Adversarial plurality is the recognition that much of what looks like inefficiency is actually a safety property. When courts can challenge agencies, states can challenge the center, journalists can expose firms, competitors can sue, and universities can dispute policy, no single form can easily become permanent, because there are always multiple centers with the standing to refuse. Next to a highly coordinated system it looks noisy and slow — and some of that noise is exactly what keeps the field correctable.
This is why the framework is careful to remove waste rather than all resistance: friction that carries no function is waste, but friction that preserves the ability to say no is one of the load-bearing ways an ecology stays able to change course. Its failure mode is subtle — adversarial plurality at the political layer can coexist with infrastructural monoculture beneath it, so the resistance stays loud while the shared dependence quietly grows.