Who actually governs advanced countries? In the West, it is politicians,
of course, elected by the people. Unlike China, which is not democratic --
and openly admits so -- we pride ourselves on being democratic.
However, if that were so, then we might expect that our elected politicians
should be earning distinctly more than the civil service executive or the
judiciary -- the other two 'arms' of government. After all, this is the
normal state of affairs in any other full-time organization whether it's a
business, a charity or academe. Usually, authority and earnings are highly
correlated. In these latter organizations, everybody accepts that this is a
natural consequence of the very powerful instinct for status demarcation.
In the UK it is now revealed that there are 171 senior civil servant
executives who earn more -- several of them twice as much -- than the Prime
Minister, never mind the more humdrum salaries of ordinary elected
politicians. There are also well over 100 judges who earn more -- several
of them almost twice as much -- than the Prime Minister.
The reality puts democratic government into better perspective than is
usually projected to the ordinary electorate. True, the more intelligent of
the electorate who assiduously watched the BBC TV series, "Yes, Minister"
and "Yes, Prime Minister" between 1980 and 1988 above all the other
half-dozen more popular sitcoms of that period are under no illusions.
Prime Ministers may have new ideas and new governments may come in with
great new reforms but they seldom achieve anything anywhere near complete
fulfilment against the inertia of the civil service in normal times unless
a Prime Minister is more than usually forceful (about two per century in
the UK!).
Much the same almost certainly applies to all the other advanced countries
of the West and some others with powerful bureaucracies, such as India. I
don't have the time or the wit to enquire widely enough. Certainly four of
the most prominent advanced countries -- America, Japan, Germany and France
-- seem much the same as the UK. (Even though new American governments
select a new swathe of the most senior civil servants each time, it doesn't
really alter the ever-growing bureaucratic infrastructure.)
In fact, there is scarcely any difference in practice between the 'elected'
governments of the West and that of China where politicians are selected
and chaperoned through their careers by their bosses in the civil service.
If Western politicians went on holiday for a few months -- at least in
normal times -- then the public would scarcely notice.
In China, Confucianism in the way top politicians are selected was restored
after centuries of neglect with Deng Xiaoping's reforms of 1979. These
didn't finally didn't work its way through as carefully staged career
promotions until the Politburo of 2003. But, paradoxically, this new
enoblement of officaldom (as opposed to Communist Party ideological
dominance since 1949) also came with the sanctification of the free market
ideas of Adam Smith, David Ricardo and other classical economists. The
chief architect of the change being Justin Yifu Lin, now the Chief
Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank.
And, of course, we all know that these economic reforms have given rise to
about a 10% GDP growth in most years since 1979 and China will be restored
to being the largest economy in the world at around 2030/40 -- as it was in
the early-19th century. Despite what critics say, the Chinese bureaucracy
is also becoming more responsive to the status aspirations of its ordinary
people. Indeed, knowing that urban life gives a far higher standard of
living than rural peasantry, the Chinese government is building a brand new
city in the interior the size of New York every 9-12 months.
In short, the 'democratic' structure of Western nation-states and the
'bureaucratic' structure of China both seem to be converging to a middle
way. Also in both, indigenous populations are declining (even though China
still has to proceed over a demographic bump in the next decade or so). If
it were not for the present vast bulge of over-population in the rest of
the world -- itself likely to decline when it gets over its own large
demographic hump in the next century -- we could validly assert that the
human species is going extinct.
At the same time as the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is declining to well
below the necessary replenishment rate of 2 per adult female in the
advanced and almost-advanced countries, there is a growing international
elite composed mainly of a 'meta-class' of bankers, businesses and
scientists who seem to have more loyalty to themselves and their own
pursuits rather than to their birth countries. They still live and work
mainly in the super-cities but they also live and work in many other
locations also. It's as though the acme of the industrial revolution as the
way of life for all -- cities -- is now found wanting.
Knowing and believing what I see around me now, if I return as a young
economist or historian in a future life I would choose this new meta-class
for my PhD thesis. Will its members -- unlike the majority -- increase
their TFR? Has the nation-state reached its zenith and will now subside to
a subsidiary role? Will the specializations of the meta-class continue with
their much more lateral form of governance rather than the enormously
stretched hierarchies of nation-states? But I would need several lifetimes,
because historical changes as significant as these take centuries to become
clear.
Keith
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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