TED演讲——李世默：两种制度的传说
TED演讲——李世默：两种制度的传说
Good morning. My name is Eric Li, and I was born here.
But No.I wasnt born there.
This was where I was born:
Shanghai @ the height of the cultral revolution.
My grandmother tells me that she heard the sound of gunfire along with my 1st cries.
When I was growing up, I was told a story that explained all I ever needed to know abt humanity. It went like this.
All human societies develop in linear progression, beginning with primitive society, then slave society, feudalism, capitalism, socialism, and finnaly, guess where we end up? Communism！
Sooner/ Later, all of humanity, regardless of culture, language, nationality, will arrive @ this final stage of political & social development.
The entire worlds people will be unified in this paradi on earth & live happily ever after.
But before we get there, we r engaged in a struggle between good and evil, the good of socialism against the evil of capitalism, and the good shall triumph.
That of cour, was the meta-narrative distilled from the theories of Karl Marx.
And the chine bought it.
We were taught that grand story day in & day out. It became part of us, and we believed in it.
The story was a bestller.
Abt 1/3 of the entire worlds population lived under that meta narrative.
Then the world changed overnight.
As for me, disillusioned by the failed religion of my youth, I went to America and became a Berkeley Hippie.
Now, As I was coming of age, sth el happened.
As if one big story wasnt enough, I was told another one.
This one was just as grand.
It al claims that all human societies develop in a linear progression towards a singular end.
This one went as follows,
All societies regardless of culture, be it Christian, Muslim, Confucian, must progress from traditional societies in which groups are the basic units to modern societies in which atomized individuals are the Sovereign Units, and all the individuals, by definition, rational, and thet all want one thing, The Vote.
Becau they are all rational, once given the vote, they produce good government, and live happily ever afer.
Paradi on earth, again.
Sooner/ Later, electoral democracy will be the only political system for all countries and all peoples, with a free market to make them all rich.
But before we get there, we r engaged in a struggle between good and evil.
The good belongs to tho who are democracies and are charged with a mission of spreading it around the globe, sometimes by force, against the evil of tho who do not hold elections.
⽼布什：A new world order..
⼩布什：ending tyranny of
奥巴马：A single standard Who would hold power.
Now..
This story al became a bestller.
According to the freedom hou, the No. of democracies went from 45 in 1975 to 115 in 2010.
In the last 20 yrs, western elites tirelessly trotted around the globe lling this prospectus:
Multiple parties fight for political power and every one voting on them, is the only path to salvation to the long-suffering developing world.
Tho who buy the prospectus are destined for success, tho who do not are doomed to fail.
But this time, the chinedidnt buy it.
Fool
The rest is history.
In just 30 yrs, China went from one of the poorest agricultral countries in the world to its 2nd largest economy.
6 hundred 50 million people were lifted out of poverty, 80% of the entire worlds poverty alleviation during that period happened in China.
In other words, All the new and old democracies put together amounted to a mere fraction of what a single, one-party state did without voting.
See, I grew up with the stuff: food stamps.
正定美食
Meat was rationed to a few hundred grams / person / month @ 1 point.
Needless to say, I ate all my grandmother's portion.
So, I asked mylf, what's wrong with this pic?
Here I am, in my hometown, my business grows leaps and bounds, entrepreneurs are starting companies every day, middle class is expanding in speed n scale unprecedented in human history.
Yet, according to the grand sotry, none of this should be happening.
So I went n did the only thing I could. I studied it.
Yes, China is a 1 party state, runned by the Chine Communist Party, THE Party.
And they don't hold elections.
3 assumptions are made by the dominant political theories of our time. Such a system is operationally rigid, politically clod, and morally illegitimate.
Well, the asumptions are wrong. The opposites are true.
Adaptability, Meritocracy and Ligitamacy are the 3 defining characteristics of China's 1 party system.
Now most political scientists will tell us that a 1 party system is inherently incapable ld-correction.
It won't last long becau it cannot adapt.
Now here are the facts.
In 64 yrs of running the largest country in the world, the range of the party's policies has been wider than any other countries in recent memory.女生怕冷
同学的爸爸From radical land collectivisation to the Great Leap Forward, then privatisation of farmland, then the Cultural Revolution, then DXP's Market Reform, Deng's successor JZM took the giant political step of opening up party membership to private business people, sth unimaginable during Mao's rule.
So the party lf-corrects in rather dramatic fashions.
Institutionally, new rules get enacted to correct previous dysfunctions.
For example, term limits, political leaders ud to retain their positions for life, and they ud that to accumulate power and perpetuate their rules.
Mao was the father of modern China, yet his prolonged rule led to disatrous mistakes.
So the party instituted term limits with mandatory retirement age of 68 to 70.
One thing we often hear is political reforms have lagged far behind economic reforms and China is in DIRE need of political reform.
But this claim is a rhetorical trap hidden behind a political bias.
See, some have decided a priori what kinds of changes they wanna e, and only such changes can be called political reform.
But the truth is, political reform have never stopped.
Compared with 30 yrs ago, 20 yrs, even 10 yrs ago, every aspect of Chine society, how the country is governed, from the most local level, to the highest center, are unrecognisable today.
Now such changes are simply not possible without political reforms of the most fundamental kind.
Now I would venture to suggest the PARTY is the world's leading expert in political reform.
The 2nd assumption is that in a 1 party state, power gets concentrated in the hands of the few, and bad governance n corruption follow.
Indeed, corruption is a big problem, but let's 1st look @ the larger context.
Now this maybe counterintuitive to you.
The PARTY happens to be the one of the most meritocratic political institutions in the world today.
China's highest ruling body, the Politburo, has 25 members.
In the most recent one, only 5 of them came from a background of privilege, so-called Princelings.
The other 20, including the President n the Premier, came from entirely ordinary backgrounds.
In the larger central committee of 300 or more, the % of tho who were born into power & wealth was even smaller.
绿豆芽做法The vast majority of nior Chine leaders worked n competed their way to the top.
Compare that with the ruling elites, in both developed n developing countries, I think you'll find the PARTY being near the top in upward mobility.
The Q then is, how could that be possible in a sys. runned by 1 party?
Now we come to a powerful political institution, little-known to Westerners: The PARTY's Organisation Dept.
The Dept. functions like a giant human resource engine thath would be the envy of even some of the most successful corporations.
It operates a rotating pyramid made up of 3 components, Civil rvice, state-owned enterpris, and social org.s like a university or community program.
They form parate yet integrated career paths for Chine officials.
They recruit college grads into entry-level positions in all 3 tracks, and they start from the bottom, called 科员.
Then they could get promoted through 4 increasingly elite ranks: 副科、科、副处、处.
Now the are not moves from karate kids, OK? Serious Business.
The range of positions is wide, from running healthcare in a village, to foreign investment in a city district, to manager in a company.
Once a yr, the dept. reviews their performance. They interview their superiors, their peers, their subordinates.
笔记格式They vet their personal conduct. They conduct public opinion surveys.
Then they promote the winners.
Throughout their careers, the cadres can move through and out of all three tracks.
Overtime, the good ones move beyond the 4 ba levels to the 副局and 局levels.
There, they enter high officialdom.
By that time, a typical assignment will be to manage a district with population in the millions, or a company with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
Just to show you how competitive the system is, in 2012, there were 900,000 副科and 科levels, 600,000 副处and 处levels, and only 40,000 副局and 局levels.
After the 局level, the best few move further up veral more ranks, and eventually, make it to the central committee.
公司文化建设The process take 2-3 decades.
Does patronage play a role? Yes Of Cour.
But merit remains the fundamental driver.
In esnce, the Organisation Dept. runs a modernid version of China's centuries-old mandarin system.
China's new president, XJP, is son of a former leader, which is very unusual, 1st of his kind to make the top job.
Even for him, the career took 30 yrs.带不的成语
He started as a village manager, and by the time he entered the Politburo, he had managed areas with total population of 150 million people, and combined GDPs of 1.5 trillion US dollars.
Now, Pls don't get me wrong, OK?
This is not a putdown of anyone. It is just a statement of fact.
George W. Bush, remember him?
This is not a putdown!
Before becoming Governor of Texas, or Barack Obama before running for President, could not even make a small county manager in China's system.
Winston Churchill once said that the "democracy is a terrible sys. except for all the rest".
Well, apparently he hadn't heard of the Organisation Dept.
Now, westerners always assume that multi-party election with universal suffrage is the only source of political legitimacy.
I was asked once, "The Party wasn't voted in by election. Where is the source of legitimacy?"
I said, "How abt competency?"
We all know the facts.
In 1949, when the Party took power, China was mired in Civil Wars, dismembered by foreign aggres
sion, average life expectacy at that time, 41 yrs old.
Today, it's the 2nd largest economy in the world, an industrial power hou, and its people live in increasing prosperity. Pew Rearch polls Chine public attitudes, and here are the numbers in recent yrs:
Satisfaction with the direction of the country: 85%;
Tho who think they are better off than 5 yrs ago: 70%;
Tho who expect the future to be better: a whopping 82%.
Financial Times polls global youth attitudes, and the numbers, brand new, just came from last week,
93% of China's generation Y are optimistic abt their country's future.
Now if this is not legitimacy, I'm not sure what is.
In contrast, most electoral democracies around the world are suffering from dismal performance.
I don't need to elaborate for this audience how dysfunctional it is from Washington to European capitals.
许仙和白娘子的故事
With a few exceptions, the vast numbers of developing countries that have adopted electoral regimes are still suffering from poverty and civil strife.
Governments get elected, and then they fall below 50% of approval in a few months, and stay there and get wor until the next election.
Democracy is becoming a perpetual cycle of elect and regret.
