Almost everything in this story is impossible to reproduce today (we can definitely reproduce just the "don't go to college part").
That being said, I agree that many corporate mindsets make it seem like this is impossible. A lot of us here at HN are likely going to end up in leadership positions, so a thought for everyone is, if you don't like the idea of "the MBA's" outsourcing everything, or contracting, push back against it.
Even small things like pushing to train someone on your team instead of hiring externally can start to snowball when everyone does it, and you've got more power than you realize to change your company culture.
Having an MBA on your resume is a slight negative for me when I'm on hiring committees for peer positions. It's likely to remain the same when I start hiring reports.
It's not going to happen. Every time there's a working conditions post on HN like the recent one about Nintendo, half the comments are to the tune of "if you didn't want to get treated like dirt you shouldn't have been a contractor" as if they foolishly pushed the wrong button on the career vending machine.
But it's the only option because leadership makes it that way. And saying it's not going to happen is a good way to make sure it never does. Airplanes ain't gunna fly, you can't never land a rocket standing up, and there's no way you can fit a mobile phone in something smaller than a brief case.
I'm not saying it's easy but if you think it's a problem, you can work to change it. I personally think it's a problem, and now that I'm a Manager I'm doing what I can to try to change. Will I be successful? Maybe not perfectly but already the company is better than it was.