A lot of “company politics” apparently consist of “social justice activism” these days. Does SJ (as currently practiced in a lot of places) count as maze behavior? I wonder if the overall increase in mazes has something to do with (in either direction) the rise of SJ.
1. I don’t know enough details about China to offer a complete answer. I could speculate that China’s government is relatively new, and has reinvented itself more recently than that in dramatic ways. Also that it is still taking part in catch-up growth, which looks more dramatic than it is and also causes direct disruptions of existing systems as things power up, which should help with all this. Also, that link (directly at least) seems to be mostly saying China is accomplishing things rather than the Chinese Government, a key distinction. China tore down the things stifling growth (e.g. the whole being Communist thing) to a large extent and the maze-style things that will next get in the way likely have not finished coming in to replace them.
There’s also the possibility that China’s growth is masking growing problems—if your maze level is ruining things at 2%/year (made up number) but you are growing at 8% a year otherwise, you still grow at 6%, or something.
Another “nice” thing for China is that the Chinese Communist Party seems to be maintaining power by providing real physical life improvements, naked-eye-visible rising living standards and economic growth. If that stopped, they would (or so a model I have low confidence in says) lose the Mandate of Heaven and be in a lot of trouble, potentially collapsing. As opposed to trying to win elections, that provides a strong incentive to care about the physical end-level results, especially if party officials at the top are going to be around for a long time and want to keep power. Could be lessons there of course.
I also have a very poor handle on what’s actually happening in China and how they are really doing. I’ve heard that there’s a ton of waste and lots and lots of regional debt serving as a time bomb. I’ve also seen claims they’re kicking ass. Hard to know and I don’t claim to know.
2. I do not think “social justice activism” is that large a share of corporate politics, especially in competitions between managers, it’s more that there is a ton more SJ activity than anti-SJ activity and we notice such activity a lot more. Or to put it another way, woke ads and campaigns far exceed anti-SJ ads and campaigns but are still newsworthy, and if SJ activism were really that big a deal, they wouldn’t be. That is entirely compatible with SJ-signaling becoming part of the winning-coalition-signaling set in some major corporations. The biggest difference is that it might extend down to the object-level workers and attack them, whereas most other such things get shrugged off, and again that it gets noticed a lot. As to why SJ over non-SJ, it seems SJ side is much better at applying leverage and helping move product, and is generally winning the mindshare fights especially in places like tech, so it gets the nod.
That much seems safe enough to say, but I don’t want to press my luck by continuing to talk about such matters on the internet...
#2 could be a “baptists and bootleggers” effect: ideological activists (the “baptists”) want to change Society; mazey organizations (the “bootleggers”) can offer the activists “shallow” concessions that (you can tell if you scrutinize closely enough, but almost no one does) don’t actually end up changing Society much, but do shut out less-mazey competitors who can’t afford to make the concessions.
I suppose that increase in mazes means that if there is external pressure that appears politically fashionable, more people in the positions of relative power are motivated to (appear to) move in the direction of the pressure, whatever it is, because they don’t really care either way. This is how companies become woke, ecological, etc. (At least in appearance, because they will of course Goodhart the shit out of it.)
A different question is, why pressure in the direction of e.g. social justice is stronger than pressure in direction of e.g. Christianity. More activists? Better coordination? Strategic capture of important resources, such as media? Or maybe it is something completely different, e.g. social justice warriors pay less attention when their goals are Goodharted? (Firing one employee that said something politically incorrect is much cheaper than e.g. closing the shops on Sunday.) Before you say “left vs right”, consider that e.g. veganism is coded left-wing, but we don’t hear about companies turning vegan under external pressure. Or perhaps it’s all just a huge Keynesian beauty contest, where any thing, once successful, becomes fixed, and the social justice warriors just had lucky timing. I don’t know.
Before you say “left vs right”, consider that e.g. veganism is coded left-wing, but we don’t hear about companies turning vegan under external pressure
I think this is definitely a thing that happens, and actually is one of the primary strategies of animal activists these days. (Granted, the current stage of that strategy is more like “going cage free” or “meatless mondays”).
I suppose that increase in mazes means that if there is external pressure that appears politically fashionable, more people in the positions of relative power are motivated to (appear to) move in the direction of the pressure, whatever it is, because they don’t really care either way. This is how companies become woke, ecological, etc. (At least in appearance, because they will of course Goodhart the shit out of it.)
This sounds like the right mechanism to me.
A different question is, why pressure in the direction of e.g. social justice is stronger than pressure in direction of e.g. Christianity.
I do think “why do some things become politically fashionable?” is an important question. I think the answer to that is basically a whole other subfield just as complicated as the “how do mazes form?” question. But in answer to:
More activists? Better coordination? Strategic capture of important resources, such as media? Or maybe it is something completely different, e.g. social justice warriors pay less attention when their goals are Goodharted?
I think the answer is just “all of them” and “it depends.”
I liked this post as well. Some questions (which I don’t necessarily expect you to have the answers to):
The Chinese government is a huge organization, but seems to have improved in effectiveness in recent years. How did that happen?
A lot of “company politics” apparently consist of “social justice activism” these days. Does SJ (as currently practiced in a lot of places) count as maze behavior? I wonder if the overall increase in mazes has something to do with (in either direction) the rise of SJ.
1. I don’t know enough details about China to offer a complete answer. I could speculate that China’s government is relatively new, and has reinvented itself more recently than that in dramatic ways. Also that it is still taking part in catch-up growth, which looks more dramatic than it is and also causes direct disruptions of existing systems as things power up, which should help with all this. Also, that link (directly at least) seems to be mostly saying China is accomplishing things rather than the Chinese Government, a key distinction. China tore down the things stifling growth (e.g. the whole being Communist thing) to a large extent and the maze-style things that will next get in the way likely have not finished coming in to replace them.
There’s also the possibility that China’s growth is masking growing problems—if your maze level is ruining things at 2%/year (made up number) but you are growing at 8% a year otherwise, you still grow at 6%, or something.
Another “nice” thing for China is that the Chinese Communist Party seems to be maintaining power by providing real physical life improvements, naked-eye-visible rising living standards and economic growth. If that stopped, they would (or so a model I have low confidence in says) lose the Mandate of Heaven and be in a lot of trouble, potentially collapsing. As opposed to trying to win elections, that provides a strong incentive to care about the physical end-level results, especially if party officials at the top are going to be around for a long time and want to keep power. Could be lessons there of course.
I also have a very poor handle on what’s actually happening in China and how they are really doing. I’ve heard that there’s a ton of waste and lots and lots of regional debt serving as a time bomb. I’ve also seen claims they’re kicking ass. Hard to know and I don’t claim to know.
2. I do not think “social justice activism” is that large a share of corporate politics, especially in competitions between managers, it’s more that there is a ton more SJ activity than anti-SJ activity and we notice such activity a lot more. Or to put it another way, woke ads and campaigns far exceed anti-SJ ads and campaigns but are still newsworthy, and if SJ activism were really that big a deal, they wouldn’t be. That is entirely compatible with SJ-signaling becoming part of the winning-coalition-signaling set in some major corporations. The biggest difference is that it might extend down to the object-level workers and attack them, whereas most other such things get shrugged off, and again that it gets noticed a lot. As to why SJ over non-SJ, it seems SJ side is much better at applying leverage and helping move product, and is generally winning the mindshare fights especially in places like tech, so it gets the nod.
That much seems safe enough to say, but I don’t want to press my luck by continuing to talk about such matters on the internet...
#2 could be a “baptists and bootleggers” effect: ideological activists (the “baptists”) want to change Society; mazey organizations (the “bootleggers”) can offer the activists “shallow” concessions that (you can tell if you scrutinize closely enough, but almost no one does) don’t actually end up changing Society much, but do shut out less-mazey competitors who can’t afford to make the concessions.
I suppose that increase in mazes means that if there is external pressure that appears politically fashionable, more people in the positions of relative power are motivated to (appear to) move in the direction of the pressure, whatever it is, because they don’t really care either way. This is how companies become woke, ecological, etc. (At least in appearance, because they will of course Goodhart the shit out of it.)
A different question is, why pressure in the direction of e.g. social justice is stronger than pressure in direction of e.g. Christianity. More activists? Better coordination? Strategic capture of important resources, such as media? Or maybe it is something completely different, e.g. social justice warriors pay less attention when their goals are Goodharted? (Firing one employee that said something politically incorrect is much cheaper than e.g. closing the shops on Sunday.) Before you say “left vs right”, consider that e.g. veganism is coded left-wing, but we don’t hear about companies turning vegan under external pressure. Or perhaps it’s all just a huge Keynesian beauty contest, where any thing, once successful, becomes fixed, and the social justice warriors just had lucky timing. I don’t know.
I think this is definitely a thing that happens, and actually is one of the primary strategies of animal activists these days. (Granted, the current stage of that strategy is more like “going cage free” or “meatless mondays”).
Along with WeWork, the Golden Globes (Oscars? One of the Hollywood awards shows...) had only vegetarian options for the meal.
I think an example was WeWork, and Adam Newman was attempting to also pressure others to do so.
This sounds like the right mechanism to me.
I do think “why do some things become politically fashionable?” is an important question. I think the answer to that is basically a whole other subfield just as complicated as the “how do mazes form?” question. But in answer to:
I think the answer is just “all of them” and “it depends.”