This almost seems to be a weird artefact of capitalism. Ive worked on several projects which at some point became obviously doomed to almost everybody in the trenches but management/investors/owners kept believing. Perception of reality did not permeate the class divide.
I wish I could make $$$ off this insight somehow but im not sure it's possible.
I think this is driven more by hierarchy and power games rather than capitalism. Basically, if your superiors don't want to hear bad news, then either you'll tell them good news only or you'll be replaced by someone who will.
Source: I've been replaced by this process a number of times.
Because hundreds of years after multiple things have proven that systems with free and open flow of information, skills, and techniques beats any system where information is walled off, capitalism (or corporatism really) still insists, all too often, on favoring feudal style top down methods of control instead of bottom up “empower the teams and facilitate the flow of information”; they don’t merely suppress the flow of information they actively ignore information; and they prefer people idle rather than work on non-approved priorities.
Many people use capitalism to mean the system of multinational corps and their secretive, hierarchical, and morally offensive ways, rather than anything to do with free market economics (which are predicated on the free flow of information in the market).
I wish I could make $$$ off this insight somehow but im not sure it's possible.