

· Hiring is done by those with lived experience in the role.

· Assessment is holistic, considering the whole person, not just their keywords.

· The goal is the flourishing of the individual within the community, not their maximum extraction.

We must move from a paradigm of “Human Resources” to one of “Human Relationships.” The former is the language of the psychopathocracy. The latter is the language of a family, a community, and a sane society.

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References:

· Pittenger, D. J. (2005). Cautionary comments regarding the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 57(3), 210–221.

· Hari, J. (2018). Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions. Bloomsbury.

· Arendt, H. (1963). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Viking Press.

· Graeber, D. (2018). Bullshit Jobs: A Theory. Simon & Schuster.

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Published by The Unbroken Spine. Because a person is not a problem to be solved, but a universe to be embraced.