A human-factors caveat on shipbuilding criticism

What do you make of Corelli Barnett's criticism of British shipbuilding management and labour?

Ideal systems can look convincing on paper, but criticism must account for how imperfect people actually perform inside real institutions.

The reply to Corelli Barnett's criticism of British shipbuilding management and labour is deliberately limited. Analysts can construct a perfect system on paper, while the people inside a real institution may perform poorly under supposedly ideal arrangements. This is not a detailed verdict on Barnett's series or a blanket defence of British management and labour. It is a caution against judging historical institutions solely against frictionless theoretical systems.