The real reason why, in due course, China's system of government will
prevail over that of Western Europe and America is that ours can only
think short-term. The attention spans of our governments rarely
stretch beyond a few months ahead and never beyond four or five years
when, even in the best cases, the next general elections are due. The
disparity between the Chinese system and ours is not due to any
outstanding virtue of the Chinese or any particular faults of ours,
but in the more subtle ways that our respective histories have
moulded national cultures.
In our case, short-termism was exacerbated by the rapid rise of the
scientific-industrial revolution as a cornucopia of consumer products
was brought into being. It overthrew the previous land-owning
aristocracy whose wealth had accumulated over generations and
replaced it by opportunities to get rich quickly by entrepreneurs
well within their own lifetimes. Parallel with that, and as a
consequence of consumer power, our short-termism has been made worse
by universal suffrage which came into being about a century ago. The
increasing use of opinion polls, focus groups, consumer statistics
and the growth of social groups on the Internet are also powerful
influences. All this means that, today, politicians are constantly
having to look over their shoulders. Political manifestos at election
times consist of very little more than bribes to this or that class
of the electorate to vote for this party or that.
It is this immediacy of purpose that has brought governments of
Western Europe and America to the edge of financial disaster. In
several countries, such as Greece, Portugal and Ireland, the payments
of interest on government debts are already beyond the abilities of
taxpayers (or, rather, of their children) despite all the PR which
bureaucrats are constantly dishing out. In many more countries, such
as America, UK, Spain and Italy, we are already speeding quickly to
the point of no-return. Of course, the massive, but constant,
inflation of the last century has also been exported to China and the
other emergent countries because they necessarily have to deal with
our currencies in order to develop along our lines. Their economies
would also suffer if ours collapsed.
This is why China has been trying to cushion the collapse of America
by buying large quantities of its government debt and, more recently,
by buying those of Greece, Portugal and Spain. But whether it can
continue to do so is another matter. The majority of its own
population is still as poor as the poorest in Africa and many parts
of the rest of the world. The economic development of something like
700 million of its own people (and the social cohesion of the whole
country) is being delayed by the money being deflected to help
supporting Europe and America.
I detect a change of policy by the Chinese government in the last
year or two. It has been open knowledge that, for years, it has been
trying to persuade America to help bring about a stable world trading
currency but has been spurned. More privately, it may also have been
trying to persuade some European countries. There has certainly been
a flurry of visits by premier Wen to Germany and France in the last
year or so. But, hitherto, the Eurozone countries have been as
fanatical about the euro as America is about the dollar and it is as
likely as not that they are equally adamant that the sun shines out
of their particular currency.
So, maybe, China has decided instead to promote their own currency,
the renminbi (yuan) as a possible world trading currency. It now has
two-way exchange deals with the currencies of Russia, Brazil and
several other countries. Two years ago, the use of the renminbi
amounted to 1% of total world trade. In the past year it amounted to
7%. By this time next year it may amount to, say, 20%. A year after
that, it may have completely broken the present world trading lock of
about 55% for the dollar and 35% for the euro. It is perhaps only
then that America and the Eurozone will come to their senses and
voluntarily approach the discussion table.
But even if financial catastrophe is avoided in the coming years, the
Western European and American governments still have their major
underlying problem. How do they reform their governments so that
meritocratic politicians are selected/elected who are not so badly
frightened by their electorates that they cannot think long-term.
There was a brief period about a century ago when enough of the most
talented of the young were recruited into our civil services. But
that didn't last long and, today, the better-educated young elect to
go elsewhere than to public service, mainly to large multinational
firms but also into small specialist businesses or scientific
research. Our politicians and civil services are now devoid of the
relevant balance of expertise which is actually driving our national
economies (or, as with the banks and hedge funds, etc, taking
advantage of the sloppy way our governments continue to print money
whenever they get into difficulties).
Thus we need two major reforms. The one is becoming increasingly
widely recognized; the other is scarcely talked about as yet. The
first will have to be accomplished in the next few years. Ultimately,
I hope that even the second will be achieved. No doubt the Chinese
system will also evolve as the world economic system become even more
complex. However, I'm sure that the Western democracies will be a lot
nearer to the present Chinese system than the future Chinese system
will approximate to what we have now.
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/05/
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