The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[Jorge_Stolfi]

because the simplified reform was incomplete.

I can relate to that. Portuguese spelling underwent a reform in the 1940s, which changed it from the second-worst of European scripts to... the second-worst of European scripts.  

But that was not the fault of the reformers; it was the traditionalists who held them back and forced them to keep their cherished nonsense like the letter "ç" and the "qu" and the four different sounds of "x".   Spanish had a reform in recent times too, but they were bolder and got a much better result.

asking people to volunteer to learn to read again

And that is why spelling reforms hardly ever happen under fully democratic regimes.  Reform is supposed to make life easier for children and the semi-literate; but the decision to do it rests on the educated adults, for whom the reform has a huge cost and no benefit.  There is no chance that English spelling, for example, will be reformed any time soon...

In fact, in many cultures, the ability to spell correctly is a social badge that identifies one as member of the "elite".  A spelling reform would cancel that badge, instantly lowering all literate adults below the level of fourth-graders.

An authoritarian regime does not need to kill people to impose a reform. Maybe not even to fire them.  It just have to make resistance to the reform bad for one's career etc.

All the best, --stolfi