>an environment that asymmetrically favors transparent power over clandestine
This asymmetry only exists as organisations scale. Keep your Clandestine organisations small and your transparent organisations big. But there are two problems with making Clandestine organisations small:
1. it is dangerous: smaller Clandestine organisations would by necessary concentrate more power in fewer hands, combined with secrecy that actually works and you have the perfect breeding ground for a coup,
2. it is politically sensitive: managers in organisations grow in status as they hire more people below them/lose status as they lose people below them, any budget or size cuts will be used as a way to past the blame after the next intelligence failure (consider how the NSA/CIA would've reacted to the post-9-11 review if Clinton had reduced their size to 0.1%).
This asymmetry only exists as organisations scale. Keep your Clandestine organisations small and your transparent organisations big. But there are two problems with making Clandestine organisations small:
1. it is dangerous: smaller Clandestine organisations would by necessary concentrate more power in fewer hands, combined with secrecy that actually works and you have the perfect breeding ground for a coup,
2. it is politically sensitive: managers in organisations grow in status as they hire more people below them/lose status as they lose people below them, any budget or size cuts will be used as a way to past the blame after the next intelligence failure (consider how the NSA/CIA would've reacted to the post-9-11 review if Clinton had reduced their size to 0.1%).