ONE OF RUMSFELD’S RULES IS THAT WHATEVER YOU MEASURE WILL IMPROVE, SO YOU HAVE TO MEASURE THE RIGHT THINGS. I just ran across this article on Xi’s problem with the bureaucracy:
Since taking power in late 2012, Mr. Xi has realigned Chinese politics with his domineering style and a top-down drive to forge a centralized state under the Communist Party. But his efforts are running into an old foe: bureaucracy.
Party observers say the drive for centralization in a sprawling nation too often fosters bureaucratic inertia, duplicity and other unproductive practices that are aimed at satisfying Beijing and protecting careers but threaten to undermine Mr. Xi’s goals.
Indeed, some local officials have become so focused on pleasing Mr. Xi and fulfilling party mandates that they can neglect their basic duties as public servants, sometimes with dire results.
As the new coronavirus spread in Wuhan in late 2019, for instance, local authorities were afraid to share bad news with Beijing. That impeded the national response and contributed to the death toll, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation. . . .
In the eastern city of Fuyang, local officials were disciplined in 2019 for ordering homes in some rural villages to be painted white so that they would look nicer to party bosses—spending the equivalent of $1.2 million—without addressing deficient roads and drainage systems. Party inspectors found that local officials started the “whitewashing” as a way to deliver quick results after higher-ups demanded that residents’ homes be fixed up within three months. Even that project was haphazard, with many houses only partially painted, according to a state television documentary.
Provincial authorities denounced the episode as a vanity project and a highly damaging act of “formalism”—the official epithet for box-ticking and “CYA” behavior that prioritizes form over substance—and replaced Fuyang’s top official.
The denser sort of intellectual — say, Tom Friedman, or the (fictitious) Federation historian John Gill — thinks that authoritarian states can do things more efficiently. But, contra Friedman, China’s autocracy isn’t more efficient. It just looks that way to people — like the denser sort of intellectual — who don’t look beyond the surface. Sure, if the Big Man wants stuff done, it gets done, more or less. But that’s true even when, as is often the case, what the Big Man wants is stupid. Contrary to John Gill, Nazi Germany wasn’t “the most efficient system of government ever devised.” Much of its energy was consumed with bureaucracy and bureaucratic struggles. And sure, if Hitler wanted V2s, he got V2s. But each V2 cost more than a bomber, and was good for, at most, a single mission. (And of course, if Hitler wanted to invade Russia, he got to invade Russia.)
But Xi’s problem is worse than the Nazis’, as his government appears to have descended into a Dilbertesque hell reminiscent of . . . faculty governance:
Locally, officials say they keep getting overwhelmed with bureaucratic demands from above, often involving repetitive meetings and excessive paperwork that sometimes weighs in at hundreds of pounds, according to state media accounts.
One grass-roots official complained to the official Xinhua News Agency about not having time to do real work after participating in 15 meetings over 23 days. The agency also quoted a county chief as saying, “If we don’t hold meetings, how do we show that we’ve implemented our work?”
The dangers of box-ticking have worried Communist governments since the days of Stalin and Mao. Historians say Mao was so troubled by the phenomenon that he repeatedly launched campaigns to shake up what he saw as an ossifying and increasingly self-serving party bureaucracy. Today, under Mr. Xi, the problem appears to have returned with a vengeance.
“If we don’t hold meetings, how do we show that we’ve implemented our work?” The death knell for a civilization will sound something like that.
By the way, the less-dense sort of intellectual will have read Seeing Like A State.
Plus, because I can’t resist:
Government workers complain that their WeChat messaging apps have become bureaucratic quagmires where they are overwhelmed by bosses sending round-the-clock demands by text. Some chat rooms created for work discussions devolved into what is colloquially known as kuakuaqun, or “groups of praise,” where subordinates speak sycophantically in support of superiors.
Some participants post emojis depicting genuflection “in order to make superiors happy,” while others fawningly say “boss, you’ve worked hard” or “boss, you’re brilliant,” according to “Combating Formalism,” a book released last year by a party publisher.
Grass-roots cadres often find themselves members of more than a hundred WeChat messaging groups, the Xinhua agency said in a December commentary lamenting the spread of “formalism” online. Rather than speaking to ordinary people to understand their needs, some officials focus on how to document and publicize their work to please superiors, it added.
Such brown-nosing “appears ridiculous to common folk and chills their hearts,” it said.
This is a sign of decadence, every bit as much as the — surprisingly similar — problems with our own ruling class. People in charge of institutions care more about the good opinion of their peers than about the jobs they were put there to do. The results are seldom good.
