The Democratic Outcome State: Political Meritocracy and the Tyranny of Consent

By Boon Choo

Democratic Outcome State – Political Meritocracy and The Tyranny of Consent

Distilling history, this book now poses an epochal challenge. Is Political Meritocracy the universal solution that Liberal Democracy is not?

All men are not equal and never will be. Yet, democracy’s poetic lie on “self-evident truth that all men are created equal” has universal acceptance. Its Calvinist origins have transmuted spiritual equality into equality of consent in the government of man The outcome of democratic rule the world over has been anything but democratic!

The Chinese, with their meritocratic traditions, have not been bound by this leap of logic. However, a century and a half of decline had rendered its history of the meritocratic rule to a distant memory. It would be descendants of landless peasants in the tiny state of Singapore that would play unwitting roles in the restoration of Political Meritocracy and the rise of the Chinese nation.

This book unravels the conventional narratives of East Asian economic miracles revealing surprising political meritocracies. The outcomes of these political meritocracies would turn out to be far more democratic than those of liberal democracies.

Boon Choo’s work will be controversial, but his arguments will reset many minds on long-held convictions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Mar 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781543756975

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Copyright © 2020 by Boon Choo.

ISBN:                  Softcover                        978-1-5437-5698-2

                            eBook                             978-1-5437-5697-5

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CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1     Philosophical Theory Vs. Reality

Chapter 2     European Germination and the Birth of American Democracy

Chapter 3     The American Experiment - An Intended Meritocracy

Chapter 4     Democracy’s Stunted Evolution

Chapter 5     Japan - the Samurai Meritocrats

Chapter 6     Taiwan - The Generalissimo and a Few Good Men

Chapter 7     South Korea - Park and the Economic Planning Board

Chapter 8     The False Choice

Chapter 9     The Singapore Model - Visible Merit, Substantive Outcome, and Social Justice

Chapter 10   The Giant Awakens

Chapter 11   Xinjiang - A Defining Moment in Democratic Outcomes

Chapter 12   Democracy in China?

Chapter 13   Accountability

Chapter 14   Is Political Meritocracy Universal?

Chapter 15   What Does a Political Meritocracy Look Like?

Chapter 16   Conclusion

About Boon Choo

PREFACE

I would have broadly described myself as a liberal when it came to politics. All through my life, I had believed that democracy was a right, and the choice of leaders in government must reflect the will of the people through elections. But I refuse to be skin deep in my liberalism. I am also a liberal where it relates to the results of any government. More than just the superficial institutions of democracy, I want to see governance that is socially just, secures the welfare of a people and that of their future generations.

I was born a Malaysian, of Chinese descent, a minority in a country that has no shortage of talent nor natural resources, but I saw little democratic outcomes that came by way of the ballot box. In all probability, even if I were of the majority stock in terms of race and religion, I would not have seen it either. The democratic process had in fact facilitated predatory rule by an elite in the nation of my birth for more than six decades with little regard to the future and welfare of the vast majority. This incongruence of reality to what democratic liberals theorize had become more jarring when I moved to Singapore in my mid-thirties. This had bothered me for a while, hence my journey in this book.

What I have highlighted as the irredeemable flaws of electoral democracy will find a hostile reception even if the merits of political meritocracy are easy enough to articulate. The published works in this space have been relatively sparse. Publications on democratic failures are typically careful to point to no better models while those about meritocratic rule have tended to focus on China, and mainly around Confucian philosophy. This book now takes it further, and challenges the accepted principles of electoral consent with a universal alternative capable of delivering outcomes that democracies desire.

I am neither a politician nor an academic. I have been asked many times why someone like me would write this book. Life’s journeys are the best teachers, and if we are prepared to view the stories of our lives through the prism of events around us, our experiences can point the way through intractable issues. This book reflects events that unravelled close to me in the years following my birth and as an adult with a young family. I had left a place where democracy failed to bring democratic outcomes and now live in a place that is effectively a one-party state, but whose democratic outcomes are substantial. Looking back, a book like this would quite naturally come from someone whose life’s journey reflects mine.

Three hundred pages of any writings will have errors, omissions and flaws of logic. Here, I would like to thank Chang Wei Ming, Phuah Guat Ean, Tan Pui Hee and Chang May See, for putting up with the first drafts which must have been rough reading. They provided invaluable insights. Aurelia Tan had also provided alternative perspectives while helping me with the initial drafts of the book. Pui Hee, in particular, had encouraged my interest by introducing me to political lectures on the Singapore circuit. My appreciation also goes to Jeffrey Lim, who had helped organize meetings and forum groups to discuss the challenges to political meritocracy. Low Wing Kiong had given me invaluable written input as did Chan Seck Yee, over a lunch which he bought. My colleagues, Lee Sang Hui and Francesco Lagutaine who read the manuscript within a few days of receiving it, provided the Korean and European analyses respectively. Queenie Yeh and Nathan Co, my friends from Taiwan also provided perspectives that shaped the book. My childhood friend, Tony (Sunny Boy) Yap, provided feedback in the only way he knew, which was honest and straight forward. I have stood on the shoulders of these friends, and the book became better for it.

My editor, Mike Jones, had been as effective as he was upfront with his comments. I am humbled that he was willing to take on my book, having seen the pedigree of his works. His many recommendations were ones that I had to face squarely, as he had come from the liberal perspective that this book deals with. Following his review, I did much culling, added new sections and as many as four new chapters.

Stephen, my son, also had to go through a first draft, and whose feedback about its bumpiness drove me to many versions of improvements. Special thanks to Joo Lee, my wife, who has encouraged me throughout, hoping for another family book to grace the bookshelf and to Celine, my daughter, for just being herself.

The perspectives in this book would not be possible without the many interactions of my childhood and travels. Having lived in many places, one draws on the rich tapestry that exists everywhere. These have been my teachers, and they have shaped my views of the world, but the overriding and immutable learning reinforced in me, as it must with everyone else, is that reason, and logic are universal.

Boon Choo

23rd February 2020

INTRODUCTION

That night, all the animals on the farm were in jubilation. The farmer and his wife were dead! They had waited for this moment all their lives. The ecstasy was irrepressible. The instinctive squeals and vocalizations were of unmistakable delight. Every animal was now free to do as it pleased. The night curfew was gone, and each animal could help itself to the fruits of its labour. For too long they had passed the nights hungry. The granaries, once locked, were now wide open. Each animal helped itself to its favourite grains—the pigs to the corn, and the cows and the horses to the wheat.

The next morning, sober from the night’s victory, the animals got together, all 120 of them—60 cows, 30 horses, and 30 pigs. There was an air of expectation of a brand-new beginning. Ralph, the oldest of the pigs, stood up and began the meeting. This farm is now ours! We will run it as we see fit. If we do a bad job of it, we will soon run out of grain. The farmer ran it for himself, but we will run it for ourselves! We are all creatures of God, no less than the humans. Every single cow, horse, and pig will have a God-given right to pursue happiness the way it sees fit and partake in the running of the farm. From henceforth, we are all equal! he shouted at the top of his voice, tears streaming down his face. Everyone cheered in agreement. Moments later, there were murmurs about having a vote, one per every mature animal, to select their leader every two years. The cows, being the most numerous, were readily agreeable. To show that they were impartial, they unanimously nominated Ralph to be their leader. Even the horses agreed, seeing as they had much in common with the cows. The pigs’ votes went to Ralph too. To show his good faith, Ralph promised that everyone would have a say in the running of the farm.

For the first year, everyone seemed happy. Ralph had horses, cows, and pigs on his diverse management team. The farm ran well, and work allocation was fair. Corn and wheat were the crops they grew, and everyone got what they wanted to eat.

By the beginning of the second year, Ralph’s inclusive management persona started changing. You see, girl pigs, of which there were 25 to begin with, would produce a litter of 15–20 piglets each time. They matured quickly too. Boy pigs and girl pigs were already full-grown and quite lusty by the time they got to the fifth month. Horses and cows were nowhere as prodigious in this regard. Moreover, they matured much slower to boot. Ralph could see the pigs’ numbers surpassing the horses and the cows put together by the end of the second year. He began to lay off horses and cows from his team and appoint pigs only to management roles. Soon, the pigs dominated all the managerial and supervisory positions. At the pigs’ instigation, Ralph ordered that only corn, their favourite grain, would be planted. Night curfews were soon placed on horses and cows to ensure they worked the fields at the crack of dawn. Corn, being the only grain harvested meant that every animal ate the same, but cows and horses seemed to eat more per head, and soon the pigs demanded Ralph’s intercession to ensure equity. Not long after that, the management introduced corn rationing for the cows and horses. Each cow and horse was allowed to eat no more than the average pig, even if they worked harder and had more substantial needs.

At the next election, Ralph was re-elected as there were far more mature pigs than cows and horses put together. The farm carried on through many generations of animals. Sadly, for cows and horses, hunger was a daily misery. Notwithstanding this, the news still got around on how the animals of this farm had the God-given and inalienable right to consent and manage their affairs democratically. The cows and horses returned to vote every other year, each time hopeful, but the farm never could change. It remained far from a happy place if one was not a pig.

This reimagination of Orwell’s Animal Farm seems to depict many democratic truths, even though his original tale was about the communist disaster. Liberal narratives have ensured that failures of democracy inevitably get a softer treatment, not unlike that of this fictional farm. It has been a fool’s errand to argue against the idea of equality and against the notion that the ballot box is the fairest way to determine who should lead and rule a country.

Like the farm animals, everyone dreams. Happiness, freedom, and the satisfaction of basic desires would be prominent in most of these dreams. However, the ability to fulfil these desires often does not reside under the dreamer’s control, as all too often those in power do not share the same aspirations. History of humankind’s hereditary rule is replete with despotic incompetence that has favoured the few and trodden on the many. It was not until the late eighteenth century, that a modern idea of democracy was born, based on the notion that accidents of privileged birth should confer no additional rights and the choice of leaders was the natural and equal right of every person.

This experiment pioneered by the settlers of the New World of America was a breakthrough in the modern political model. America’s subsequent prosperity and Europe’s residual influences firmly positioned such democratic ideals as the only acceptable governing model after the Second World War.

The Allied victory in 1945 ensured the model’s spread with the West seeing it as its duty to proliferate it. European powers routinely imposed the model on their colonies as a precondition for independence. The ascendant Americans who led the democratic experiment dictated it, at times through compulsion, as was the case in Japan, which it had occupied. For decades after the Second World War, democracy as the political ideal was unchallenged, and the word itself took on an air of moral value.

The Cold War ended with yet another decisive win for liberal political values. The enthusiastic embrace of those values by the independent states of the ex-Soviet bloc seemed natural and went unquestioned. For those unfortunate enough to suffer the bloc’s grip for 40 years, freedom from communism’s brutality was sufficient reason for the broad euphoria. The dominance of the West in economics, science, and culture further entrenched the popular view of democracy as a driver of emancipation and progress.

Has democracy delivered equality of each voice? Are democratic governments responsible and accountable? Do they improve the general welfare of its constituents in jobs, infrastructure, security, and social justice? This book contends that the answer to these questions is no. Its analysis will touch on the historical and philosophical basis of democracy’s ideals. It will also deal with why there is such persistent and almost universal defence of the political model when its failures are numerous and visible. Even for those whom it has failed miserably, the continued trust in the electoral franchise typically remains strong. Democracy is the new opiate of the masses! It gives voters the euphoria of control and self-determination. The right to vote lulls citizens into thinking the exercise of their choice is a sacred right that delivers the collective voice when the reality is that voice is consistently violated by the time the intoxication wears off.

It is self-evident that men are not equal and by extension, neither their voices through their votes. The consent or vote of the individual has evolved into the political prize that spawns a myriad of well-documented and deep inadequacies of democracies. The tolerance of such failings is based on the belief that although democracy is not great, it is the best system we have, especially if the only other options are communism, dictatorships, and authoritarian regimes. However, none of these systems, including democracy, provide consistent and replicable good governance, even over relatively short periods. Good governance comes only with good political leaders, not politicians. The former is someone who can administer the country without being faced continuously with political choices in the process, while the latter manages the political decisions that determine the fate of the people. In a competitive political environment, even good people can be rendered ineffective or, worse, corrupted.

Intuitively, we want good people with discerning hearts to manage the welfare of a nation’s inhabitants. However, when left to the machinery of party politics to throw up leaders, the slippery pole up to the summit of power is invariably made up of politicians. Good leaders must come from a larger pool than just those who make it through the rough and tumble of a political sift. If the best people are to be picked for the service of the nation, then the pool must cover people of all talents, not just those who are better funded, have a better celebrity persona, or just are good at giving voice but not solutions. More than that, good people count for nothing if they are not allowed to be good at delivering desirable outcomes. This has to be central in any political model. Whatever the model, it does not just serve itself.

Democracy cannot be the choice simply because it is democratic or even because it makes us feel empowered. The political model must be in service of a larger purpose. That purpose will remain illusory if it is unable to bring in the people of merit who are then allowed to get on with the task without being compromised. Dysfunctional politics in democracies the world over must surely question the fit of multiparty democracy with the notion of good people serving at their best. Winston Churchill’s well-quoted maxim that democracy is the best among the worst rang true at the time of his saying it, but we now know more. As history would have it, Churchill’s colonial domain of Singapore, led by a young anglophile admirer, would be the first modern state to harness the relevance of political meritocracy, i.e. an administration built out of competence without political competition. It went about its way for several decades with impressive results, but often having to bear the brunt of liberal critics who questioned its human rights record and authoritarian tendencies. Straddling a mix of cultures, the descendants of immigrants stumbled into the stewardship of a small backward island country, and found a way to navigate Singapore into a prosperous and stable nation. Singapore’s good fortune was to be led by that young anglophile, Lee Kuan Yew.

Political Meritocracy born of a shattered ambition

Singapore is a sliver of land at the tip of the Malay peninsula. Lee had campaigned for a federated Malaysian nation for all Malaysians, irrespective of race or religion, but in 1965 it seemed his life’s works were in ruins. Singapore’s untimely expulsion from Malaysia was premised on a fundamental difference between Lee and Malay nationalists. Sitting on a couch and facing the media in 1965, Lee choked midway, reflecting on a moment of anguish, when he spoke of the peoples who were connected by geography, economy, and ties of kinship. In that iconic press conference, Lee teared up as he thought about his hopes suffocated by race-based party agendas.

The unlikely sovereign state of Singapore is now well over 50 years old. Over those years, Singapore has evolved a system of governance in response to conditions unique only to itself. Even though Lee and his team fashioned Singapore to be an electoral democracy with multiparty participation, Lee was never shy about his views on liberal democracy.

Singapore is the first modern state to claim the meritocratic model, both as a principle that attempts to provide equal opportunities for all and as a way to sift for the best talent to run the nation. At first, the rationale was to differentiate from the race-based Malaysian model that Lee had fundamental disagreements with. Singapore later forged a national ideology that would dictate not just how citizens would expect to be treated by the state but how national leaders would be selected. The Singapore model has proved enduring through the upheavals in the region surrounding it. It continues to deliver the substantive outcomes that liberal democracies wish for, yet pundits have refused to acknowledge its political meritocracy as a viable alternative model for other nations because of its size. Dismissed as a minor anomaly, Singapore’s practices were not seen as replicable in larger state models.

Unlikely as it may seem, the political structures of Singapore quite by providence facilitated the rise of a new China. It began with the meeting of two practical leaders. In the course of the meetings, they challenged the dogma of both liberal democracy and Marxism, in a way that has had enormous global consequences. The men themselves could not be more different. One was Cambridge educated, English speaking, tall and urbane. The other was a diminutive man, veteran of the Chinese communist long march, emerging out of political exile. Lee Kuan Yew’s practical streak devoid of political dogma met with Deng Xiaoping’s quiet resonance, backed by his own experience of communism’s failures.

The Lost Decade

Dark clouds had gathered over China in late 1965, concurrent with Singapore’s expulsion from Malaysia. Mao Zedong (毛泽东)had retreated into the shadows of Hangzhou, buffeted by his critics from the counterrevolutionary factions. In July of the following year, he took an unannounced dip in the Yangtze, and when he emerged, he breathed life into the fanatical student support for his revolution.¹ Untold destruction and denial of culture followed the Chinese nation. Children rose against their parents, their teachers, and academics. Following every word of the great helmsman, they went on to destroy much that resembled culture, heritage, and education. A whole generation of able people was humiliated and sent to communes to be re-educated. Almost everything that the Chinese had elevated to be worthy in their history was torn down and discredited as revisionist under Mao’s doctrine. It would be more than a decade before the Chinese awoke from that stupor. By 1978, the fanatics, led by the CCP’s (Chinese Communist Party) Gang of Four, had destroyed much of everything that mattered to the Chinese people’s collective well-being. The only silver lining was the rehabilitation of a giant in the form of Deng. The task at hand for Deng, who had taken over, was to chart a new course for a billion of his countrymen. Mao was dead and the Gang of Four imprisoned, but Deng still had to tread carefully. Scanning the horizon, he saw that every other country in the region had progressed while China declined. The Chinese had little by way of resources to begin the journey. Even more urgent was the lack of credible ideas about how to press ahead. The burden of ideology was heavy. Taking cues directly from a Western model would have been risky.

They Are Chinese Too

Singapore, then under the stern, practical leadership of Lee, had progressed leaps and bounds after its precarious exit from Malaysia. Although it was small and non-threatening, it towered over its neighbours in development. Deng’s eye-opening official visit to Singapore in November 1978 and his meetings with Lee could only have reinforced his innate practical streak. He and his entourage witnessed Singapore’s shiny housing estates and happy residents with its excellent infrastructure. Importantly, the Chinese could see that Singapore was a Chinese society, a progeny of their poor southern provinces. The inference was natural. If, the Chinese in Singapore could do it, then why could the Chinese in China not?

It was not long after this encounter that China would create its unique model of governance and, in the process, awaken the world to its possibilities. In many respects, China would experience a return to its dominant position before its century and a half of decline. This rise would take a path different from China’s imperial dynastic history and its brief flirtations with hardcore Marxist ideologies. Equally, China would forge a different way from the rest of the world, creating a political challenge to those who believed democracy to be universally inevitable.

Leaders, not Politicians in a Political Meritocracy

The Chinese, who invented the first modern state, had a well-established meritocratic tradition for at least two millennia.² Singapore’s re-germination of the model and a resurgent China has set off political and academic interest around the world. However, before China, Singapore was not alone in the practice of modern political meritocracy. Almost immediately after the Second World War, there were extended periods of what I view as ‘proto’ political meritocracies that delivered incredible results in East Asia. Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea have been countries where so-called economic miracles have taken place, led by unelected bureaucrats. Singapore and China have distilled this into formal political meritocracies with governments that comprise capable leaders (not politicians) co-opting the machinery of state for the general welfare of the constituents. The key to these meritocracies hinges not only on the presence of men and women of merit. The absence of adversarial politics allowed these competent individuals to deliver what they were appointed to do. This, of course, is counter-intuitive and by the standards of liberal dogma, a recipe for failure, but the meritocratic models we will examine have succeeded in delivering outcomes that were supposed to be the preserve of liberal democracy. Hence the challenge to the liberal democratic model, but it is now no longer just from the small outlier of Singapore.

The Challenge to the Democratic Experiment

The euphoric waves of democratization in the 1990s and early 2000s have however seen numerous reversals. In many instances, procedural democracies have evolved into fronts for racial, populist, and money politics. In others, the ballot boxes have led to polarization and often violence. There is much current literature about how democracy is floundering, in its heartlands of Europe and the US. This book will argue that democracy around the world and particularly in Asia is also failing, from Pakistan to Malaysia and from Japan to Indonesia.

In contrast, Singapore has put into practice an alternative model of nonauthoritarian political meritocracy. To date, only Singapore can claim to have a working model that is palatable, one that delivers substantive outcomes. It thrives on transparency, and its citizens discuss and debate on a plurality of views openly. China has adopted the principles of political meritocracy, but the sharp edge of a party operating above the rule of law is intellectually repellent. The heavy hand of the CCP is still very much a part of daily life, such as its use of arbitrary detention and censorship. Even so, the substantive outcomes have been nothing short of miraculous. Although both Singapore and China still have ways to go in perfecting their political models, the challenge to intellectual liberals is now unavoidable.

It is time to re-examine political conventions promoting the idea of universal evolution towards an endpoint of liberal democracy. Even though their successes have been visible, this book does not contend that China and Singapore have all the answers and are no longer evolving and developing. To the contrary, it will argue that the political models in both countries have to change. The meritocracies they have adopted are still not mature and are incongruent with their present political forms. Nevertheless, a debate on political models is now timely.

Democracies inevitably adopt multiparty systems out of default. Parties form out of fundamental differences in opinions but are then fuelled by money and the pursuit of votes. The founding fathers of the United States warned against the factionalism of parties. Presciently, George Washington said on his farewell,

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.³

The deep polarization of modern American politics and electorate proves Washington’s point. Equally worrying is that America’s democratic institutions are built to reinforce the divide. This divide plays out across most democracies, yet there are no viable remedies within the model. We will explore in the later chapters