Can you run a country in a way that peppers the general population with “all is well” propaganda thoroughly and still manages to capture all the necessary information to make properly informed decisions at some high level?
You’d need some “elite” layer of people who get to see unfiltered, honest information, but how would you even collect that information if even local, low-level government actors are subject to (and meant to believe) the propaganda?
Basically what I’m asking is: if I ignored moral concerns, is there a world where keeping the majority ignorant could actually lead to more efficiency than letting knowledge of the state of things spread?
The answer is no. Xi has killed or has displaced not only anyone who posed a threat to him, but he has done the same to anyone who could possibly be a threat. There is no one left at any level of government who can exercise independent thought and action. He has also killed the messenger so many times that bad news just doesn’t get put before him. Xi wasn’t aware of rolling blackouts in Beijing in 2022 until US diplomats asking him about it.
Balloon gate is another example of how the Chinese government is breaking down. A few weeks before Blinken was supposed to travel to Beijing to try and de-escalate the economic war with China they launched that stupid balloon. Not only was it an intelligence coup for the US but it killed any kind of initiative to tone down the economic war for at least 6 months. A functioning government doesn’t do that. They don’t let their intelligence services launch over flights of nations they are trying to negotiate with.
Xi might be the smartest guy in China but one man can’t make all critical decisions to save a complex economy like theirs.
I find that to be a tricky thought experiment.
Can you run a country in a way that peppers the general population with “all is well” propaganda thoroughly and still manages to capture all the necessary information to make properly informed decisions at some high level?
You’d need some “elite” layer of people who get to see unfiltered, honest information, but how would you even collect that information if even local, low-level government actors are subject to (and meant to believe) the propaganda?
Basically what I’m asking is: if I ignored moral concerns, is there a world where keeping the majority ignorant could actually lead to more efficiency than letting knowledge of the state of things spread?
The answer is no. Xi has killed or has displaced not only anyone who posed a threat to him, but he has done the same to anyone who could possibly be a threat. There is no one left at any level of government who can exercise independent thought and action. He has also killed the messenger so many times that bad news just doesn’t get put before him. Xi wasn’t aware of rolling blackouts in Beijing in 2022 until US diplomats asking him about it.
Balloon gate is another example of how the Chinese government is breaking down. A few weeks before Blinken was supposed to travel to Beijing to try and de-escalate the economic war with China they launched that stupid balloon. Not only was it an intelligence coup for the US but it killed any kind of initiative to tone down the economic war for at least 6 months. A functioning government doesn’t do that. They don’t let their intelligence services launch over flights of nations they are trying to negotiate with.
Xi might be the smartest guy in China but one man can’t make all critical decisions to save a complex economy like theirs.
He’s just another mediocre autocrat. Chinese history is filled with idiots like him. Most don’t die in their sleep.
It was a rhetorical statement… Authoritarians are fundamentally flawed people.