Chapter 11 5. Give the western system a pulse

The above descriptions are mainly reflections on the Western political system made by Western people of insight. Today, we still need to evaluate the Western political system from the perspective of the Chinese. That is to say, the Chinese must use their own standards and words to give Take the pulse of the Western political system and diagnose what is wrong with the system.In my opinion, the shortcomings of today's Western system can be summarized as "five deficiencies", that is, the lack of the spirit of "seeking truth from facts", the lack of a mechanism for "selecting the best and appointing talents", the lack of the ability to "good governance and good governance", and the lack of "comprehensive balance". The system lacks "foresight" planning.If these problems cannot be resolved, the decline of the West as a whole will accelerate.

First, it lacks the spirit of "seeking truth from facts".The biggest problem of the Western system today is the lack of the spirit of "seeking truth from facts", which is prominently manifested in the fact that most Western politicians seem unable (or unwilling) to recognize and deal with things as they are.Although the West claims to have freedom of speech and freedom of the press, there are many ideologies in Western political life, which are "electoral politics" internally and "ideological" externally. "Electoral politicization" means that politicians first consider the needs of "election politics" in everything they do.For example, the financial tsunami in the United States is essentially due to the loss of financial supervision and the control of the system by capital forces. However, the two major political parties in the United States are unwilling to look at the problem realistically. The RMB exchange rate has taken away the jobs of American workers.In the face of a crisis, the two parties in the United States continue to confront each other, turning discussions on many reform proposals into marathon-style wrangling.In 2008, when the financial tsunami broke out, the Republican Party of the United States used or threatened to use the method of "blocking the discussion", which paralyzed 80% of the major legislative issues.This kind of internal strife has never been interrupted since the outbreak of the financial crisis. On August 5, 2011, the British "Financial Times" published an article entitled "The United States chooses self-destruction", exclaiming that "it is difficult for us to remember that there is still a political crisis in the United States." There are sadder times than this one."The article criticized American politicians for ungrateful for profit, tearing down each other's walls, and even "hope the economy is as bad as possible."

From the perspective of foreign policy, the foreign policy of Western countries, especially the United States, has a strong color.Many Western politicians and media are actually still living in the "theological age" and refuse to look at the world that has undergone tremendous changes "seeking truth from facts". Democracy is defined as a multi-party system and one person, one vote. As a result, a large number of low-quality democracies such as Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo have appeared in the world. After playing, choose again, and then mess up after choosing.

Second, there is a lack of a system of "selecting the best and appointing the best".Western society today is extremely short of politicians with strategic vision and executive power, because the Western political system lacks an institutional arrangement of "selecting the best and appointing the best".In many western countries, the multi-party democratic system has already evolved into a kind of "game democracy", that is, democracy is equated with election, election is equated with political marketing, and political marketing is equated with fighting for money, resources, public relations, strategy, etc. Fight for image and show performances; the promises made by politicians do not need to be fulfilled, as long as they help win the election.This kind of "gaming democracy" without the concept of "selecting the best and appointing the best" produces leaders who are eloquent, but very few capable.

The "Four Stupid Piggy Countries" in Southern Europe have experienced financial crises one after another. One of the main reasons is that incompetent politicians will only compete to please voters and issue various welfare checks. As a result, the national treasury is exhausted.Papandreou of Greece and Silvio Berlusconi of Italy are icons of these countries.Three generations of Pa's grandparents served as Prime Minister of Greece, which is a typical example of "family politics" in the small-scale selection of candidates in Western "game democracy".Berlusconi is the richest man in Italy, with billions of dollars in property and control of major Italian media. Although various gossip and scandals about him are almost uninterrupted, he has served as prime minister for three times.These countries were once quite prosperous, but a generation of incompetent dudes wiped out the treasury.

Third, it lacks the ability to "good governance and good governance".There is neither the spirit of "seeking truth from facts" nor the system of "selecting talents and appointing talents", which leads to the lack of "good governance" in many Western countries.In 2011, Standard & Poor's decided to downgrade the US government's credit rating. The main reason was that "increased uncertainty in the US political decision-making process" led to "declining confidence in the US political decision-making mechanism."The sharp confrontation between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party in the United States has turned the discussion of many important proposals into a war of words.Western democracy seems to have become synonymous with inefficiency and buck-passing.The United States always talks about accountability. The crisis has been going on for five years, and there is no shadow of accountability. No one is responsible for this crisis. No wonder even liberal scholar Fukuyama laments that the American political system is facing "degeneration" ( decay).

Fourth, there is a lack of a "comprehensive balance" system.From an economic point of view, one of the main reasons for the crisis in the West is that the economic structure of most Western countries is seriously unbalanced, making ends meet, and they have become debt-dependent economies that live beyond their means.From a larger perspective, the Western political system lacks a balance between political power, social power and capital power.This imbalance has led to the gradual evolution of the "democratic" system in many Western countries into a "money master" system, especially the democracy in the United States.

Many scholars believe that the main source of income for the Democratic Party in the United States is Wall Street and Hollywood, and the main source of income for the Republican Party is the arms industry and other traditional industries. Obama was elected president to a large extent on the huge donations from Wall Street, and then Obama spent hundreds of billions in taxes. People's money went to "bailout the market".Under such circumstances, it is indeed difficult for Obama to carry out large-scale reforms to the US financial industry.Modern society needs a comprehensive balance and benign interaction between political forces, social forces, and capital forces beyond the political field. Otherwise, "money owners" will control "democracy", and the 99% and 1% behind "Occupy Wall Street" Conflicts may also become protracted as a result, eventually leading to a bigger crisis.

Fifth, there is a lack of "foresight" planning.Another major flaw of the Western system is the lack of comprehensive strategic thinking and arrangements, which has led to various short-sighted decisions flooding all areas of society.The example of the bankruptcy of the California government in the United States can quite illustrate the lack of "foresight" in the US system.Politicians' populist short-sighted politics led politicians to demand tax cuts, first reducing the property tax, then canceling the car tax, and finally the California government fell into bankruptcy.The state government later wanted to restore the car tax, but the state legislature obstructed it. As a result, California's finances fell into a vicious circle.

The American "Time" magazine recently published an article "Can Democracy Solve the West's Current Difficulties?" It pointed out: "Political problems on both sides of the Atlantic have the same crux—the requirements of electoral politics in modern democracies", "Western politicians will elect The narrow interests of victory take precedence over the larger long-term interests of the country. They are not concerned with reducing the deficit, improving economic competitiveness, or promoting the process of European integration. The farthest their vision is to stop at the counting of the next election ".

In contrast, China's system has been undergoing continuous self-reform and adjustment for more than 30 years, and has formed a set of institutional arrangements with holistic thinking, comprehensive consideration, and long-term planning.This advantage is better reflected in the formulation and implementation of China's five-year plan. China's success in the past 30 years is largely the result of the successful implementation of these strategic plans one after another.Today, many Western scholars and entrepreneurs have realized the obvious advantages of China's institutional arrangements.Nathan Gardels (Nathan Gardels), editor-in-chief of the American "New Perspectives Quarterly", put it very bluntly: Western democratic systems succumbed to the "short-term tyranny" of "instant news" and "one person, one vote", leading to the proliferation of populism, " This kind of system lacks long-term thinking and planning, lacks the political ability to continue to rule, and is far from being able to respond to China's rise." These five problems of the Western system are embodied in the Western version of "empty talk harming the country".U.S. President Barack Obama entered the White House in 2008 shouting the slogan of "change", but after so many years, how many promises has he fulfilled?Wall Street still went its own way. He promised to reduce the national debt, but the national debt increased from the original $11 trillion to $17 trillion.As early as the early 1980s, Deng Xiaoping ridiculed the empty talk characteristics of American democracy: "The United States boasted about its system so well, but there was a saying during the presidential election, another saying when he took office, another saying in the mid-term election, and a saying when the next general election was approaching. Another statement. The U.S. also claims that our policies are unstable. Compared with the U.S., our policies are much more stable.” The U.S. public is also deeply disappointed that U.S. politicians are busy wrangling words. The results of the polls in April prove this point: the American public has only 6% of the "very confident" in the US Congress, 7% of the "relatively confident", and 13% when the two are combined.Japan has gone through the "lost 20 years", 20 years of changing prime ministers like a revolving door. Politicians competed to make beautiful promises, but very few were implemented. The Western political system has produced a large number of politicians who can talk but can't do it.Former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is a typical example. He publicly stated that he is "an ordinary person, neither a hereditary member of parliament, nor rich funds, nor a handsome guy, nor a selling point, but there is one thing I am proud of. , among the existing politicians, I am the best street speaker."But most Japanese people seem to be tired of such dishonest politicians.A commentary in Japan's "Popular Weekly" said: "If we implement American-style election debates, we can change Japanese politics. We only need a group of outstanding debaters. This is what Japan lacks. The country is in political chaos. It is not that there are too few such people, but that there are too many of them. What Japan needs now is not debaters, but doers!" Today's Western democratic model is very much like a spoiled child. If he has the family property left by his ancestors, as in many Western countries, he can naturally continue to squander and "play". But in this increasingly competitive world, This situation may become more and more unsustainable; and for those developing countries with no family property left by their ancestors, once they become spoiled children, there is no cure. If the above-mentioned Chinese concept points out some persistent problems of the Western model, then "advancing with the times" is probably the prescription that the Chinese can give to the Western model.In fact, many people of insight in the West are also aware of this problem.After experiencing a crisis without a central government for more than 540 days, a group of Belgian intellectuals published the "Manifesto of the Thousand People Group" in November 2011, strongly criticizing the failure of Western democratic systems to "keep pace with the times" : “Innovation is everywhere in the world now, except for democracy. Companies must keep innovating, scientists must keep breaking disciplines, athletes must keep breaking world records, and artists must keep bringing forth new ideas. But when it comes to socio-political organization, we obviously still Satisfied with the procedures of the 1830s. Why do we have to cling to the two-hundred-year-old antiques? Democracy is a living organism, and the form of democracy is not fixed, and should continue to grow with the needs of the times."

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