Chapter 34 4. Government is a necessary good

In the history of the West, strong government has brought many problems: religious persecution, totalitarianism, wars caused by nationalism, etc., so many people in the West regard the government as the bane of bad things, a kind of "necessary evil" (necessary evil) ), that is to say, it is best not to have a government, but it seems that this is not feasible, so it is necessary to restrict it a lot to prevent it from doing bad things.Today, the West also asks developing countries to weaken their governments together with it, but forgets that the bigger problem in developing countries is that their governments are generally too weak.The governments of many developing countries have no internal policies, and even the policies cannot go out of their capitals, tax revenues cannot be raised, and the military and police cannot manage them well.For developing countries, the key is to improve and strengthen government capacity.If a developing country has a weak government, it is often unable to provide the most basic services such as running water, power supply, social security, child immunization, and primary education, let alone achieve modernization and catch up with Western countries.

China is another case.China's historical tradition is also different from that of the West: the glorious era in Chinese history is associated with a powerful imperial court.The Chinese traditionally regard the government as a "necessary good".In our culture, farmers call county magistrates and even village officials parents officials. This concept is difficult for Westerners to understand, but it is part of the inheritance of Chinese political culture.Once a nation's political culture is formed, it must have its origins and historical reasons for its existence.You can dislike or disapprove of it, and you can try to transform it, but the real change must be time-consuming and even difficult to change.Some people say that in the past, there were many natural disasters in China. In order to prevent and treat disasters, a strong government came into being, and the tradition of a strong government gradually formed.A strong government is indeed a part of China's political and cultural traditions, and once formed, it is relatively stable.The advantages and disadvantages of a strong government are obvious: the advantage is that it can concentrate power to accomplish major tasks, and the disadvantage is that it is easy to lead to arbitrary.

In the process of modernization, we should maximize the strengths and avoid weaknesses of our own system, and seek advantages and avoid disadvantages.Deng Xiaoping is much smarter than Gorbachev.He believed that there was no need to abandon the tradition of strong government, but to transform it from a government that struggled to realize a utopian ideal in the past to a government that worked to achieve modernity.Practice has proved that this method is much more effective than establishing a new political system and management system from scratch.It is by no means easy for a new political system to be established and operated. Russia has paid a heavy price for this. It was not until Putin came to power that he began to figure out some clues.China's government transformation serves reform and opening up. Although there are shortcomings, it is generally a choice with far more advantages than disadvantages.

Since the British economist Keynes emphasized government intervention in the 1930s, few people have denied the role of the government except for extreme neoliberalists.From ensuring the stability of the macroeconomic environment, to providing various social services, to preventing the proliferation of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, the government needs to play a role.After all, the functions of the modern state are already very comprehensive.Even in Western countries, countries like France are known for their strong government, and the power of the president is obviously greater than that of the legislature and the judiciary.

Judging from international experience, it is a kind of luck in a certain sense for a developing country to have a strong modernization-oriented government.There have been so many powerful governments in ancient and modern China and abroad, but not many are truly committed to modernization and to improving people's living standards.In Africa and Latin America, many powerful governments failed to promote economic development, but engaged in dictatorship, corruption, and common people complained.Replaced by democratically elected governments, they are often too weak to integrate different opinions, unable to form a consensus on the realization of modernization in the whole society, let alone promote the various reforms required to realize modernization.But in East Asia, the "Four Little Dragons" have successfully realized modernization under the guidance of a strong government, and China has also risen rapidly under the leadership of a strong government.

Throughout the world, without a modernization-oriented strong government, it is difficult for developing countries to achieve modernization, let alone catch up with developed countries.Deng Xiaoping had a very sober estimate on this issue.Deng Xiaoping believed that the contemporary Western-dominated world economic order is very irrational, and it is essentially difficult to make poor countries in the world rich.Deng Xiaoping repeatedly emphasized the need to uphold socialism. One of his important considerations is to use China's powerful government to organize and promote China's modernization, participate in international competition, and make China a truly developed country rather than a vassal of developed countries. In 1989, Deng Xiaoping said frankly: "The Western world is trying to make socialist countries abandon the socialist road and eventually be brought under the rule of international monopoly capital. Now we must resist this countercurrent and have a clear-cut banner. Because if we do not insist on socialism In the end, it will only become a vassal state, and it is not easy to even try to develop it. Now the international market is fully occupied, and it is not easy to break into it. Only socialism can save China, and only socialism can save China. Only by developing China can we develop China.” Deng Xiaoping’s brilliance lies in that he did not want China to confront the Western-led order blindly, but asked us to participate, give play to our own institutional advantages, and use this unfair order to develop ourselves. And strive to gradually influence it and change it in the process.

In a world where the rules of the game are completely formulated by developed countries, it is not easy to develop without a strong government to promote the economy and participate in international competition. I am afraid that at best, we can only crawl behind the developed countries.In fact, Western countries have also pioneered the way in their own history. The British gunboat policy is an example. Wherever merchants expand, British warships will follow. In the 18th century, Britain imported cotton cloth from India. The government adopted a tariff protection policy. When he experienced the industrial revolution and changed from importing textiles to exporting textiles in large quantities, he asked others to open the market, and behind it was the support of the gunboat policy. .British control of the entire India was carried out through the East India Company dominated by the British government for a long time.The current world is facing many severe challenges, such as the energy crisis, the food crisis, the financial tsunami triggered by the United States, and the sovereign debt crisis in Europe.The main causes of these crises are the deep-seated problems of the Western system and the irrational international economic and political order dominated by the West, but developing countries with weak government capabilities are always the bigger victims of these crises.

Of course, if the government plays too big a role, it will also have side effects.Excessive government power has led to increased "rent-seeking" corruption, which is a big problem that needs to be resolved through political reform.The key is to strengthen institutionalized supervision, including media supervision, civil society supervision and the establishment of a society ruled by law.A philosopher once said that the government has two functions: the first is to manage the people well, and the second is to manage itself well.Through political reform, we must strengthen the people's orderly political participation, establish a people's supervision mechanism, and establish an anti-corruption mechanism that daunts all corrupt elements, continue to carry forward the positive role of a strong government, and minimize its possible negative effects. as low a level as possible.

Under China's special national conditions, a strong government refers not only to concentrating power to accomplish major tasks, but also to using one's own power to transform, weaken, reduce or even give up some functions of the government.When we talk about the transformation of government functions today, the first thing is to properly handle the relationship between the government and the market. The government and enterprises have their own division of labor, and the government withdraws from some fields that only market players can enter.The second is to properly handle the relationship between the government and the society, establish a responsible government that is both powerful and public service-oriented, so that the social forces will gradually grow and more social self-management will gradually be realized.Our pilot project of "small government, big society" is a useful attempt of this kind of thinking.This kind of reform is realized by a strong government through "revolution of its own life", which is also part of the government's "necessary goodness" under China's national conditions.

In short, there are still many things to do in the transformation of our government functions, many relationships to be straightened out, and many contradictions to be resolved. Some functions of our government need to be strengthened, some to be weakened, and some to be adjusted. For a long time, China will still need a relatively strong government oriented toward modernization. This principle cannot be shaken. This is crucial for realizing China's modernization and taking its own independent path.For many third world countries, their history is different from ours. Many of them have had strong governments in history, but most of them were corrupt governments that were not modernized. As a result, the country did not do well.Now many of these countries have adopted the Western democratic model, but the effect is not good. The government often has no ability to integrate, and the problem of corruption has not been reduced, or even worse.These countries are still exploring their own path to modernization.

Judging from the experience of modernization in developing countries, no matter what method is adopted, whether it is universal suffrage, multi-party system, one-party system, no-party system, one-party dominance, or monarchy, If a relatively strong government dedicated to the cause of modernization cannot be formed, then realizing modernization and catching up with developed countries will always be a mere talk on paper.More and more developing countries are interested in the Chinese model, which shows that they are also beginning to realize this.They will eventually realize through practice and comparison that "government is a necessary good", which is even more true in today's increasingly globalized competition.