Vietnam
by Josh K-sky on Jul.15, 2010, under Politics
At Marginal Revolution, Alex Tabarrok pulls this quote from Bill Hayton’s Vietnam: Rising Dragon:
It might seem strange, given the system’s surveillance and security networks, but the Communist Party is wary of high-profile law enforcement campaigns. Failure would be worse than embarrassing for a party which is supposed to represent the people’s will. Such campaigns are only ever risked at times and in ways which demonstrate the Party’s continuing hold on power.
In this country, we have the exact inverse — high-profile law enforcement campaigns fail all the time, with the only consequence of expanding the Party’s continuing hold on power. For Party read law enforcement narrowly, or the State if you’re like that. Consider the War on Drugs, a failure by any -on-drugs standard but a huge consolidation of police power and imprisonment.
Somebody oughta tell the Vietnamese.