The United States is a democracy and a republic. Liberal democracy may not be mentioned in the Constitution but it's a term political scientists use to describe the United States' political system. Key characteristics of a liberal democracy include regular, competitive multi-party elections, a free press (meaning the governments exercises very little control over the media), freedom of speech, assembly, and association, and a strong civil society.
No one's proposing that every government decision be decided by popular opinion. No one in the history of political science has ever proposed that. If you're trying to tar my defense of democracy by saying it's mob rule, then you've clearly misunderstand what I and everyone else who studies government means by democracy.
Now on to the main points. The grand arc of this debate has seen me defend the virtues of liberal democracy and plawolf, jackliu, Engineer, and others attack those virtues. plawolf specifically said democracy was a "sub-optimal" form of governance at the national level. But you can't tear down one form of government without proposing an alternative, even if that alternative is an extreme libertarian dream of no government. However, most libertarians still believe in the necessity of some government to protect citizens from other governments. So that leaves the question how will you organize the national government?
plawolf, jackliu and others have heaped scorn on the idea of a free media. When I say free media, I mean the government exercises almost no control over the media's content, and the media is by-and-large owned by non-state entities. Lack of government control gives birth to an explosion of media viewpoints and citizens are free to choose which media to consume. If plawolf, jackliu and others scorn this system, what is their alternative?
This debate started over Transparency International's allegation that China had major corruption problems. TI's Corruption Perception Index showed North America and Western Europe, plus Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Australia with low corruption levels compared to China. plawolf responded with two attacks. First, he attacked TI's methodology, saying the people surveyed were biased Westerners who didn't understand Chinese culture. Second he said that North America, Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Australia all had significant corruption problems but it was legalized corruption in the form of campaign contributions.
Nevermind the fact that TI surveyed Chinese businesspeople who live and work in China, I stated that the alleged corruption of campaign contributions is manifestly different from the kind of corruption people who live and work in China complain about. I also said that the United States' political system (the liberal democracy I know best, that's why I cite it) with their free media, regular multi-party elections, and open records laws make it more resistant to corruption than China's authoritarian system.
From then on it was an avalanche of criticism of the tenants of liberal democracy. That's fine, I welcome debate. But plawolf and others have failed to honestly compare China's political system with liberal democracies. Here's a bizarre example by Engineer:
Engineer is using the fact that Chinese police regularly break up protests to prove that Chinese have the right to protest!
Then Engineers uses the military suppression of democracy protests in 1989 in Tiananmen Square to demonstrate the Chinese right to protest:
Notice how Engineer fails to explain what happened after they gathered and protested--the tanks rolled in and the hospitals filled up. I wish I was making this up but the truth as preached by Engineer is truly strange.
Engineer further tries to convince us that media choice in China is equal to that of the United States by listening 28 Chinese news outlets. That's a hard sell considering Americans have access to the online edition of every single one of the newspapers he cites, PLUS Facebook, uncensored Google, and virtually everything the Chinese government filters online and via SMS. Let's go a step further: what are the laws regarding media in China? Who can own and operate a newspaper? Can foreigners open a newspaper in the mainland? How restrictive are the laws and their enforcement regarding content? How many foreign books, movies, video games, and songs are banned?
Engineer misses my point: in the United States campaign contributions are a matter of public record and easily accessible online. It's not "rebranding corruption", it is exposing the alleged corruption so voters can make informed decisions. Does China do the same thing?
I would like to know who honestly believes freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association in China are equal to or greater than that of the United States. Be a man and take a stand. I'm willing to take a stand and say liberal democracy and capitalism are the optimal political and economic systems. And while you're taking a stand, how about propose some alternatives to free media and multi-party elections that plawolf, jackliu, and others have skewered?
Alright, I'll bite, it seems that you want to argue that democracy is the best form of government because it has media freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of protest, in which at the same time, you would like to argue that those thing are absent in China.
However I have responded to you that the free media that you think we have are not really free, in fact it is more tightly controlled than Chinese media, and it is actually doing a better job in brainwash the people. I have given you many example of that and since you did not refute me on this, so I assume you have nothing else to counter it, then in that case, shouldn't you stop flaunting that the western model is superior when it come to media.
Then Engineer refuted you on the claim that Western society are all free while China is all repressive, by giving example of people protesting in China, and criticizing the government on the internet and openly and getting away with it. While at the same time, you can find plenty example of Western government using repressive means to suppress it is own people. While you can argue that China government suppress it is people more than US government, but the fact is both nation do the same thing means no one system is clearly better than the other in this area.
And lastly you challenge us to come up with something better than democratic government, since we have fully deconstructed your claim that Western model is superior on the factors that you have listed. I'll also like to challenge you to explain to me why are democratic nations such as India, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, Philippines, winch are democratic in model, but are failing horribly?
I already said when you are looking at successful democracies, you can see a clear pattern, nations primary of white caucasian demographics, nation that have a history of colonizing other races of peoples, and nations that were among the first in the world started the industrial revolution and achieve wealth. I am not going to make any conclusion on this, but the close correlation cannot be discounted, so take what you will.
And lastly let me answer your challenge, let me theorize a system in which it can work better than democratic models.
First all, I want to say, just because you see the successful record of western democracy working for the 20th century and early 21 century, does not mean it will continue to work in the future, because I think the upcoming challenge of the 21th century might very well finally show the problem of those nations, challenge of climate change, concentration of wealth, budget balance, religious conflict etc... I see more and more western nations are getting bog down in their own politics, for example this European financial crisis, all you see is meeting after meeting while things rarely get resolves, or how the financial elites in the US increasing gaining control of the nation. It is not something so far to imagine that US politic can devolve into Philippines style government, where the true power and policy maker of the nation are dominated by a few super rich corporation/family, while they sponsor both parties for election and that no matter who gets elected they still won't do jack squat for the people. Or where the local and special interest have so much entrenched power to keep the status qua, so that any badly needed necessary change are never be implanted, as the result, the nation is stuck in a death spiral that drag it down more and more.
In this case, I think an authoritarian government that is governing by a few man of proven track record will be far more effective, one can argue this is actually what the ccp politburo standing committee is structure is like. Currently all 9 man of the committee are chosen based on their past achievements, they all have good track record in their past work on building economy and improving people's standard of living. In fact, you can argue that the committee is somewhat like a corporation, and corporation are generally much more efficient than government.
Under this structure of government, it is able to make easy rapid changes in the challenge of the 21st century, they don't need all the bureaucratic bullshit and open hundreds of hearing to make sure things are get done, they can issue an order and make sure it is carried out. There are already examples of this, just few years ago China had almost no renewable energy, but now they are the largest renewable energy producer in the world, because the government deem it as one of the national strategic goals. depict having less than half of US's GDP, China is investing more money into renewable energy as well.
Another example is three gorges dam, this is one of the most conversational issues in the west, it is often hold up as the example of the evil Chinese authoritarian government that does things without any concern for the people, how it displaced 1.3 million people, but guess what? Have you heard of any news about the dam recently? Nope, remember the 1998 flood in China? Where it killed a few thousand people and caused tens of billions of damage? The dam has prevented 3 of those floods would have been on a far more destructive scale, did you hear about that in the media? of course you don't, or when was the last time that you heard "Three Gorges reduces coal consumption by 31 million tonnes per year, avoiding 100 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions,[61] millions of tonnes of dust, one million tonnes of sulfur dioxide, 370,000 tonnes of nitric oxide, 10,000 tonnes of carbon monoxide"? (wikipedia) Of course you don't, because it does not fit the popular narrative that the evil Chines government are doing evil things to it is own people.
And this dam has only been fully completed less than a decade, imagine as climate change get worse in the future, how much more death and damage the dam is going to prevent? And let me ask you thing, if China had the US's democratic system, would have dam have been build? Answer is HELL NO, you would have hundreds of protests, special public hearing, anti dam commercial on TV that shows sad eye baby and grandpas. And all the while, flood after flood will wrack down destruction upon tens of million people down stream.
This is just one of the example of faster decision making from a more centralized government that uses scientific means to calculate the cost and benefit of the project, and when it is deem worthy, they would just go ahead implement it. And yes, all those 1.3 million displaced individuals are living in new homes.
And yes, I have no double in my mind whatsoever that this process gets abused, that people's home get confiscated and giving to the business interest etc... But overall when you look at China's infrastructure development, the successful example far out weight the failures, the benefit it have bring, far outweighs the cost. And I think as the world's population explodes in the future along with climate change, there will be more severe challenge for the government to handle and make crucial decisions, I just don't see the democratic system is up to the task.
Another problem with democratic system is that is that it can be so easily brought off by the special interest groups. I mean just look at Israel, only a fool would think the relationship is beneficial to US. But yet, how can you explain that both parties are trying their hardest to kiss Israel's ass at every turn possible, it is obvious that they have strong influence over the government, and for anyone that even questions this dysfunctional relationship are automatically get label as anti-Semite. I mean, I want my nation to do what is best for itself, not for the best interest of another nation, how is wanting that antisemitism? but yet it is.
Or let's take a look at other special interest, the prison special interest groups, I swear to you there is a cynical relation between locking people up and getting federal funding, many of those people in jail are for non violent crimes and does not belong there, there are many other ways they can be publish, for example community services, fine etc... but yet, for every person get locked up for one year, they receive about 60,000 from fro the government per year. And many of the prison are run by private corporations, they more they lock up, the higher their stock goes. People often think China is a policy state, but the fact is US's prison population is by far the #1 in the world, by absolute number and by per capita.
Don't even let me get started on the wall street and banking special interest's influence on the government. they practically have a revolving door policy, the CEO of investment bankers regularly get appointed to government positions, after their term are up, they became CEO or board member of banks, the perfect example is the CEO of Goldman Sachs Henry Paulson who later became the nation's Secretary of the Treasury, he later use this power to give out hundreds of billions of dollar of tax payer's money to bail out his good old buddies from BOA, JPM Chase, AIG, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup etc... Or how there are literary thousands of lobbyist at our government lobbying their interests.
And there are many others, the military industrial complex special interest, the agriculture special interest, the fossil energy special interests... the list goes on and on, they work for what is the best for their interest, and often what best for them, is not what is best for the nation or the people.
The situation is much better in China, because the decision makers are few, they can look at what is real problem, what is needed to be done and decide what is to be done. They don't need to go through another few thousand law makers whom are in the pocket of the lobbyist to influence the outcome.
And lastly, the Chinese leadership is far easier to make changes in policy, look at Deng's economic reform, one can look back and see how easy it was, how it was a logical step for him to do this or that and ended up today, but the truth is, he still faced a lot of opposition at the time from the hardliners, but since there are only few decision makers, they were able to be convinced. One can argue teat Tiananmen was one of the by product of the reform that went too fast. And now look at India, I'm sure the top leadership is no fool, he knows the problem, he knows what must be done, but he can't do it, because there are too many people that are benefiting from the status qua, even if that means at the expense of people.
I will say this, in a democracy, it is very unlikely for the government to make really bad decisions, such as Mao's great leap forward. But at the same time, democratic nation will have hard time to change course as well. Democratic nation are great for the people when the world is stable, when there are few factors that are changing. However I think in the next few decades, there will be chaos, status quo will no long be cutting it anymore, this is where I strongly think the Chinese model will have stronger advantages.
