Belief in inherent human evil leads to exploitation of self-interest, checks and balances, and oscillation between autocracy and autonomy, a historical perspective that remains pertinent today.
How interesting that you are exercising the western right of free speech and public comment to praise the system that guarantees neither. If the emperor thought it was better for society for you to be silenced, then you would never speak again.
You like to contemplate a place that you would hate to live in.
Very Interesting. I have been thinking a lot lately about how to systematically difffuse power in society. The most powerful source of power in Western society is financial of course and it has no negative feedback within the system. The anti-social rich get more powerful, and use that power too get more wealth and power, practically without constraint. The only option against such imbalanced accumulations of power seems to be political revolution, so we are left with a recurrent violent cycle of oppression and attempted liberation.
I do worry that China is going down that same path, by adopting much of the capitalist system with its growth dependency and debt driven inequality. Despite their best intentions, financial power may overtake political power if they are not successful in limiting and diffusing it. They would be wise to keep all banking in the control of the state, but with some decentralisation. Fine balance is indeed hard to achieve and maintain.
Interesting to read. But I don’t think it’s accurate to describe imperial China’s governance as “checks and balances”. The so-called “checks and balances” seem more about the Emperor trying to centralise control and making everyone else accountable to the Emperor. Whereas “checks and balances” is about decentralised control.
The “checks and balances” of the current Chinese government seems (to me) more about securing central control and accountability to Beijing, rather than holding Beijing accountable to the people of China. I know the CPC views its primary role as to serve the people, but I think Chinese Emperors would also say that is their goal.
That said, I am not criticising China’s governance regime. Just saying that it’s not “checks and balances”, at least as understood in the West. Nor am I saying that Western style “checks and balances” is an unmitigated success. It clearly is not, to the extent the “checks and balances” in the West has prevented Western governments from ending poverty, redressing the disadvantages among black and indigenous Americans, adopting reasonable foreign policy, etc.
However, the CPC might want to ask how it can ensure a future politburo does not end up centralising control for the benefit of the elite in Chinese society. It’s great that Xi Jinping was able to take firm action against corruption. But things could easily have gone the other way had Xi Jinping not won control of the Politburo.
What a contrast between China's flexible, pragmatic approach to governance and our idealistic mess.
How interesting that you are exercising the western right of free speech and public comment to praise the system that guarantees neither. If the emperor thought it was better for society for you to be silenced, then you would never speak again.
You like to contemplate a place that you would hate to live in.
Very Interesting. I have been thinking a lot lately about how to systematically difffuse power in society. The most powerful source of power in Western society is financial of course and it has no negative feedback within the system. The anti-social rich get more powerful, and use that power too get more wealth and power, practically without constraint. The only option against such imbalanced accumulations of power seems to be political revolution, so we are left with a recurrent violent cycle of oppression and attempted liberation.
I do worry that China is going down that same path, by adopting much of the capitalist system with its growth dependency and debt driven inequality. Despite their best intentions, financial power may overtake political power if they are not successful in limiting and diffusing it. They would be wise to keep all banking in the control of the state, but with some decentralisation. Fine balance is indeed hard to achieve and maintain.
Interesting to read. But I don’t think it’s accurate to describe imperial China’s governance as “checks and balances”. The so-called “checks and balances” seem more about the Emperor trying to centralise control and making everyone else accountable to the Emperor. Whereas “checks and balances” is about decentralised control.
The “checks and balances” of the current Chinese government seems (to me) more about securing central control and accountability to Beijing, rather than holding Beijing accountable to the people of China. I know the CPC views its primary role as to serve the people, but I think Chinese Emperors would also say that is their goal.
That said, I am not criticising China’s governance regime. Just saying that it’s not “checks and balances”, at least as understood in the West. Nor am I saying that Western style “checks and balances” is an unmitigated success. It clearly is not, to the extent the “checks and balances” in the West has prevented Western governments from ending poverty, redressing the disadvantages among black and indigenous Americans, adopting reasonable foreign policy, etc.
However, the CPC might want to ask how it can ensure a future politburo does not end up centralising control for the benefit of the elite in Chinese society. It’s great that Xi Jinping was able to take firm action against corruption. But things could easily have gone the other way had Xi Jinping not won control of the Politburo.