Worlds apart –why an open society may be better after all
On Monday, Han wrote about Thomas Friedman’s Op-Ed in the New York Times on the
“green economy,” contrasting the technocratic approach of China’s authoritarian rulers with the haphazard and undirected approach of the American political system. Han suggested that technocratic and authoritarian governments may have an advantage for costly but necessary endeavors.
There is certainly an allure of decisiveness and efficiency under technocratic rule. Thomas Friedman quotes the chairwoman of the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy as saying that “There really is no debate about climate change in China.” But climate change is not the only issue on which public debate in China is absent.
In China, internet search terms such as “freedom,” “democracy,” and “demonstration” are blocked, as are some sites on health, education, news, entertainment, religion, pornography, Taiwan, and Tibet. Sometimes the bans extend to academic sites. In January of 2009, the Chinese government even censored Obama’s inauguration.
If technocrats are to monopolize decision-making, then they cannot be questioned or challenged meaningfully. This is worrisome, not only because the technocrats won’t get it right every time. John Stuart Mill once pointed out that the absence of debate leads to orthodoxy, rigidness, and most importantly stunted intellectual growth. Inertia and resistance to necessary change can plague authoritarian societies as much or more than democratic ones. Not only do liberty and political equality suffer, but so does the very development of societies and individuals.
Technocratic societies in the past have sometimes been able to make remarkable achievements in a brief time span. The Soviet Union not only launched Sputnik and led the world in rocketry but also aggressively promoted literacy and women’s rights. But these achievements did not last. Russia today is hardly a bastion of progressivism, prosperity, and innovation. Without intellectual diversity and debate, the promise of progress cannot be realized in the long run.
-Charles
Image by Flickr user sofafort used under a Creative Commons Attribution License
Related posts:
- Worlds apart
- The open society and its enemies
- The military makes a non-moral case for responding to climate change
- One cheer for autocracy
- An uncertain climate
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