Once you were on the payroll of a state-run organisation, you were guaranteed to get regular paychecks for life. So people would spend a lot of money to be in those positions. (Hence, my parents warned that they didn’t have money for bribery, as I told you before.) They were in no rush for competence, productivity or innovation. Just kind of existed. Since there was no surplus productivity, therefore no upward mobility either, people would just fill their days with a lot of drama instead.