Formism is a work style. It emphasizes excessively established forms (such as routine business, formal procedures, etiquette, rituals, etc.), and does not care about whether the form and the substance are disconnected.
Formism has evolved into a strange phenomenon, seriously walking through the field, vigorously engaged in form, and wasting great life time in Wenshan Sea; filling in various forms, writing various materials, and remained traces of photographs and videos;Various inspection teams, inspection teams and research teams run N times along the classic route.
Although people have grievances about formalism, they complain about complaints, and they are accustomed to it over time.It seems that the formalism cannot be done, and it must be cooperated together.In a word, formalism is the result of collective selection of bureaucratic bureaucrats at all levels, and is a collective action.
Of course, the voices of oppositionalism are sometimes very high, and in recent years, it has also carried out anti -formalist movements in recent years.However, this kind of movement is often endless, and some even become formalism.Why does formalism become a stubborn disease?What is its root?
There is a saying in China: From Nanjing to Beijing, there is no essence that I bought.The reason why the seller is more refined than the buyer is because the seller knows the quality, function and purchase reserve price of the product.But for business benefits, the seller will not tell the buyer completely.The information between the buyers and the seller is asymmetric, and the seller uses the information advantage he mastered to strive for greater profits from the buyer.
The asymmetry of information is that one of the two parties related to interests has more and more accurate information than the other party.This asymmetry allows the party with information advantages to obtain greater benefits.Between the company's shareholders and the manager, there are information asymmetry between the upper and lower levels of the government departments, and they can be used to seek benefits.
There is a type of behavior that uses information asymmetry to make profits, which occurs before the establishment of the contract or the formation of interests.Those who are seeking contracts, the greater the risk, are called reverse choices or reverse choices.The more difficult the information is, the easier it is to get the beads, the more serious the opposite choice.
The earliest discovery of reverse selection was the Nobel Prize winner of Economics George A. Akerlof.He studied the used car market and found that people who bought cars generally could not recognize which were good maintenance and good second -hand cars, and which were more problematic and troublesome bad second -hand cars. They only wanted to buy lower prices to buy.car.As a result of low bidding, the owners of a good used car were unwilling to sell them in this market, and they were withdrawn one after another. Most of the remaining second -hand car markets were bad second -hand cars.Information asymmetry causes reverse choices in the used car market.Similarly, there are reverse choices in the medical insurance market.Healthy people generally do not need to buy insurance. Those who actively buy insurance are those with high risk of claiming insurance.The structure of the insured has increased the cost of private insurance companies, and has to increase the premium accordingly.After the increase in premiums, more healthy people surrender, and further increase the cost of the company.The result of the reverse selection has gradually shrunk the private medical insurance market.
When selecting cadres, government departments will also have reverse choices.
If the leader likes to promote both loyalty and capable cadres, and loyalty to the first place, what will happen?In fact, information about loyalty or capable is not easy to get.Whether a cadre can really do, it is generally not easy to observe before he has not encountered a real challenge, or before he has not held his main leadership position.In this case, what are the main methods of those cadres who are being inspected or hoping to be promoted?Most people will choose to send a loyal signal: things assigned by the leaders must do it as soon as possible, and those who cannot do it must show their best; to avoid hand over the problem, not to add trouble to the leader (for exampleThe Spring Festival is coming soon, try not to let bad messages affect the festival atmosphere); more importantly, try to avoid singing against the leader, and do not perform more wise than the leader.People with more meticulous minds will express their respect for leaders in a different way, which impresses leaders and others.Of course, there are always some people who are particularly positive to express their loyalty. They seize all opportunities to express their loyalty to the leadership, and they are also proud of their praise for leaders.Facing these complicated signals, if the leader likes to enjoy various forms of loyalty, it is likely to promote some two people who may not be able to do but be good at disguising loyalty.And such promotional cases will inspire more people to take the road of loyalty, but people who can really do it will not be promoted because they are often not loyal enough.This reverse choice in the officialdom is called reverse elimination.
Another type of profit -making behavior that uses information asymmetry is called moral risk, which occurs after the establishment of the contract or the formation of the interest.Because there is no need to take responsibility for their actions, one party signed the contract to make a high risk or immoral behavior for the other is called moral risk.There are many examples of moral risks in life. For example, when insurance companies just started selling house insurance, there were some cases of setting fire and burning houses after insured their own houses.In addition, when state -owned enterprises have not established an effective bankruptcy mechanism, the management of state -owned enterprises has no intention to operate carefully.Then there is the commission-agency issue that people often mention, it is also a moral risk.
The entrusted-agency issue is also called the agent issue.The company's shareholders and general manager are entrusted-agency relationships.Shareholders are the client and commissioned the general manager management company business; the general manager is an agent to replace the shareholder management company.Similarly, the government's internal and lower levels are also commissioned-agency relationships.The superior is the client and entrusts some of the power to the lower level; the lower level is the agent to exercise power and take responsibility on behalf of the superior.The agent problem is asymmetric in the information in the commission-agency relationship.The client generally can only observe the results, but it is difficult to directly observe what the agent did for this result.Because the interests are inconsistent with the client, they have the motivation to harm the client's interests to obtain their own interests.The problem of this agent is actually the moral risk faced by the client.
The interests of the agent and the client are inconsistent, and Han Feizi in the Warring States Period had a deep understanding.He said in an indignation that the interests of courtiers and kings are different.The interests of the king lies in the appointment of talents as an official, and the interests of the courtiers are that there is no talent to get the official position; the interests of the king lies in the reward to those who have a credit.The interests of the ministers are to form a party and privately.These interests of the courtiers are all moral risks that the king must face.The interests of the client and the agent are inconsistent, and it has not changed today more than 2,000 years.
The reason why the agent can harm the interest of the client for obtaining its own interests is to master the advantages of information.The client knows that he is at a disadvantage of information. In order to reduce moral risks, he will inevitably try to reduce information asymmetry.The agent will not be willing to give up the advantage of information, and will definitely start a game with the client around key information involving vital interests.
Between the superiors, the superiors must ask for information to the subordinates, and the lower level must be given.The best way to maintain the advantages of information is blindness and deception.The repeated game of deception and anti -deception between superiors and lower levels eventually produced a by -product of formalism.
The superior can directly ask the information to the lower level, requiring the subordinates to fill in forms, report materials, and report data.In order to vital interests, the subordinates are unwilling to allow the superiors to master key information. Without any experience or typical models, they will make fake experience and fake models, and they will also mix water as needed.The superior also knows this situation, and after getting the reported data, he also knows how to squeeze water.
With the development of information technology, the superiors have thousands of miles and smooth ears, and the means of information to be required to be more diverse and more time -effective.In recent years, a common method is to establish WeChat groups, allowing subordinates to report work in the group. They also requested to attach photos and short videos to leave traces of work.There are more requirements, and the lower level is tired of dealing with it. Time is mainly used for running points, swinging, and catwalks.Those who are too late will think of taking pictures in advance or re -shooting afterwards, and there is no necessity with pictures.It is difficult to improve at all with the progress of information technology aloneThe information disadvantage of superiors derives new formalism.
In addition to collecting information from lower -levels, superiors can also send inspection teams, inspection teams to collect information down, and even go to grass -roots investigations to understand the actual situation.However, lower -level units may also unite to deal with superiors.The key information that can affect the evaluation of the local government's evaluation and lead to a one -vote veto is to strictly prevent the dead and not leak.When the province came to inspect, the city, county, and townships jointly deal with the inspection group in the province; when the city came to inspect, the county and townships united to deal with the city's inspection group.Even if the itinerary is not disclosed in advance, the whereabouts of the inspection team (including time, place, and license plate number) can be passed to all parts of the way in time to say hello in advance.
Professor Zhou Xueguang of Stanford University calls this phenomenon a common phenomenon among grassroots governments.The higher the status of the bureaucratic pyramid, the more people in the following together; when the pyramid is the top, it is necessary to face everyone to deal with their own situation.
Why is there a common phenomenon?Theoretically, power is provided by the people. As a client, the people entrust the power and responsibility of managing the country to the government.In a single system, the central government has entrusted some of the power to the provincial government, and there are cities, districts, counties, towns and villages, forming a long commission agency chain.The task of the central government, in the end, is actually the most at the grassroots level, but there are several levels of governments that convey the incident.In this multi -level government structure, the principals of governments at all levels are both clients and agents.For example, municipal leaders are clients for county -level leaders, but they are agents for provincial leaders.When the city leaders went to the county and township investigation and inspection work, he wanted to obtain the real situation and reduce the asymmetry with the information with the lower level; when he came down in the province to investigate and inspectLearn about those key information that affects your vital interests.At this time, he and his subordinates were consistent, because they were all agents, and they had a liability relationship with a glorious and destructive liability.So, will there be some county -level leaders that expose the information that city leaders are unwilling to disclose to provincial leaders?Such things generally do not happen.Because who can attend, who can speak, and speak, are all arranged beforehand. Without direct leadership, the disclosure of information is immature and does not understand the rules, and will not be trusted in the future.More importantly, the city leaders are direct leadership of the county -level person in charge. They have the right to master their appointment. They will not be reused or promoted if they are not nominated by city leaders, which will have a significant impact on their career prospects.Therefore, appointment of initial nomination rights to ensure that county -level leaders must have the same position as the municipal leadership station in this information game.
The above -mentioned conspiracy relationships will make inspections, inspections, and investigations flow in form.The inspection and the inspection are generally known about everything that happened throughout the process.It is much easier to make a show and make superficial articles.The people in the inspection team themselves were in the position of being inspected, and they also conspired with people to deal with inspections. They clearly knew those routines where others dealt with themselves.Those who received inspections knew that the inspection team was also some internal pedestrians, and they well understood the practice of conspiring the inspection.However, the two sides do not break each other and give their faces. What do you do still do what you do?As a result, this test will become a set of regulations.Entrying and taking the field seriously, and violently, it is actually a kind of tacit understanding that bureaucratic bureaucrats repeatedly conducted information games formed by the long -term entrusted agent chain.
There are two factors for the problem of agents: the information of the client and the agent is asymmetric and the interests are inconsistent.When the interests of the lower and lower levels are bigger, the more likely to produce formalism.If the superior emphasizes the unity of policies and engage in a knife, the subordinates have no flexibility.As a result, lazy politics and idle politics, unwilling to spend energy to think and formulate the implementation rules suitable for the region and departments, communicate mechanical communication and negatively cope with superiors, implement documents with documents, and implement the meeting with the meeting.If the superior requires the quantitative indicators in the performance assessment, the subordinates will play digital games and count some alternative targets, such as how many meetings have been held, how many people attended, and so on.If the superior decides at random decisions and the tasks arranged at all, the subordinates can only be faked and have no other way.
Of course, the performance of some formalism has nothing to do with the inconsistency of information and inconsistent interests.For example, the meeting does not study the actual situation, does not solve the actual problems, the small matters will hold a conference, the big matters will have a small meeting, and the key matter will not meet. This belongs to another type of problem.
The surface of formalism looks boring and harmless, and it is actually extremely harmful.The government has covered and concealed deception.Looking at the historical data of the WTO, it can be found that from 1950 to 1993, the highest proportion of Chinese goods exports in the world was in 1959, and this peak was only exceeded in 1994 after 15 years of reform and opening up.In 1959, Chinese agricultural products, especially food exports, were particularly large.At that time, it was at the climax of the Great Leap Forward. The central minds and grain production tasks were as good as the moon in the sky.Local can only lie to the central government's concealment of the real situation, exaggerate the output of food, and jointly compose a lied lying in the endless food.Since the food can't be eaten, it will be exported to create foreign exchange.Later, I learned that the actual food output in 1959 was 25 million tons less than in 1957, but that year's food exports turned over in 1957, reaching 4.2 million tons.Where did these exported grains come from?When the central government was transferred to the local food, the local government had to recruit farmers' rations in order to lie, and the result of the Great Famine and Disaster.
In summary, formalism is fundamentally a commission-agency issue.On the one hand, at the top of the top of the entrusted agent chain, it is only a formal client that cannot really account for the agent.On the other hand, the grass -roots governments at the bottom of the chain form a co -consignment relationship with the directly superiors, and they are not subject to the supervision of the masses of grass -roots information.Therefore, to fundamentally eliminate formalism, the most important thing is to solve the institutional issue of the client's false and local governments.It is required that the subordinates are not loyal to solve the problem. Instead, they will be eliminated and further expand the inconsistent interests.
Source: Caixin.com
Author: Chen Kang, Professor of Public Policy, State University of Singapore
