DAVOS -- China is certainly doing things its own way. Google, the very symbol of the information revolution, is locked in a standoff with that country's Communist rulers and their murky party hackers. The trial run of China's new "Harmony Express," the world's fastest train, took place on virtually the same day recently as the trial of human-rights activist Liu Xiaobo. While the Harmony Express streaked from Guangzhou to Wuhan in less than three hours, Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
That a harshly ruled but prospering China is no longer emerging but has emerged is all the buzz at this year's Davos conclave. Hopefully, the high-powered buzz will yield a little more introspection in the West, and not just over bank regulation, instead of yet another round of excoriating the East.
Perhaps it is time to take another look at democracy as we know it, not just because of the economic success of authoritarian China, the very emblem of non-Western modernity, but because the West itself has changed.
In much of the West today, especially in the United States, we no longer live in an industrial democracy, no less the agriculture-based landed aristocracy in which most political systems and their constitutions were originally conceived. We live in a consumer democracy.
In a consumer democracy, where the feedback signals from politics, the media and the market all steer society toward immediate self-gratification, there is scarce political capacity for the kind of long-term thinking, planning and continuity of governance that has so far been responsible for China's rise.
When scarce political capacity and consumer democracy are joined with robust technological prowess, both the societal and generational impacts are amplified and extended well beyond the present moment and local environment.
This new reality requires the enhanced capacity of governance and the design of better institutional filters -- more checks and balances -- not only against rule by the short-term tyranny of the "one man, one vote" sovereign will, but against the nearest election term of the permanent campaign, the impending retail purchase, the quarterly report and the imperative to "monetize attention" in the new media age by supplanting democratic deliberation with partisan programming and reality TV.
No system of governance can endure without the consent of the governed. But, as every political sage from Confucius to Plato to Madison understood, neither can it endure when over-ruled by popular "appetites" (Plato's word).
As is often the case, the extreme reveals the essence. Everyone can see that the experience of direct democracy in California, where the popular initiative reigns, has proven ruinous. California's crisis reveals the delusions of a Diet-Coke civilization that wants sweetness without calories, consumption without savings, and modern infrastructure and good schools without taxes. California's dysfunction is only a louder echo of American politics as a whole.
It is worthwhile in this context to aerate our assumptions in the West by examining the best practices of China, where the rulers retain a greater political capacity for governance. While the entrepreneurial energies of the population have been unleashed through a free market, the strong hand of the neo-Confucian state tempers all those liberated interests in the name of social harmony and long-term goals.
As Google and Liu Xiabao are well aware, China's system is, of course, marred in the opposite way of the West by the absence of personal liberty and free expression as well as the feeble rule of law and weak accountability of the authorities. All too easily the strong hand can become the harsh fist of repression or the open palm of corruption.
As these two systems, which historian Niall Ferguson already calls "Chimerica," interact with each other across the Pacific Basin -- the new center of global gravity -- their frictions and fusions will yield the opportunity to create something new: a philosophy of governance that balances the individual and the common interest, immediacy and the long-term; a system that mitigates unmediated popular appetites without killing the dynamism of personal pursuit.
If the 20th century was about the competition between democracy and totalitarianism, the 21st century pits the excesses of consumer democracy against capable governance with too little democratic accountability.
(C) GLOBAL VIEWPOINT. DIST. BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES.
Yea, reight.
It is headlines that make news. - Not information based on any kind of reality.
Remind me: Whyt exactly makes this nation a democracy?
We vote for politicians who even before we vote have been bought by the most totalitarian system there is: big business.
In a democracy we would have
- equal justice. - We have punishment for nothing for the people but none for parasites.
- equal health. - We have the most expensive system on the planet and 5000 die each year because they have no health plan.
- politicians doing what the PEOPLE want. - We have politicians telling us they can`t because if parasites don`t get tax reductions the world will end.
- work. - We export it to slaves and children
- peace. - We have profit oriented wars.
- human rights. - We have legalized torture of SUSPECTS who never saw proof to their deeds. - Suspects we buy for money, no less.
China is no shining light. But counting the dead and even the human rights we are way down with tehm. so stop that palaver about the next best enemy to start wars to make our totalitarian parasites richer.
- equal justice. - We have punishment for nothing for the people but none for parasites.
I would say that there is a bias in this comment. No definition of "parasites", although entire message implies business.
- equal health. - We have the most expensive system on the planet and 5000 die each year because they have no health plan.
How do you measure the costs? 5,000 is a fairly big number but that is less than 2 thousandths of one percent. Preventing that by doubling the national cost of health care is not reasonable.
- politicians doing what the PEOPLE want. - We have politicians telling us they can`t because if parasites don`t get tax reductions the world will end.
How about we force OUR representatives to toss out the entire tax system existing and replace it with the FairTax? Then we ALL are part of the insiders.
- work. - We export it to slaves and children
Unwarranted assumption the major cause of the exportation is taxes and Government intervention. Added to that the wages paid are often way above the standard wage of local businesses. Additionally you can not compare wages in a foreign country to US wages.
- peace. - We have profit oriented wars.
Your comment is biased. List the wars that are profit oriented and what the profit was.
- human rights. - We have legalized torture of SUSPECTS who never saw proof to their deeds. - Suspects
25 % of the world resources , through the creation of debt that yields massive profit for a few .
Are sheep in a large fenced pasture free ?
When was the last time that any major decision was made in America by the people and for the people ?
Elections are a farce where the people get the chance to vote for candidates from two sides of the same coin ,both representing the ruling elite.
The Federal Reserve a private company controls all the wealth in America and through the mechanism of debt and holds every citizen to ransom .
The population are held as consuming guinea pigs by the Pharma. monopoly, if the society was free would the people not be able to import cheaper drugs from other countries?
No society in history has been as brainwashed as America.
The flow of information is heavily controlled through the official media ,the so-called free press.
The main difference between Americans and the Chinese people is that the Chinese know that they are not free and Americans believe there are .
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The average wage in China is one-tenth of our minimum wage.
Against WTO treaties, China refuses to let its currency float on the free market.
The ratio of labor to low-rung job openings in the technology sector is hundreds to one.
Organizing a union is a serious felony.
The unofficial line of the Communist Party is, "Purchase western technology, not western products."
If it's made in China, the government won't allow entry to any competing products from other countries.
Consumption taxes are good, because they discourage consumption and promote savings.
Income taxes are bad, because nobody declares their real income.
China is hooked on exports, and we are hooked on their slave labor.
THIS is an unhealthy relationship.
If the President thinks that he can compete against China with exports, he is whistling Dixie.
Only protectionist countermeasures will bring China to the bargaining table.
"China is doing a lot of things right: - Oh yes. Where?
"1) The communist bank . . ." - What utter nonsense. What is more 'private' than a totalitarian regimes money-supply?! Your definition of PRIVATE needs looking at.
"2) It's using its money to 'develop' . . . " - Great, so they are building roads, rail and whatever, polluting the hell out of the Planet and they are going nuclear to boot! Now there's a recipe for disaster. Remember that other Communist State and Chernobyl?!
"3) It sees the future of its people using . . . ." - Although we may not have the fastest trains now, we have been doing this for years and so have the Japanese with their bullet-train!
The United States is doing everything wrong: Well not everything. They grow great organic food and have cows milk without melamine!
"1) The Federal Reserve System is private" - Totally agree, and bogus!
"2) It's borrowing money from China to . . . " - Yep, right on schedule!
"3) It's going backwards to the stone-age to use silly windmills and . . . " - Firstly, windmills were never Stone-Age! Did you know that we are sitting on the greatest source of energy yet? Simple, old water. Secondly, solar panels are high-tech and very useful if used correctly. You could power your whole house for 'free'! Off-grid my friend. What's so foolish about that?!
This kind of system has nothing to do with social responsibility, and everything to do with power & control. And who runs it? The Elite, while the masses have been cajoled, coerced and fed the utter bull of the party-line. The West is well on it's way into a form of elitist-planned compliance. Pollution is what we are dealing with here: pollution of the political process and the business ethic, never mind the actual pollution of our rivers, lakes, land, air and sea by these very same individuals and governments preaching 'social order'.
Fact 1: China is a fascist/communist totalitarian regime!
Fact 2: Western business men under the auspices of the power-elite have GIVEN China it's status by involving them in the western economic model, sucking them in and shortcircuiting any real form of competition. Using the greedy, corporate and business sector to undercut western wages and goods is hardly playing cricket, is it? Where is the social responsibility in that? The Chinese do not have the lifestyles of the West, which include high mortgages, high prices and stagnant wages and the only people who gain from all of this are the Big Boys and Girls, because they control the flow of money and goods, so they don't give a damn about: 'planning and continuity of governance that has so far been responsible for China's rise', to quote Gardels. In the early days of the Industrial revolution, I believe people looked for loyalty from their workers and from themselves towards their workers; a social awareness. With attitudes such as those displayed by the Rockefellers and the whole banking sector, for instance, it is no wonder that the west is 'going down', and this folks has been deliberate planning by the power-elite to bring us to heel and under control, just like the Chinese.
Not to be an apologist for the gov of China, but you must take into account the fact that there are more that 4x as many people in China as the US and all those Chinese occupy a land area that is just about the same as the US. So when the subject is 'common interest', they have alot more to contend with than we do. We think we have such a hard time dealing with our problems - can you imagine what it could be like 4x bigger? It's easier, for me anyway, to appreciate why they 'mediate' more agressively when considering that particular circumstance.
There are some significant differences, or challenges these countries face. The US, pop 300 million or so, supports 700 military bases and instillations abroad. China has no such military industrial overhead. China has to develope an economy to support 1.4 billion people, the US does not face that.
China, even before Communism, believed that there was such a thing as moral correctness in governance. The US has seperation oc Church and state, with so called human rights substituted for "duty." Today, China's president tells business, and banks, they have to do their duty to the people, and society, develop jobs and employ the people. What does the US President say about this?
In fact, in unfettered capitalism, which we equate with "democracy and freedom" business are rewarded when they lay off workers, stock prices go up, and investors are rewarded. In America, corporate "persons" have a duty to their investors, not to the people, not to society.
How long have they been allowed to manipulate their currency, oh that's right they're still doing it.
No environmental regulations, no safety standards, lowest wages possible and no oversight in exporting poisonous and unsafe products, JEEZ, I wonder, how they've were able to compete!
Give me break!
If they had to abide by honest trade agreements and their currency wasn't manipulated their success story would be very different and so would ours.
BELIEVE THIS; Our leaders are not naive; they know how China is taking us for a ride, but Wall Street has too much invested over there, and if we started enacting protectionist measures, a lot of big name American companies like Apple would tank.
The Chinese people need to be liberated, but unfortunately we are enabling their captors, who will eventually do to Taiwan what they did to Tibet.