Democracy vs. Confucius

There are alternatives to democracy… is the West too quick to dismiss and demonize them? Is democracy truly the best system, or does it just happens to be the one promoted by the current world power (the USA) and its allies (Western Europe), i.e. by the countries that control 60% of the world’s economy?

For a long time the West has been engaged in a battle to spread democracy worldwide. It was a strange battle since the Western colonial powers were the ones that had prevented democracy in most of the world, but, after World War II, the USA became the real leader of the West and the West forgot its anti-democratic past and enthusiastically embraced democracy; so enthusiastically that it became a mission to save the world (from tyranny).

With hindsight one can see that the main reason to embrace this mission was not idealogical but merely pragmatic: the enemy was the Soviet Union, and they were not at all democratic; hence it made sense to promote an alternative system as a way to curb the expansion of the Soviet Union; so much so that the West did not hesitate to support fascist dictators in Latin America, Asia and Africa as long as that helped the cause of the democratic West against the communist Soviet Union.

It was not democracy that prevailed over tyranny but simply the USA that prevailed over the Soviet Union, and the reasons can be much more complex than a simple desire for democracy. It is debatable which of the two systems was less loved by its subjects, since the USA and Western Europe lived through at least one decade of massive popular unrest (from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s). What certainly won was the capitalist economy, and to some extent the appeal of the USA (that remained throughout the 20th century the main destination for emigrants worldwide).

Whether democracy was a factor that helped the West or not is actually not so clear. Japan and South Korea (not to mention Singapore and Taiwan) were run by undemocratic regimes throughout the golden years of their economic boom. And one can go back to Hitler and Mussolini who, no matter how demented and genocidal, turned around the collapsing economies of their countries. Therefore the coupling of democracy and economic prosperity is dubious at best.

Then there is the moral issue. Advocates of democracy proudly defend democracy as the aspiration of all people. They ignore the fact that both Hitler and Mussolini won fair elections, and that (in the age of daily polls) popular will routinely forces governments to do the wrong thing. If the majority of people in my country wanted to burn you alive (for whatever reason), would that be a good reason to burn you alive? You would probably object. This is not a hypothetical question since most ethnic persecutions have been backed by the majority. Hence the will of the majority is not necessarily “good”. Democracy per se does not necessarily lead to a more moral world than tyranny. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore created some of the most moral societies in the world when they were run by undemocratic regimes.

Then there is a simple logical issue: does it really make sense to give every person the same right to vote? Why was nuclear power decided in a national referendum in Italy instead of having just the experts vote on it? Would you hold an election and accept the will of the majority if you were on a ship that is sinking? or would you look for the most experienced sailors around and do what they tell you to do? I suspect that all of us would take tyranny in any emergency situation, hoping that the tyrant as long as the tyrant became the tyrant because of his or her competence, and not because of mere brutality.

Democracy fails to prove itself the best system. It just happens to be the one promoted by the current world power (the USA) and its allies (Western Europe), i.e. by the countries that control 60% of the world’s economy.

There are alternatives, and the West is too quick to dismiss them and demonize them. A classic alternative is the benign enlightened tyrant, best represented today by Vladimir Putin in Russia (the “I know better” model). This is a tyrant who allows for very little criticism but does not resort to truly brutal methods and his record justifies his power. He is “almost” democratic, in the sense that most people would probably vote for him in a democratic election just because he has delivered a better society than the one he inherited even if most people may disagree with his methods. The succession rule in this system is, usually, that the ruler appoints his successor (as Yeltsin did when he appointed Putin).

Then there is the religious model. If you believe that the most important thing in the universe is God, then you should just live according to the scriptures. Today this is the model endorsed by Islamic movements like Iran, the Taliban and the most extreme members of the Muslim Brotherhood (basically, using shari’a law and having religious authorities interpret it and impose it). I always felt that all theocracies were hypocritical because i find it difficult to believe that anyone in power truly believes the silly stories contained in religious scriptures. Therefore i have always felt that theocracies are just excuses to install a tyranny by people who are a lot less religious than their subjects; but of course i could be wrong. The succession rule in this system is that the religious elite appoints one of them as supreme leader (this successor too is usually handpicked by the departing supreme leader).

Finally there is the Confucian model (which has occasionally popped up also outside of China). In this model the ruler is divinely appointed (i.e. he is the son of the previous ruler) but his mandate is ultimately legitimized by how well he performs. In other words, people have the obligation to obey the ruler, but the ruler in turn has the obligation to rule them well. This model inevitably rewards the smartest people in society: the ruler has a vested interest in granting power to the smartest people he can find. Hence the traditional meritocracy used by China to create its bureaucracy. China became communist in 1949, but, after Mao’s death, it has fundamentally remained a Confucian system in which technocrats move up the ladder of power. Sure they must also be loyal to the Communist Party (that’s the prerequisite for being considered at all) but they are also judged by the Communist Party according to how well they performed in their government tasks.

The succession rule here is much more complicated: it depends on a network of powerful men, and on the merits of each candidate. In fact, modern China has gone out of its way to ban the cult of personality that plagued the Mao years. Each leader of China is more faceless than its predecessor (Deng Xiaoping, who started the modernizing reforms and wielded immense power behind the scenes, never held the titles of president or prime minister of China). In fact they could claim that they are not tyrants at all: their power depends on the consensus of the party, and most of the orders don’t come from them but from the various echelons of the party.

The advantages of these three systems are many. To start with, they can think long term, whereas Western governments are under pressure to deliver short-term results in order to get reelected, even when the short-term results will cause long-term problems. The USA, for example, cannot enact five-year plans like China for the simple reason that a presidential term lasts four year (and usually the fourth year is spent campaigning for reelection). Secondly, these regimes don’t have to live with political gridlock: democratic countries tend to be split 50-50 between supporters of right-wing and left-wing policies, and are therefore paralyzed by endless political bickering that prevents governments from taking urgent action. These regimes are also much more likely to take unpopular but necessary measures, whereas the primary goal of politicians in democratic countries is to get reelected, a goal that obviously requires to be popular, not unpopular.

All three systems (Russian-style autocracy, Islamic theocracy and Chinese Confucianism) have become more popular during the Great Recession that mainly affected the democratic countries. They have also been fueled by resentment towards the old colonial powers (that are rapidly shrinking in power) and by nationalist spirit (it is a lot easier to claim that my system is better than yours than to try and change my system, especially when i can get jailed or killed for doing that).

The Arab Spring is basically mediating between Western-style democracy and Islamic theocracy, the latter having the major drawback that it would impose a traditional lifestyle on a young generation raised on Hollywood values and Facebook interaction. Russians are less enamored of Putin’s persona than they used to be when the economy was booming, and are probably worried of what will come after him.

There is, instead, no significant threat to the power of the Chinese rulers. However, one can see two fundamental weak points in the Confucian model: 1. It is all based on delivering the goods; 2. It is all based on serving the people of the nation. Both these points have dangerous consequences.

The consequence of 1. is that nobody really knows how the Chinese people will react when the first recession comes, and i personally think it’s coming sooner than they expect. That recession will suddenly delegitimize the regime: if you are not even making me wealthy, why should i accept your tyranny?

The consequence of 2. is that the Chinese leadership is so intent to please its own people that it neglects the effect of its actions on other nations: China is inevitably getting more isolated at the time when it is trying to expand its influence over the world. I say “inevitably” because it has to support brutal dictators in order to sustain its economic growth. The West does (or at least did) the same but rarely so blatantly. Sarkozy was willing to risk a spike in oil prices (that would have hurt France too) when bombing Qaddafi out of power.

China cannot run that risk: the price to pay for its leadership would be much higher (again, a loss of legitimacy, which is worse than losing elections).