Daniel Bell 垂直模式政治体系

Daniel Bell - A Vertical Model Political System

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30OGjUCbiDY

Daniel A. Bell  貝淡寧  [e-mail], [e-mail]
https://www.facebook.com/HKULawFac/
Born 22 May 1964 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada；educated at McGill University, University of Oxford，is a Canadian political theorist. He is currently Chair of Political Theory at the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law. He was previously Dean of the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Shandong University and professor at Tsinghua University.

丹尼尔·贝尔 - 垂直模式政治体系

2015年8月26日
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30OGjUCbiDY

丹尼尔·贝尔，伦理学与政治哲学教授，在北京教授政治理论。在这场妙趣横生的演讲中，他挑战了我们的政治直觉，并探讨了理想的政治模式，其基础是民主和贤能政治是好的。他探讨了将政治决策权完全交给选民所固有的问题，因为选民可能受过教育，也可能不了解公共利益，或者无法将短期利益放在一边。他描述了一种垂直模式，即由贤能官员在上层，由民选政客在下层，这种模式灵活，“中间有很大的实验空间”。他表示，这“或多或少”是自20世纪90年代以来激发中国政治变革的模式。但是，它也存在一些缺陷。请观看视频，了解它们究竟是什么。

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引言

今天早些时候，我们瞥见了中国崛起的力量。它令人震惊的经济崛起不仅得益于其庞大的人口，更得益于其企业家精神的崛起。企业家精神，以及我所学到的政治理论是：随着人口财富通过独立于国家的成功企业增长，任何个人或政党所行使的国家垄断权都无法被挑战。因此，中国如今因其由一党主导而受到批评，而我们西方模式的民主被认为是一个合适的答案。所以，问题是，西方最了解情况，还是东方最了解情况？我们将与丹尼尔·贝尔一起开启“创意之城”的最后一场会议。

丹尼尔·贝尔

非常感谢摩西和凯特的邀请。正如摩西刚才所说，我不是极客，这在某种程度上是一个问题，因为我对我想学习的新技术不太适应，但我发现……我同意第一位发言者的观点，我们应该向孩子、向学生学习，但他们对学习迟缓的学生并不总是很有耐心。关键是我没有PPT或视频，我唯一有的东西就是两样东西，一是，我想我不需要这些来为ABBA或演唱会加油助威，二是，我当然有
纸，上面有讲义。想象一下，这是公元前二世纪，当时中国才刚刚发明纸，人们会说，哇，太酷了，比竹篾好多了。所以，这就是我今天提供的技术援助。不过，我想我应该先介绍一下自己。我出生在蒙特利尔，长大，过去九年一直在北京教授政治理论。人们经常问我，为什么你这么……我的意思是，你如何处理文化冲突？我的意思是，蒙特利尔和中国很不一样，但实际上它们并没有那么不同，因为我来自一个非常腐败的城市，我在一个非常腐败的国家工作，所以很明显，好吧。所以我有多少15分钟的时间来试图说服你接受一个论点？
坦白说，如果我25年前听到这个论点，我会感到震惊，我会非常反感，你知道，我会非常讨厌那个即将提出这个论点的人。因为这确实意味着我们必须挑战我们儿时习得的政治直觉。我认为，随着中国实力的不断增强，这个论点可能比20年前更容易提出。我要得出的基本结论听起来有点违反直觉，因为人们常说，关于中国，有一个标准的说法，过去二三十年有很多经济改革，但没有政治改革。我的意思是，你读任何报纸，都会看到这样的标准说法，但我认为这个标准说法是错误的。自20世纪90年代初以来，中国一直在进行政治改革。不仅如此，我认为这是建立在理想政治模式基础上的政治改革，国旗改革应该继续以这种模式为基础。那么，这个模型是什么呢？嗯，这就是我要在这里尝试解释的。我不仅要解释，还要在一定程度上论证它的合理性。最后，我会讨论一下这个模型仍需克服的几个问题。现在，让我先从几个我认为不应该引起争议的假设开始。第一个假设是最不具争议性的，那就是民主是一件好事。对吧？我的意思是，我们都认为我们应该在政府中拥有发言权。我们不希望被统治。没有人相信像朝鲜那样的神明般的政治人物，我们应该盲目地追随他们。我的意思是，这是一个疯狂的想法。当然，我们应该在政治社群中拥有发言权。好吧，没有人会不同意这一点。第二个假设是，它不应该那么有争议，但它……

这听起来有点争议，因为我们不太熟悉。这种观点认为，贤能政治或政治贤能政治是好的，这种观点认为
政治体制应该以基于卓越能力和美德来选拔和提拔领导人的方式构建。贤能政治 vs. 民主，这是中国政治文化的标准，或多或少是主流观点，听起来
有点奇怪，但其实也不奇怪。我的意思是，我们当然希望由能力超群的政治领导人来治理，对吧？我的意思是，政治领导人从定义上来说就拥有凌驾于我们之上的权力，我们希望他们以理性的方式行使这种权力。我的意思是，如果政治领导人愚蠢、消息不灵通，做出错误的决定，那么就会对我们的利益产生负面影响。所以我们当然希望领导人能够处理复杂的信息，对世界持开放态度，对基本事实有很好的理解等等。但我们也希望领导人有美德，至少在最低限度上，他们不腐败，对吧？领导人
应该服务于政治共同体，而不是服务于他们的如果他们贪污腐败，显然就不道德，所以我认为从这个意义上来说，我们不仅仅是民主党人，而且都是精英政治家，既要有才能，又要有美德。问题是，我们如何才能调和这两种假设，你知道，这两种观点，民主是好东西，精英政治也是好东西，我们如何才能调和它们？基本上，有三种模式被讨论过，第一种模式是一种更民主的模式，第二种模式是我捍卫了大约15年，但现在我改变了主意，我认为第三种模式更好，我会在最后尝试捍卫它。这听起来像是在为中国现行体制辩护，但我要解释的是，这并非完全是辩护，实际上，它指出了需要根据该模式进行进一步改革。那么，调和民主与精英政治的第一个方法是什么？第一种是，让我们交给选民决定，选民会选择他们认为最好的人。最理性、最有德行的统治者，对吧？当然没问题，问题是……而且有很多经验证据表明，现在的选民并不总是……理性的。我的意思是，有一本很棒的书，叫做《理性选民的神话》，这本书去年由普林斯顿大学出版社出版，几年前由一位经济学家撰写。他详细地展示了……选民是如何系统性地误解……他们的基本经济利益的，他……主张在拥有投票权之前，你至少应该通过经济学考试。选民，当然，这在民主国家是行不通的，因为一旦你制度化了“一人一票”制度，你就无法改变一个制度，我稍后会回到这个问题。我们应该选择，应该把投票权留给选民，这个想法的另一个问题是，选民经常以不道德的方式投票，如果我投票，……这不仅影响我自己的利益，还影响他人的利益，对吧？因此，我应该……应该投票给那些根据……做决定的人。为了公共利益，承诺大多数选民会根据他们的短期经济利益投票。
他们再次误解了这些利益，但这就是他们试图做的。唯一这样做的人是，顺便说一句，有些人更理性，
往往是更富有的资本家。你知道，这就是为什么你知道，作为一种对美国制度的描述，它并不完全不公平。它是一美元一票，而不是一人一票。但无论如何，选民应该根据公共利益投票，但他们经常根据短期经济利益投票，
这不道德。好吧，这并不总是发生。有时选民确实会根据公共利益投票，他们根据
投票群体的利益投票。这听起来不错，而这正是民主最有效的时候。选民根据投票群体的利益投票。现在的问题尤其在于像中国或美国这样的大国。这些政策不仅影响选民群体，也影响非选民，影响子孙后代，影响居住在国外的人们，影响我们的祖先，影响自然界的动物等等，而且没有人代表他们的利益。这是一个严重的问题，或许也是民主制度最深层次的问题，就是当选民的利益与非选民的利益发生冲突时，选民的利益往往会占主导地位。如果政府的政策影响到子孙后代，那么选民的利益往往会占主导地位。这就是为什么应对气候变化或全球变暖会成为一个如此重大的问题，因为你需要有20年或50年展望的政治家，而在民主国家，几乎不可能指望政治家有正确的长远眼光，因为他们担心的是未来。选举等等，那么我们如何才能解决这个问题呢？西方有一些巧妙的方案。你知道，在十九世纪，伟大的英国自由主义理论家约翰·斯图尔特·密尔提出过一些巧妙的方案。他说，让我们给受过教育的人额外的选票。现在你知道，在某种程度上，这不是一个糟糕的想法。问题是，在实践中很难实施。我们如何区分受过教育的人和没有受过教育的人？如果你有硕士学位，你就有两票；如果你有博士学位，你就有三票。不可能以非任意的方式划定界限。换句话说，一旦你提出这个问题，就不可能避免争议。另一方面，一旦你实施了一人一票制，就不可能改变，无论这个论点多么合理，没有人会说“好吧，我同意，我不像其他人那么理性，我也同意其他人应该有额外的选票”，这完全行不通。所以我认为解决这个问题的想法投票的问题在于，给受过教育的人或任何群体额外的选票，例如在经济学考试中，这根本行不通，那么我们还能有哪些其他模式呢？
其他模式是指温斯顿·丘吉尔有句名言：民主制度是最糟糕的制度，除了其他所有制度之外。这是其他模式，而且这种说法非常常用，你经常听到。
我知道这句话肯定是支持民主的最常用论据之一，但实际上还有其他模式，这就是我要讲的。我不知道他为什么会提出这个模式，因为温斯顿·丘吉尔在二战中的主要敌人当然是纳粹党，你知道他们是如何被选出来的。我的意思是，好吧，那么其他两种模式是什么呢？
第一个是横向模式，意思是在中央政府层面，有一个民主制度，一人一票来选择领导人，还有一个精英管理制度。领导人的选拔基于功绩、卓越能力和美德，像弗里德里希·哈耶克这样的伟大人物就曾提出过两院制立法模式。他说，我们应该像英国上议院那样实行两院制立法。这些议员年龄在45岁以上，但眼界只有15岁，他们必须考虑与民选议会不同的长期问题。这完全行不通，因为一旦有了民主选举产生的议会，它往往是社会合法性的唯一来源。无论是英国的上议院还是参议院，更不用说哈耶克所设想的那些权力更大的上议院，它们相对于民主党议会来说，必然会失去权力。那么，在中国，由于中国更具精英管理的传统，20世纪初伟大的中国思想家索尼娅·森提出了一个想法：我们应该对政治家进行考试，而不是对选民进行考试。如果我们可以投票给他们，但如果他们考试不及格，他们就无法为公众服务。这听起来不错。他被誉为台湾和中国大陆的开国元勋。问题是，如果有人
获得80%的选票却未能通过考试，那么这个体制必然会不稳定，缺乏合法性，所以这又是一个行不通的方案。另一位伟大的中国当代思想家杨廷，以及童童、陈国强等人也提出了类似的方案。这是一个普遍的观点，实际上我在过去15年左右一直捍卫这个方案。一个是民主体制，政客会服务于选民的利益；另一个是贤能体制，政客是通过考试和
基层政府的政绩选拔出来的，他们会服务于受政府政策影响的非选民的利益，比如子孙后代。这种观点的问题在于，民主体制一旦建立，就必然会拥有更高的
合法性，而贤能体制必然会失去某种权力。所以，这是一个问题，其他问题在中国是不现实的。我的意思是，我们继续……我希望过去15年能朝着这个模式发展，但目前还没有。那么，还有什么其他模式呢？我们称之为垂直模式。中央政府或顶层由李克强选拔的政治家，底层由民选政治家组成，中间有很多实验空间。这种模式或多或少是对19世纪90年代以来中国政治变革模式的描述。我必须承认，现在回想起来，这似乎很明显。
我第一次了解到这一点，是在我遇到现任副总统时。联合国应该与其他几位学者达成一致。他说，你知道为什么，为什么西方人会这样做？好吧，我的意思是，让我不要把……归咎于……这就是我要对他说的，但为什么西方人认为，一个小村庄应该有一个放之四海而皆准的解决方案，一个拥有13亿人口的国家也应该有一个统一的领导人选拔方法，当然，没有放之四海而皆准的方案，我们需要在地方政府的不同层级采用不同的领导人选拔方式。地方政府了解他们的领导人的性格，他们知道他们是否腐败，我知道他们在哪里腐败，他们对法律的理解更透彻。地方问题并不复杂，无论是建学校还是建医院，如果他们犯了错误，这不是世界末日，你知道，但在中央，地方政府更注重社区精神，但在中央，问题要复杂得多，如果他们犯了错误，这可能是世界末日，你知道是否应该就气候变化发动战争，这些都是重大问题，而专业知识或经验并不重要。一点儿也不，想想就觉得很疯狂，但你知道，这差不多就是这个想法，而且它有点像一刀切的模式。所以，基本思路是，政治指挥链越往上走，中央和基层之间的精英管理就越重要，实验的空间就越大，这差不多就是中国模式。你知道，今天我们听说了长沙，这些城市正在进行一些令人着迷的建筑实验。我又见到了长沙市长，他非常有魅力，拥有伯克利的博士学位，曾在世界银行工作过。所以，我的意思是，把他和加拿大的市长比较一下，我就不点名了。是的，所以，你有很多实验的空间。香港当然是言论自由的典范，基本思路是，中央政府不应该干预太多，让所有这些实验都进行下去，如果某种方法有效的话。那么你可以将其推广到全国其他地区，所以或多或少，你知道，你认为中国是高度集权的国家，实际上它是高度分散的，你在不同的城市和地区进行了所有这些实验，比非常僵化的联邦制灵活得多，领导人要经过二三十年的培训才能晋升到特伦特的指挥链上，所以他们不会犯初学者的错误，我的意思是奥巴马，他非常聪明，但他第一次当选总统时，经验不足，犯了很多初学者的错误，而这种情况在中国不会发生。请注意，这种模式与最高层的竞争性选举不相容，因为一旦你有了竞争性选举，你就没有动力花20到30年的时间去培训人们，所以这是一个相当不错的模式。现在有两个缺陷是什么？我还有1分40秒的时间来解释。第一个缺陷当然是腐败，对吧，这个体制非常腐败，大家都知道，事实上，与经济主导地位相似的国家相比，这个体制并没有那么腐败，但腐败程度更高。在中国，治理腐败的动机在于，领导人被视为贤能政治家，被视为民主党人，从而获得合法性。所以，我认为政府现在或多或少正在朝着治理腐败的方向发展。我预计中国在未来十年左右会比蒙特利尔更好地处理腐败问题。但无论如何，第二个问题或许是更深层次的问题，即社会现代化过程中的合法性问题。我认为中国也存在同样的问题。在开放社会中，人们更渴望参与政治。合法性来源多种多样，有民族主义，也有政绩合法性。你知道，如果你摆脱贫困，但在某些时候，人民需要认可一个制度。在中国，竞争性选举是不可能的，那么，情况会怎样呢？为什么预测10年、15年，甚至20年后，会举行某种形式的全民公投，询问人民是否认可中国模式？如果认可，我们将在更稳定的宪法基础上继续推行。 50年左右，如果赞成票占多数，我认为它在中国会更加合法，也会在国外获得更大的尊重。所以我再说一遍，我不是在为这个体制辩护，我确实认为这个体制或多或少走在正确的轨道上，但它需要大量的改进。谢谢。我还有14秒。我是丹尼尔。是什么让你首先来到这里的？她坐在那里。我的妻子是中国人。我们在1989年认识的。完美的解释。我们拍张照吧。吉恩在这里。吉恩，没错，我们有一个五年计划要实现。

Daniel Bell - A Vertical Model Political System

 2015年8月26日
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30OGjUCbiDY

Daniel Bell, Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy, teaches political theory in Beijing. In this slyly witty talk he challenges our political intuitions and debates what would be a desirable political model, based on the assumptions that democracy and political meritocracy are good things. He discusses the problems inherent with just leaving things with voters, who may or not be educated, understand the common good, or be able to put aside their short-term interests. He describes the Vertical Model with meritocratically-chosen officials at the top and democratically-elected politicians underneath, which is flexible and has “lots of room for experimentation in between.” He says this is “more or less” the model that has inspired political change in China since the 1990s. But, there are some flaws. Watch and find out what they are.
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Introduction
earlier today we had a glimpse of the rising power of China it's stunning economic rise not just by force of its
awesome population but by force of the rise of its entrepreneurial spirit entrepreneurial spirit and the theory as I learned it the political theory as I learned it is that with the growth of wealth in a population through successful businesses independent of the state there masu nor later come challenges to the monopoly of the state as it is exercised by any one individual or party for that reason China is criticised today for its domination by apparently a single party and democracy in our western style is proposed as an appropriate answer so the question is does the West know best or does the East and we're going to kick off this last session of idea city with Daniel Bell

Daniel Bell

well thank you so much for inviting me Moses and and Kate and as Moses just said I am NOT a geek which is in a way a bit of a problem because I don't feel very comfortable with new technologies I want to learn but I find and I agree with the first speaker that we should learn from the children and from our students and so on but they're not always very patient with slow learners so the point is that I don't have any PPT or or videos the only thing that I have while two things that I have one I
guess I don't need this to facilitate the cheering for the ABBA or concert but the other thing I have of course is
paper with with lecture notes and in you have to imagine that this would be the second century BC when paper had just been invented in China and then people would say wow so cool much better than bamboo strips you know so so this is my kind of thing technical aid today but I guess I should say a little bit about myself now I was born and bred in Montreal and I've spent the past nine years teaching political theory in Beijing and people often ask me why you're such a I mean how could you deal with a cultural clash I mean Montreal is so different than China but actually they're not that different because I'm from a very corrupt City and I work in a very corrupt country so so there are clear okay so how much I have 15 minutes to try to persuade you of an argument that
had I heard it myself 25 years ago to be frank I would have been appalled I would have and I would have strongly you know I would have disliked and whoever is
about to present this argument because really it does mean that we have to challenge the political intuitions that we learn as children and I think with China's growing power perhaps the argument is easier to make than it would have been about 20 years ago and the basic conclusion that I'm gonna try to arrive at it sounds a little bit counterintuitive because people often say well there's the standard trope is this about China right the past 20 or 30 years there's been a lot of economic reform but no political reform right I mean you read any newspaper that's the standard story but I think the standard story is wrong there has been political reform since the early 1990s not only that but I think it's political reform on the basis of a desirable political model and that flag reform should continue to be based on that model now what is that model well that's what I'm going to try to explain here not just explain it but try to justify it certain extent and I'll end up with some with a discussion of a couple of problems that the model still needs to overcome now let me begin with a couple of
assumptions that I think should not be controversial the first is the least controversial that democracy is a good
thing right I mean we all think that we should have some say in our government that we don't want to be governed nobody believes in in these kind of god-like political figures maybe like in North Korea that we should blindly adhere to I mean that's a crazy idea of course we should have some say in our political community okay nobody will disagree with that the second assumption is not it shouldn't be that controversial but it s
ounds a bit controversial because it's not so familiar to us and this is the idea that meritocracy or political meritocracy is a good thing and this is the idea that
the political system should be structured in a way that selects and promotes leaders based on superior ability and virtue now Meritocracy vs Democracy that's that's the standard you know in Chinese political culture that's more or less the mainstream view and it sounds a
bit strange but it's not that strange I mean of course we want to be governed by political leaders with superior ability right I mean political leaders by definition have power over us and we want them to exercise that power in a rational way I mean if the political leader is stupid and ill-informed and makes wrong decisions you know then it negatively affects our interests so of course we want leaders with ability to process complex information and be open to the world and have good understanding of the basic facts and so on but we also
want leaders who are virtuous in the sense that least in the minimal sense that they're not corrupt right leaders
should serve the political community they shouldn't serve their own interests and if they're corrupt and obviously they're not virtuous so I think in this sense we're all not just Democrats but all meritocratic ear ability and virtue the question is how can we reconcile
these two assumptions you know these two views that democracy is a good thing and meritocracy is a good thing how can we reconcile them and basically there are
three models that have been discussed and the first model is a kind of more democratic model the second one is one that I've been defending for 15 years or
so but I've now changed my mind and the
third model I think is the better model
that I'll try to defend at the end and
it sounds like a defense of the current
system in China but I'll explain that
it's not quite a defense actually points
to the need for further reform according
to that model
so what's the first way of reconciling
democracy and meritocracy the first is
well let's just leave it according to
the voters the voters will choose
whoever they think is the best most
rational and most virtuous ruler right
no problem there of course a problem is
that and there's a lot of empirical
evidence now the voters are not always
rational I mean there's this excellent
book called the myth of the rational
voter came out last year by a couple
years ago by Princeton University Press
by an economist he shows in great detail
how voters systematically misunderstand
their basic economic interests and he
argues for that before you have the right to vote you should you should at least pass economic exams Voters of course it's a non-starter in a democracy because once you institutionalize one person one vote you
can't change a system and I'll get back to that in a minute another problem with with the idea that we should select that we should just leave it to voters is that voters often vote in an immoral manner if I vote it's
not just for it doesn't just affect my own interest it affects the interest of others right so therefore I should I
should vote for people who vote who who decide things according to the common good the promise that most voters vote according to their short-term economic
interest again they misunderstand those interests but that's what they try to do the only people who do is by the way as a sideline there are people who are more
rational tend to be the richer capitalists you know which is why you have you know as a kind of it's not
completely unfair description of the American system it's one dollar one vote rather than one person one vote but anyway so so voters should vote according to the common good but they vote according to the short-term
economic interests often and that's immoral now okay that doesn't always happen sometimes voters do vote according to the common good they vote according to
the good of the voting community now that sounds good and that's when democracy works best the voters vote according to the interests of the voting community the problem now especially in a big country like China or the u.s. is that the policies don't just affect the voting community they affect non voters as well they affect future generations they affect people living outside the
country they affect our ancestors they affect animals in the natural world and so on and nobody represents their
interests this is a serious perhaps at deepest problem with democracy is that when there's a clash between the
interests of voters and the interests of non voters were affected by the policies of government like future generations the interests of voters tends to dominate and if and that's why dealing with climate change or global warming is going to be such a big issue because you need politicians who have 20 or 50 year outlooks and it's almost impossible in a democracy to expect politicians to have that long term outlook right becausethey're worried about the next election and so on so how could we correct this Solutions problem well we have had some ingenious
proposals in Western three you know in the nineteenth century the great liberal British theorist John Stuart Mill he says let's give extra votes to educated people now that you know the a certain extent you know that's is not a terrible idea the problem is that it's very hard to implement in practice how do we draw the line between you know who who who's educated and who's not and if you have a masters you get two votes if you have a
PhD you get three votes it's impossible to draw the line in a non arbitrary way in other words it's impossible to avoid controversy as soon as you bring up this issue and the other thing is once you implement one-person one-vote it's impossible to change no matter how rational the argument nobody's going to say fine I agree I'm not as rational as other people and I agree that other
people should have extra votes it's just a complete non-starter so I think the idea of addressing the problems of
voting by giving extra votes to educated
people or to any sort of group in for example giving exams in economics is a non-starter so what are the other models that we can have you know are there
other models I mean you know Winston Churchill famously said that you know democracy is the worst possible system except for all the others and and that's Other models and that's so commonly used you hear it
all the time you know I know that quote must be one of the most commonly used arguments in favor of democracy but in fact there are other models that's what I'm gonna talk about and I don't know why he would even come up with that because you know Winston Churchill's you know main you know enemy in affair with in in world war two of course was was the Nazi Party you know and and you know how were they chosen I mean you know anyway so the okay so what are the two
other models okay the first one is a horizontal model meaning at the central level of government you have you have a democratic institution one person one vote to choose leaders and you have meritocratic institution where leaders are chosen on the basis of merit superior ability and virtue and you've had great singers like Friedrich Hayek who proposed this bicameral legislature
model he says let's have a bicameral legislative kenner of the House of Lords in the UK these would be over people over 45 that have 15 horizon and they have to think of the long-term issues different than the elected house come again a complete non-starter because once you have a democratic elected house that tends to
be the only source of legitimacy in society and whether it's the House of Lords in the UK or the Senate not to
mention these stronger upper houses that that Hayek had in mind they inevitably are bound to lose power relative to the Democratic house what about in the
Chinese context where there is more of a tradition of meritocracy well the great Chinese thinker in the early 20th century Sonya Sen he proposed an idea let's give exams to politicians not to voters if the we can vote for them but if they fail the exams then they can't
serve the public now that sounds like a good idea and and he's regarded as a founding father in both Taiwan and China again the problem is that if somebody
gets 80% of the vote and they fail the exam you know the system is bound to be unstable and to lack legitimacy so that's another non-starter another great Chinese thinker contemporary finger called yang ting he
proposes and several others by Tong Tong
and and Josef Chen and others this is a common view and actually one that I've defended in the past you know 15 years or so a democratic house where the politicians would serve the interests of voters and a meritocratic house where the politicians are chosen by exams and
performance at lower levels of government and they would serve the interest of non voters affected by the
policies of government like future generations the problem with that view Vertical model is that again the Democratic House once is there it's bound to have more
legitimacy and the meritocratic house is bound to lose some sort of power so and that's one problem you know the other problems are just unrealistic in China I mean we keep on hoping the past 15 years is moving towards that model but it's not happening so what's another model let's call this the vertical model where we have meritocratic Li chosen politicians at the central level
government or at the top and democratically elected politicians at the bottom with lots of room for
experimentation in between and that model is more or less a description of the model that has inspired political change since the 1890s in China and I must confess it seems so obvious in retrospect you know
and I first learned about it when I met the current vice president the UN shall accord with a few other academics you know and he and he says you know why is why do Westerners you know well okay I mean let me not attribute this what I'm about to say to him you know but why is
it that people west people in the West think that there's one size fits all solution at a little village there's one
way of choosing leaders it should be the same way of choosing leaders and a country 1.3 billion people of course there's no one-size-fits-all we need
different ways of choosing leaders at
different levels of government at the
local level people know the character of
their leaders they know whether the
corrupt I know where they're able they have a better sense of the law at the local issues are not so complex whether you build a school or Hospital and if
they make a mistake it's not the end of
the world you know but at the center and
there's more of a community spirit at
the local level but at the central level
the issues are much more complex if they
make a mistake it could be the end of
the world you know whether to go to war
on climate change and these are huge
issues and the idea that expertise or
experience doesn't matter at all it's
it's crazy when you think about it you
know but this is more or less the idea
and it kind of one size fits all model
so so the basic idea is the further up
you'd move the chain of political command the more meritocracy should matter in between the central level and the lower level tons of room for experimentation and that's more or less the Chinese model you have cities you know today we heard about Changsha you
know which are doing the fascinating
experiments with architecture you know
again I met the mayor of Cheung sha he's
again very fascinating and has a PhD
from from Berkeley it was worked in the
World Bank and so I mean compare that to
mayors in Canada and I won't name any
any yes so so you have lots of room for
experimentation in between you know and
you have not you know Hong Kong of
course is a model of free speech and the
basic idea is the central government
should intervene too much let all these
experimentations happen and if something
works then you can generalize it to the
rest of the country so and more or less
you know you think of China's highly centralized state in fact it's highly decentralized and you have all these
experiments in all different cities and regions in much more flexibility than a very rigid federal system and the leaders are trained for twenty or thirty years before they can move up the Trent the chain of command you know so they don't make beginners mistakes I mean Obama he's very brilliant but when he was first made you know president he didn't have as much experience lots of beginners mistakes it doesn't happen in China and note that this model is incompatible with competitive elections at the highest levels because once you have competitive elections you know you won't have this incentive to train people for 20 or 30 years so it's a
pretty good model now what are the two flaws and I have a minute and 40 seconds left to explain the first flaw of course is corruption right that the system is very corrupt everybody knows that in fact compared to countries that similar levels of economic dominance not that corrupt but there's more of an incentive to deal with corruption in China because of the fact that the leaders get legitimacy from being viewed as meritocratic from being viewed as Democrats so in fact the government now I think is moving more or less towards dealing with corruption I expect China to deal better with corruption than Montreal over the next decade or so but anyway the second problem is perhaps even deeper problem which is a legitimacy problem that a society modernizes and here I do think that it's also the case in China there's more of a desire for political participation in open society there are different sources of legitimacy there's nationalism there's performance legitimacy you know
if you if you leave a poverty but at some point there's going to be a need for the people to endorse a system in
China and competitive election is a non-starter so what could it be why predict that in 10 or 15 years maybe
20 there's going to be some sort of referendum to ask the people do you endorse the Chinese model and if so
we're gonna let keep it in place in a more stable constitutional foundation for 50 years or so if there's a strong yes vote I think it'll be much more legitimate in China and it'll have also greater respect abroad so so again I'm not defending the system I do think the system is is is more or less on the right track but that it needs a tremendous amount of improvement thank you I have 14 seconds I'm Daniel what took you out there in the first place well she's sitting up there my wife is Chinese we met in 1989 the perfect explanation let's take up pictures Jean here Jean that's right we have a five-year plan to fulfill