"Up or out" is perhaps a form of this - keep a stream of pressure over the org so you don't have any careerist settling in and (eventually) clogging up the productivity.
I don't know that it's actually effective at that (or if it is, that the inherent costs are worth it), but it's a bit of the reverse of most recent thinking: keep people for as long as you can if they're sufficiently useful.
This is what another commentor said was a likely cause for the intense focus on self-promotion and blame-dodging, since head down actual work wouldn't necessarily lead to Up, so one could end up Out.
Don't hate the player; hate the game. Personally I could not work at a place like this, as my tolerance for bullshit, politics, and wasted energy/talent is very low.
Has anybody suggested "term limits" as a solution? Not that I assume they would be.