Rather than creating another draft that I won't ever get to cleaning up, here's a Sundance styled twitter thread on how I see Putin creating (attempting to create) a sustainable solution against bureaucratic capture.
/1 Seems like Putin is trying to figure a way to avoid technocratic (bureaucratic) capture. West has embraced it. Putin's gaming around it.
Only a "noble" caste who has Russia's best interest can be "trusted" to lead the country and avoid Soviet-like capture
/2 This is a Locke-like civil decision. People have lots of freedom (at least in certain spheres) but no freedom to change/critique government or Oligarchy caste.
So in theory, Putin Russia has more freedom in many/some spheres than us in the West (e.g. no DEI priesthood)
/3 My support for this comes from commentary on Putin's extreme dislike for Soviet bureaucracy.
He thought bureaucratic capture is what destroyed his country during early and late Soviet times. (brother died of starvation)
/4 This approach is in opposition to the West's authoritarian democracy model/well.
West maximizes bureaucratic/technocratic capture. This guarantees the "arrow of history/progress". It will be more and more Toxic Caring until the system collapses.
/5 How do you avoid technocratic capture? Keep down the size of your bureaucracy and its power.
How to do this?
Keep all power in the hands of a few. (Oligarchy).
/6 How do you select this Oligarchy? The same way religions (or radical moralized groups like NPR or the Woke do) - by selecting for virtue and purging those who get flagged as usurpers/corruptors.
See and latest podcast for virtue as a selector
/7 Virtue based selection for Russia Oligarchy is probably why you see so many assassinations amongst Putin competitors. He seems to be trying (in vain?) to get a purified Oligarchy (that has Russia's best interests at heart-ie avoid bureaucratic capture) that it can be sustained
/8 But sustaining this bureaucratic repressing Oligarchy is EXACTLY against the West's ethos.
So is this the WW3 manifestation of the culture wars, as per ? Or is this deeper - a war on the role of Bureaucracy?
/9 I'd wager the West-Putin war is a war on the role of bureaucracy, not 'woke culture'
Fits in with 's elite over-production theory, and even Graeber's anthropology (Dawn of Everything book). Matches what we know about ancient Chinese Mandarin-class pwr struggles
/10 So Putin's likely model is to have a cadre of Oligarchs who's selection ethos is prevent bureaucratic capture so individual freedom can be maximized (in areas other than political system decisions & critiques)
/11 So his fight for 'sphere of influence' border buffer is as much about buffering against 'an end of history' bureaucratic creep, as it is about pure military tactical positioning.
/12 Like Europe wanted to hedge in Napoleonic 'liberty' to prevent its contamination into other countries, Putin is trying to hedge in Woke bureaucratic capture
Putin won't let those ideas of another "end of history' make another turn of the dialetic (ie another Marx revolution)
/13 And that is another dimension as to why NATO membership is so dangerous for him - It guarantees the bureaucratization of a country. And that guarantees and 'arrow of progress' toward socialism. But more than this, toward bureaucratic capture.
/14 If you don't think any of this theory is plausible, try to game theory out some structural solutions to avoid bureaucratic capture
You'll come up with its embrace (West's new authoritarian democracy), dictatorial control of it (China's communist capitalism), or this theory
/15 You may also come up with some of the indigenous American political solutions Graeber mentions in "The Dawn of Everything".
I'm wondering if these, non-hierarchical gov' solutions, aren't what the Right's meta-narrative ethos will turn into. "Freedom" just ain't cutting it.
/16 So when tries to get a strong enough narrative to counter the cult-level appeal of Woke (toxic) Caring, you may have to move all the way toward radical individualism with a radically flat governance structure (see Graeber's Dawn of Everything)
