Of all the world’s governments, China’s probably employs the fewest obfuscatory mechanisms. It doesn’t have multiparty elections. It doesn’t pretend its propaganda outlets are ‘free and independent’. It’s open about censorship. It openly has party cells in its businesses.
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Obviously Maoist China employed obfuscatory mechanisms - the Cultural Revolution was a gigantic ‘grassroots movement’ manipulated from the top - but they’ve become increasingly formalist (although Xi’s corruption campaign was partly obfuscatory).
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Where does North Korea lie on the obfuscatory vs formalist spectrum? Are cults of personality obfuscatory? Is Soviet-style economic planning obfuscatory?
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How do you tell the difference between an obfuscatory mechanism designed to conceal how power functions and plain old bad ideas and/or incompetence?
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Replying to @mr_scientism
If someone gets fired for incompetence, incompetence - if no one knows whom to fire for incompetence, obfuscation
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Replying to @CovfefeAnon @mr_scientism
obfuscation is sometimes done to cover incompetence and sometimes to cover being a sneaky bastard. the latter is at least theoretically capable of good governance.
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That's the thing though - if obfuscation is in place it's only by random chance that anyone competent gets the job - the filters in place are all for bureaucratic in-fighting so you need someone who just happens to be skilled in both. You can get good governance only by accident
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