The problem with non-democratic systems

Living in this little prison complex that is the Expo village is a bit frustrating. There are police everywhere and they don't do anything. They are supposed to protect us, but since they have no threat they just annoy us by denying us access whenever we don't have an access pass, or they don't let us sit on random objects. Once there were fireworks and they stopped me from climbing a fence. I always make a point to talk to them when I have to pass a security check. I guess most of the security in charge of "protecting me" at the village is like 18, works 12 hours a day, comes form a village and has absolutely no power of initiative. I tried to convince them to unionize, but my frail efforts failed, I guess they are in the army and you can't unionize the army. Mostly, I complaint about the bothersome security checks and the total ineffectiveness of it all because there are so many loopholes into the security checks that anyone really wanting to do something bad ass could do it.

What I am coming to realize, and I guess I have always known this, is that my complaining to them has absolutely no effect on the services we receive. I've begun complaining about their "leaders" and it is having interesting effects. When I do that everyone agrees. Thing is that leaders at the Expo seem to be detached from reality. They are hidden somewhere in an office, I guess, and decide on random rules. Now the obvious problem is that there is no feedback. When decisions are taken at the top and nobody listens to the workers implementing those decisions those decisions are useless and ineffective. I think my whole point here, and I am not expressing it very well I understand, is that people are not given enough freedom and power of initiative to function at their maximum effectiveness. And it starts in schools, where people are not allowed to think for themselves. So that it is deeply ingrained in the culture that people don't fix problems for themselves, people don't make changes to their environment, and they have no responsibility to others for their actions (for like the environment for example) because the party takes care of everything. It just seems very inefficient and unsustainable, the whole thing is bound to crash.

I detest all the police in the street around here and the army in Shanghai. I understand the protesters in Toronto burning cars. Put so many influential people who are unaccountable behind so many police authoritarian figures, and you are bound to have outburst of frustrations in a western society. China might be different because people have different values and political arrangements, but people will eventually have to take responsibility, and that involves some kind of power. 

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