For a long time, there was seemingly one path to success as a country. It involved some combination of Western-style democracy which included a liberalization of the economy with an emphasis on human rights and freedoms. It is obvious now that each country needs to build its own unique path to development — China has proven there is more than one way to succeed as a country. Meanwhile, the United States and other Western democracies have faced challenges at home that reveal cracks in their own systems. The failures of our democracies are increasingly apparent and the only way to fix them is to limit democracy and openness, against conventional wisdom.
Since the signing of the Magna Carta centuries ago, the long-term progression of democracy has always required expanding, not limiting, it. Whenever faced with great structural or societal challenges, there was only one response: to introduce more democracy, openness and participation. However, we have reached a critical point where instead of more democracy to fix our problems, we need less.
Business, the international community and the everyday American have all been rapidly inducted into a participatory role in our democracy. These new actors combined with today’s rapid news coverage breed short-sighted thinking and corruption. Opening up the debate and ability to contribute to everyone has introduced actors into the electorate such as businesses and political radicals who are neither well-informed nor desire to be.
Openness and participation in democracy are laudable goals but not when they come at the cost of good policy and effective governance. The pace of the expansion of democracy has far outpaced both citizens’ engagement and propensity to think on a long-term level. Even as our own democracies are failing, we have continued to push others to adopt our model, often to disastrous consequences, such as in Iraq. As harsh as it sounds, in some situations, it is the right decision to leave elites and intellectuals to make policy because oftentimes the regular citizen too easily makes bad choices.
What I am suggesting is that people not make the teleological fallacy that democracy is the eventual conclusion and the best possible way to achieve the ideal society. Some people should not vote, not because they don’t have the right to but because they are ill-informed or irresponsible. The question is what happens when this population becomes the majority or achieves a critical mass to be able to control our democracy and democracies around the world. There is no easy way around this question, no one policy solution that can solve these problems. Governments need to be less responsive to people, business and other governments and do the right, hard thing. Oftentimes, the hardest decisions have to be made by the most vulnerable governments and then we criticize them for a lack of courage.
The rise of Donald Trump could be attributed to a backlash to the expansion of democracy. Citizens otherwise used to controlling the political process feel some control being lost and are reacting to that perceived lack of control. Their reactions vary from xenophobia against undocumented immigrants to anger toward established politicians, both trends that have helped Trump.
The Chinese model, though deserving of criticism, has substantial strengths that have fueled its rise politically, economically and militarily without the prescribed democratic liberalization. China’s success can be attributed to the ability of its leaders to work without scrutiny and plan for China’s future without pressure from forthcoming elections. Chinese officials have discovered that a one-party system can work just as well, if not better, than the historically recommended formula of democracy, liberty and liberalism. Chinese leaders struck a bargain with their people that they would deliver predictable growth and, in exchange, the people would grant wide-ranging powers to the government.
Many point to China’s human rights violations and environmental issues as examples for why a one-party system is inherently unjust. However, the United States has a significantly higher incarceration rate than China, at 737 versus 118 per 100,000 people. Furthermore, China is on pace to add 18 Gigawatts of solar energy capacity this year, compared to America’s total capacity of 20 Gigawatts. The Chinese government is leading us in freedom from imprisonment and in saving the environment.
It is hard to think of new solutions to old problems. Time and time again world democrats have responded to challenges by proliferating democracy, but we have reached the point where it is appropriate to ask if the answer to these problems is less democracy and openness for the world.
Sawan Patel is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at s.patel@cavalierdaily.com.
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