One cheer for autocracy
As an entree to a critique of Republicans as the party of “no,” Thomas Friedman offers this stirring defense of Chinese authoritarianism:
One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century. It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power. China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down.
Practically speaking, Friedman may have a point, but arguments like this are beyond dangerous. Insert “tyranny” for China in the above selection and Stalin never looked so good. The problem with systems of government like tyranny or autocracy is not that they can’t ever do anything well, it’s that there’s no stopping them when things go wrong.
Our representative democracy can be maddening, especially in a two-party system dominated by special interests and calibrated to a soundbite culture. But a Stalin can’t exist in our democracy. And that’s an constraint worth a hefty price.
–Sam
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- Friedman and change
- Google vs. China
- Should China have been allowed to host the Olympics?
- How the West was lost
- Right of resistance
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“reasonably enlightened”
interesting concept
as you note, reasonably enlightened group for half the population is tyrannical to the other half.