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Cautionary Tales · March 13, 2026 · 40m
And It Went Click: Dawn of the Working Dead
Cautionary Tales
Robert Propst invented the office cubicle as a tool for worker liberation — flexible, configurable, private. Companies turned it into the soul-crushing cube farm. Harford examines how good inventions get corrupted by the environments they're deployed in.
Canon
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Harford argues that open-plan and cubicle offices produce the very problems they claim to solve: less collaboration, less creativity, less engagement — because the environment suppresses the behaviors it supposedly enables.
Highlights
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Good inventions are corrupted by bad incentive structures
Propst designed the 'Action Office' to give workers privacy, flexibility, and control over their space. Companies saw it as a way to pack more workers into less space at lower cost. The invention was corrupted by its buyers.