Not The End Of History? 

 Democracy vs Authoritarianism

   Essay, William Hooper, First published February 2008, updated occasionally

Introduction Enlightened Authoritarianism Defined Enlightened Policy Making and Democracy Democracy - Consensus Democracy - Spin Micro Economic Policy, NIMBYism and Democracy Macro Economics, Socialism, and Democracy Environment and Democracy Education Levels War & Democracy Plato's Republic and Moral Decline Practical Steps Toward The Toning Down Of Democracy Full Authoritarian Models in More Detail

Introduction

Winston Churchill wrote "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried". These days, however, the vast majority of intellectuals no longer see democracy as a sort of necessary evil in the way Churchill did. Instead, today’s thinkers are generally passionate supporters of democracy. In 1989 Francis Fukuyama famously summed up his euphoric modern viewpoint with an essay entitled "The End Of History":

"The notion that mankind has progressed through a series of primitive stages of consciousness on his path to the present, and that these stages corresponded to concrete forms of social organization, such as tribal, slave-owning, theocratic, and finally democratic-egalitarian societies, has become inseparable from the modern understanding of man... [We may be in the process of witnessing] the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."

Not only is democracy now generally believed to be by far the most enlightened form of government, it is also believed to be by far the most economically successful form of government. Therefore, on material grounds alone, it is believed that the masses will eventually rebel against any other system, making democracy the only sustainable form of government. We have the idea that mankind's evolution toward democracy on ideological grounds has accompanied his evolution toward democracy on economic grounds. Democracy is the endpoint of mankind's search for material progress just as it is the endpoint of mankind's search for justice and virtue. The most morally advanced system is, coincidently, also the most economically powerful system.

However, this widely accepted claim that no other system can thrive as powerfully as democracy is now being increasingly challenged by the economic success of authoritarian China and Singapore.

Most orthodox thinkers still see the success of China as an anomaly that can not last. They believe that corruption is endemic to the authoritarian system and this will eventually cause economic growth in China to stall. The logic works as follows: Darwinian style competition for selfish profit is a vital driver of growth and creativity; this process of 'creative destruction' requires a free market; but a free market can not exist in a corrupt system. Indeed economic historians point out that many regimes in the past, eg Russia under Stalin and Italy under Mussolini, showed initially high growth rates after adopting an authoritarian model and then fell into decline. Singapore provides a very strong counter argument. Transparency International publishes a corruption index in 180 different countries. New Zealand and Sweden tie for 1st place closely followed by authoritarian Singapore. The USA comes in at 18th place, Italy 55th, China 72nd, India 85th, Egypt 115th, Somalia 180th.

A few semi-orthodox thinkers still believe that democracy offers the best form of government but acknowledge that the authoritarian model may be more sustainable than previous believed. Perhaps the level of corruption endemic to the authoritarian system has been overestimated, perhaps also other economic factors benefit from authoritarianism which mitigates the corruption issue. For example: Robert Kagan, foreign-policy analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has said: “We lived under the illusion that economic success required political liberalisation. All the optimism of the 1990s rested on this assumption. Now it appears that the causality is less certain. Autocratic governments can sustain economic growth, and indeed their economic success helps them sustain their autocracy. This means, if nothing else, that we must be ready for a world in which powerful autocracies endure and perhaps even thrive... The old struggle, the one that long predated the Cold War, has returned.”

It's still very much a nascent movement, but a third group of real heretics, drawn primarily from the world of financial markets, are now arguing that the spectacular economic success of "The China Model", which has been sustained for almost 30 years now, and which dwarfs the achievement of emerging democracies such as India, demonstrates that authoritarianism can, in fact, deliver higher levels of economic growth than democracy even in the longer term. They consequently advocate the toning down of democracy, especially in regards to economic policy making, inspired by the example of China and an understanding of the failings of democracy both in theory and in practice. For example, by removing TV cameras from Parliament the tendency toward populist debate can be reduced. Most remarkably perhaps, we will see, during the course of this article, how heretics argue that the coincident link between virtuous government and materially successful government remains intact: democracy is not only inefficient, it is spiritually flawed.

Many heretics believe that the inefficiency of democracy appears to be accelerating. The United Kingdom is the oldest modern democracy and it arguably typifies the decline. Long ago the disproportionate wealth of the elite allowed them to present the people with a limited selection of candidates supported by patronage, and the UK flourished as a democratic oligarchy. In the 1920s Trade Unions upended this system by creating the Labour Party which was financed by the workforce instead of the elite. Today UK politics is firmly in the control of the masses and many feel the quality of policy making has fallen to an all time low, meanwhile the economy appears to be in terminal decline. In the United States the wealthy appear to have retained a greater hold on politics, but the election of the untalented George Bush by the Christian masses is a clear example of modern democracy in action. Under George Bush's presidency America has dramatically declined, supporting the heretical argument about the dangers of modern populist democracy. In fact, many heretics believe that the process of democratic decline is reaching a critical stage and we are at the cusp of a new era. In the past weak nations fell because they were unable to defend themselves against aggressive neighbours, today collapse will most likely come by bankruptcy.

The heretics argue that if it becomes clear that a more authoritarian system offers significant economic advantages it will eventually become popular. Suppose, for the purposes of argument, that a less democratic system did offer higher rates economic growth, lower rates of unemployment, better infrastructure, more efficient government spending, lower taxes and higher standard of living. Would people accept these many advantages in return for reduced policy responsibility?

The heretics argue they would. In support of this they point out that people who have lived in several countries usually put concern with taxation and economic growth far ahead of politics and appear almost equally happy with any modern civilised government. For example, low tax regimes such as Monaco and Singapore are popular even though they are not democracies. Also, aside from Switzerland few countries hold many referendums, yet people do not appear to miss this greater democratic power. In addition, most Westerners are unhappy with their elected government anyway. If the worlds oldest and richest Democracies are led by unpopular and untalented leaders such as George Bush and Gordon Brown, is it any wonder that elected governments in Pakistan quickly loose popular support? The Chinese government is, by contrast, extremely popular with its people (although critics complain this is because dissenting opinion is crushed).

Many will immediately ask: "If democracy is really so economically inefficient why is the USA so rich?". The heretics argue that the USA’s economic success over the last couple of hundred years is in fact less about democracy than it is about policy gridlock which has kept the government small and allowed the markets to flourish (indeed the more democratic countries of Europe have fared worse). However, they also argue that future challenges, such as raising government revenue to provide universal healthcare and social security benefits to retirees, will require genuine and bold government policy responses that are very difficult to make in a democracy.

In November 2006 Stephen Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley, wrote an article called “Wrong Time for Gridlock”. He said “Conventional wisdom in financial markets has it that gridlock is good [Stocks rally when the house/senate/president are split between parties]. The implicit assumption is that with a dynamic US economy in such great shape the best thing that Washington can do is nothing… But there are also circumstances which demand leadership and decisive policy actions. This is one of those times…” The inability of policy gridlock to address the challenges faced by the US is the reason some smart investors turned bearish of the dollar in 2001 and are still bearish today.

Heretics point out that a gridlocked system is less democratic, since elected representatives have less power, and if the USA does owe much of it's success to gridlock, then the case for limiting democracy is obviously proved. The argument can only be about the degree to which democracy should be reigned back. Indeed, most intellectuals, if really pushed, would have to admit that dramatically extending referendums in policy making would probably damage growth and prosperity. The most democratic government in the world today is found in the hybrid representative and direct democracy of California. The result is widely held to be a disaster (for example see:  California: The Ungovernable State at the Economist Magazine)

Enlightened Authoritarianism Defined

In the minds of the general public authoritarianism is commonly equated with tyranny. However, Chinese intellectuals (such as Shaoguang Wang, Professor of Political Science at the Chinese University of Hong Kong) point to a theoretical frame work, proposed by the famous 20th Century American political sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset, which defines legitimate government:

    A government is legitimate if and only if no better feasible policy exists.

In other words a legitimate government is one in which policy is optimal. Lipset argued that a government depends for it's stability on the popular belief that it is the best form of government for the society - in other words, the popular belief that the government meets the theoretical definition of legitimacy given above. He argued that the key to democracy's persistence is either the want of a better alternative, or its ability to generate what he called “performance legitimacy”, particularly as a result of good economic growth.

In order to achieve this legitimacy Chinese technocrats rigorously optimise policy to maximise various numerical indices of success which include, for example, a growth index, a green index, a poverty index. Behind the calculation and optimisation of policy are vast numbers of academics, economists and statisticians. The key to understanding the Chinese system is to grasp the idea of a modern scientific system without ideology which is unattached to arguments about equality vs inequality or liberty vs mandate, and which instead pursues whatever policy actually works. It has been made possible by modern advances in economic analysis, especially the pragmatic resolution of the difficult left-right debate. This idea of a dehumanised machine government goes back to Plato, but bizarrely the idea is still controversial.

In the West, by contrast, our policy making tends to be driven by popular human value judgements. For example, onerous rights to medical malpractice compensation damage growth, but they are generally seen as morally justified. Lipset tells us that moral codes should be cast aside and compensation should simply be set by, for example, balancing the incentive to treat patients safely which compensation encourages, and the inefficiency of complex and costly legal action and insurance schemes. Even though in a sense the mechanism appears amoral, philosophers can argue that it produces the most enlightened policy because it optimises the greater good.

The Chinese Government have passionately embraced Lipset's concept of legitimacy and rejected democracy. They claim their governmental policy is demonstrably out performing all competitors - proven by for example: outstanding levels of economic growth, the absence of Mumbai style poverty, bold environmental policies, and high levels of satisfaction amongst voters with both their government and China's progress. If correct, Lipset's widely accepted axiom of political science theory predicts the Chinese system's ascendancy.

What about the Scandinavian model? Many feel a degree of economic growth should be sacrificed to alleviate suffering. Recall Schopenhauer's quotation: "A quick test of the assertion that enjoyment outweighs pain in this world, or that they are at any rate balanced, would be to compare the feelings of an animal engaged in eating another with those of the animal being eaten". This can be achieved by finding the basket of statistics (which policy is designed to maximize) that mostly closely correlates with national happiness. The first Happiness Index was developed in the 1970s by Butan's authoritarian Buddhist King who said: "Gross National Happiness [GNH] is more important than Gross National Product." Butan's government strives to preserve the nation's traditional culture, identity and environment. For example: it is probably the least environmentally spoilt country in the Himalayas; new buildings have to conform to traditional building codes; Bhutanese are required to wear traditional clothing in government offices, schools and on formal occasions. Generation Y MTV watching youth will probably not be impressed, but in 2006 Business Week magazine rated Bhutan the happiest country in Asia and the eighth-happiest in the world, citing a global survey conducted by the University of Leicester in 2006 called the "World Map of Happiness". Bhutan's GNH index is inspired by Buddhist spiritual values, but most GNH indices are secular. Thailand now releases monthly GNH data based on polls which survey various factors including wealth, health, security, justice, environment, education. Many other countries, eg Australia, are developing indexes to measure happiness.

In fact it's very difficult to properly define governmental legitimacy any other way. Defining legitimacy in terms of giving policy responsibility to the average man is difficult. For example, is direct democracy the legitimate model, or are representative elections every five years enough? In the 17th Century John Locke argued a government is not legitimate unless it is carried on with the consent of the governed. Perhaps one should add to the Chinese definition the proviso that the government should retain a certain degree of popularity - but in this case China still clearly passes. In fact opinion polls show the Chinese government is extremely popular with its people, far more so than in most democracies. Even controversial policies such as the one child policy and the Three Georges Dam enjoy very high levels of public support. Chinese Government did come close to violating Lock's definition of legitimacy in the late 1980s, as exemplified by the Tiananmen Square Protest of 1989. At that time, Zhao Ziyang, who was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, the second most senior figure in the government at that time after Deng Xiaoping, advocated privatization, western economic reform and gradual democratization. In a battle with conservatives, which reached its climax during the protest, he was purged and an alternative path plotted. Since then both the government and the people have gradually taken an increasingly skeptical view of democracy, and a clear majority now trust their authoritarian political system and believe it is delivering outstanding results. Critics, however, argue that Lock's legitimacy is weakened by press censorship. However, China is not North Korea, the Chinese people can watch Americans films and see the standard of living abroad, and although Chinese language internet content is censored, English content generally is not.

Could a corrupt democracy really be called legitimate? In the 19th Century Max Weber, who was sceptical of democracy, which he believed regularly elected charismatic tyrants, defined a type of legitimacy based on the perception that a government's powers are derived from efficient set procedures, principles, and laws. In China, unlike Africa, corruption is not tolerated. This is not to say corruption in China has been eradicated since Deng Xiaoping's 1978 reforms, far from it, but the government is clearly very committed to making progress on the issue. In 2007 Minxin Pei, an expert on economic reform and governance in China, argued that corruption not only fuels social unrest and contributes to the rise in socioeconomic inequality, but holds major implications beyond its borders for foreign investment, international law, and environmental protection. He said “Corruption has not yet derailed China’s economic rise, sparked a social revolution, or deterred Western investors. But it would be foolish to conclude that the Chinese system has an infinite capacity to absorb the mounting costs of corruption... Eventually, growth will falter.” His arguments have not fallen on deaf ears and many officials would agree with the premise that corruption is the pre-eminent threat to China's Future and must be curbed.

Max Weber's legitimacy requires transparency which is also a key element of the contemporary doctrine called "Open Government". Open government finds its strongest advocates in those non-governmental organisations keen to counter what they see as the inherent tendency of government to lapse, whenever possible, into secrecy. For example, publishing detailed statistics on educational standards allows one to assess the performance of government, but it also puts at risk continued public support, therefore governments tend to avoid collecting or publishing this information accurately. Prominent among these NGOs are Transparency International and the Open Society Institute. Transparency International rates authoritarian Singapore as the third most transparent government in the world. Chinese Government Officials claim their major challenge is increasing transparency without stoking irrational public protest which might derail the intellectual pursuit of optimal policy. China's huge and diverse population stands in complete contrast to the wealthy and educated 5 million Singaporeans. We may be seeing in China the growth of a two layer system in which academics freely debate policy but the populist press is regulated. The philosophy of Open Government requires effective public scrutiny and oversight of government, and for that reason is normally associated with Democracy. The debate between democracy and authoritarianism perhaps comes down to the question of whether this task is optimally accomplished with, or without, the involvement of the masses.

Open Government has parallels in the business world. For example: auditing, the use of non-executive directors, a degree of flatness in the management structure, an open minded atmosphere, frank discussion with analysts and shareholders etc. The nemesis of openness is the danger of information being taken out of context and used against the organisation in emotive ways. A spectacular example was Gerald Ratner's speech to the Institute of Directors on April 23 1991. During that speech, he joked: "We also do cut-glass sherry decanters complete with six glasses on a silver-plated tray that your butler can serve you drinks on, all for £4.95. People say, How can you sell this for such a low price?, I say, because it's total crap!" The resulting publicity wiped out his business. These days business are much more aware of the dangers of the modern press and the viral like spread of information and conspiracy theories on the internet. A humorous example is the rumour that McDonalds gave money to the Irish Republican Army because it once printed the abbreviation IRA for 'Individual Retirement Account' on UK payslips. The dangers of unfounded or out of context information spreading across the modern media and the internet, and the damage it inflicts on transparency, impacts government as well as the private sector. We see therefore, the logic behind the apparently paradoxical argument advanced by some Chinese intellectuals that a degree of censorship can improve transparency.

The 20th Century philosopher Friedrich Hayek argued for classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist though. Hayek claimed, rather controversially, that objective knowledge is not only impossible, but also a more dangerous ambition, than the distributed opinion represented by the marketplace. Hayek taught at the famous Chicago School of Economics (University of Chicago, USA) alongside Milton Friedman, Frank Knight and others. Hayek did not himself consider the problem of state legitimacy, and his arguments about distributed opinion making revolved around competition, arguably the consensual and collectivist nature of democracy is completely at odds with his theory. Libertarians do not passionately support democracy, which they believe requires a strict leash to contain the tendency of the masses to steal from the few, but they may also object to the idea of a powerful government in which decision making is monopolised by a handful of officials instead of being subject to competition. However, 25 Chilean economics who studied at the University of Chicago became known as the "Chicago Boys" who guided the economic policy making of the authoritarian General Pinochet. Milton Friedman famously described the "Miracle of Chile" in which a failing country was transformed into the richest per capita Latin American state. Pinochet has been accused of human rights abuses and personal enrichment, but his authoritarian economic policy making clearly did not violate Hayek's neo-liberal philosophy. Hayek famously said of Pinochet: "Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism."

Nevertheless, there is a deep contradiction between the interventionist policy (state capitalism) practiced in China today, which is dominated by aggressively and efficiently run state owned enterprises, and laissez-faire capitalism. Hayek once said "probably nothing has done so much harm to the [neo-]liberal cause as the wooden insistence of some liberals on certain rules of thumb, above all of the principle of laissez-faire capitalism". His followers, however, have tended to be much more dogmatic. They believe that the invisible hand of the market is efficient and, left to it's own devices, will tend to produce the optimal outcome without the need for government intervention. The invisible hand is a metaphor coined by the economist Adam Smith. Smith argued that, in a free market, an individual pursuing his own self-interest tends to also promote the good of his community as a whole through a principle that he called “the invisible hand”. He argued that each individual maximizing revenue for himself maximizes the total revenue of society as a whole, as this is identical with the sum total of individual revenues. However, modern economists are much more cautions. For example, essentially none would agree with the Austrian School claim that: free markets are so efficient that neither fluctuations in the business cycle nor monopoly can exist within them. Austrian Economics has been accused of rejecting mathematical and statistical methods. Critics argue that laissez-faire is grounded in naïve faith, but economic science transcends morality plays. What is the religious zeal underlying laissez-faire? Individualism, liberty, democracy. Utilitarianism, the concept of the greatest good to the greatest number, is the essence of Lipset's definition of legitimacy. Intervention is no longer a moral or ethical issue, it is simply a pragmatic one. To the individualist this is as immoral as the inequality of capitalism is to the humanitarian, but to the scientist it is divine.

Therefore authoritarianism can exist both in the form of laissez-faire capitalism exemplified by the Miracle of Chile, and in the interventionist form exemplified by Bhutan's cohesive Buddhist values and Gross National Happiness Index. Lipset's definition is scientific not moralistic. Lipset only tells us that we must not embrace cohesive policy simply because it satisfies the moral principle of utopia, nor laissez-faire because it satisfies the moral principle of individualism; instead we must forge whatever path demonstrably works. Now we can begin to see why Plato argued the superior virtue of authoritarianism compared to democracy. Plato rejected the traditions and morals prevailing in society; instead he argued for philosophical open mindedness. For Plato, the business of government is a pragmatic, experimental and scientific pursuit; not a values system; therefore the opinions of non specialists are irrelevant, only the logical arguments of specialists count; so democracy is inappropriate. The humanitarians call Plato heartless, the libertarians call him a control freak; but he simply transcends their left/right value/moral judgements. Was he a fascist? No, Hitler was not a scientist focused on the general good, he was a psychotic nationalist, the tyrannical antithesis of a refined intellectual. Both humanitarians and the libertarians label anyone who rejects their limited moral judgements as evil; but for Plato wisdom is not a canvassed or inherited set of opinions, rather something acquired by the pursuit of an individuals speciality, be it carpentry or politics.

What about the famous phrase from the United States Declaration of Independence that says "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are the three "unalienable rights" of man. How is Lipset's utilitarian concept compatible with this claim? The answer has to be that these three rights can not be simultaneously attained and the Declaration of Independence is irrational. Society is the process of limiting individual freedom in order, as Francis Hutcheson explained, to bring "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." For example, countless individual freedoms have to be restricted for the greater good, from driving drunk to refusing to help the poor by paying taxes. Refusal to comply results in incarceration, perhaps in the most heinous cases execution. At the same time too much passive happiness detracts from incentive, inhibiting the future progress of society, jeopardising the greater happiness of future generations. Neither life, liberty nor happiness are unalienable rights. We must study the impact of policy on both individuals and the group, and try to find the optimal path knowing that perfection is impossible, for life, unlike religion, is not black and white but rather an infinite variety of shades.

Modern democratic government in the US and Europe is clearly not delivering the best feasible policy. For example, almost every economist believes that US healthcare needs major reform and gasoline tax is too low but these issues are caught in the political gridlock which grows out of the humanitarian-individualist debate. Labour Market inefficiencies still hold back the West. In the US and UK educational standards are in critical decline. Government deficits are out of control across the developed world, bankruptcy looks like a real possibility in the future, even for the USA. In the West there is consensus amongst experts about what needs to be done but the political system is failing to deliver. The clear failure of the Soviet Union to deliver performance legitimacy motivated Mikhail Gorbachev's 1986 policy of perestroika which brought Communism to an end five years later. Is it possible something similar could happen to democracy? Would that groundbreaking politician, like Gorbachev, be awarded a Noble Prize several years later?

Some have called an authoritarian government which is engineered to generate maximum performance legitimacy “Enlightened Authoritarianism” or “Legitimate Authoritarianism”. It echoes the old concept of "Enlightened Absolutism" practiced by, for example, Fredrick The Great. Enlightened Absolutism was a form of monarchy in which rulers embraced the principles of the Enlightenment; which included rationality, respect for science and various progressive values. These monarchs believed their right to rule, in other words their legitimacy, was a function of their ability to improve the lives of their subjects, rather than a divine right or right of conquest. Fredrick The Great, for example, introduced a general civil code, abolished torture, and established the principle that the crown would not interfere in matters of justice. He also promoted an advanced secondary education, the forerunner of today's German highly successful gymnasium system. His government turned a relative backwater into one the great European powers. Voltaire was a prominent Enlightenment philosopher who felt Enlightened Absolutism was the only real way for society to advance. Voltaire rejected democracy because he believed the average man was too stupid to rule himself (the irrational voter premise).

It is a common misconception that John Lock, another Enlightenment philosopher, advocated democracy. What Lock really hypothesised is that a legitimate contract should exist between the people and their government, with the government on one side working for the good of the people, and the people on the other hand surrendering to their leadership. The democratisation of France, the French Revolution, was by contrast fed by an emotional frenzy, the people took power into their own hands, surrendering to no one, and committing terrible injustices. This example is akin to one we have touched upon several times, the contrast between the rational scientific policy of China compared to the politicised policy of Western Democracy. The distinction is driven by the self interest of the voters, self interest is opposed to justice, so a self interested executive power is despotic. This is why Immanuel Kant said: "[In a despotic monarchy] the public will is administered by the ruler as his own will... democracy is, properly speaking, necessarily a despotism, because it establishes an executive power in which 'all' decide for or even against one who does not agree; that is, 'all,' who are not quite all, decide, and this is a contradiction of the general will with itself and with freedom." The phrase "tyranny of the majority" describes this concept. A possible example of this tendency is for democracy to reject the scientific maximization of national happiness, and to instead focus only on the happiness of the middle class, without consideration for the suffering of the very unfortunate.

In the United Kingdom pre the 1920s policy was mostly in control of the elite - this is an oligarchy and differs from the Chinese system because the engineered maximization of measurable statistics can be both transparent and completely de-personalised. In Sparta governmental policy was decided by a committee of highly regarded 60+ year old officers, elected by the citizens for life on the strength of their bravery, virtue and rank - but their policy making was rooted in tradition and pride, it was too human, it fails the engineered maximization test. Even Japan's post war single party technocratic government does not qualify - it was too consensual, too fearful, too bureaucratic, not scientific, not experimental.

Enlightened Policy Making and Democracy

Heretics argue that within developed countries today, enlightened policy making often appears inversely correlated to democratic power. To understand this, consider the following extract from an article by Adam Posen deputy director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics:

"The irony for those who have been congenitally suspicious of excessive power being concentrated in Brussels is that the more the central body has had authority over economic policy, the greater the liberalising influence - whether it was the US breaking down barriers to interstate commerce or the Commission implementing the single market. Where and when the member states have retained dominance over regulation and enforcement, as in insurance or property in the US, or in state aid to favoured companies or professional certifications in the EU, the results have been illiberal and economically harmful.

"The alternative to a strong Brussels is not a decentralised free market and minimal government interference. It is greater political capture of economic policymaking and abuse of authority by member states and sub-national governments. Politicisation is more likely and more obstructive to market competition when done by local or member governments than when the federal authority has competence. Subsidiarity is in many cases an invitation to corruption, entrenchment of incumbents and horse-trading of handouts. Too many political veto points equals too many opportunities for extortion."

As the power for self interested voting is diluted policy improves - we see the worst policy at local level, better policy at national level, and the best policy at international level. At the heart of this argument the heretics are arguing that government policy is in fact mostly obvious, and democratic voting often encourages only ill advised self interested decision making.

One of the most damming modern quotations of the tendency of the masses to make self interested and destructive decisions comes from Winston Churchill. He was describing the cause of the War when he wrote:

Moreover, this had been a war, not of Governments, but of peoples. The whole life-energy of the greatest nations had been poured out in wrath and slaughter... Gone were the treaties of Utrecht and Vienna, when aristocratic statesmen and diplomats, victor and vanquished alike, met in polite and courtly disputation, and, free from the clatter and babel of democracy, could reshape systems upon the fundamentals of which they were all agreed. The peoples, transported by their sufferings and by the mass teachings with which they had been inspired, stood around in scores of millions to demand that retribution should be exacted to the full... The multitudes remained plunged in ignorance of the simplest economic facts, and their leaders, seeking their votes, did not dare to undeceive them.

How extraordinary that Winston Churchill, the defender of democracy, should remark that the root cause of the War was the transition from the era of aristocracy to democracy. That out of clatter and babel of democracy, the rousing emotions and economic ignorance, tyrants such as Napoleon, Hitler and Trotsky were born, and millions upon millions of lives were wasted. Today, the heretics argue, the pending economic implosion of the bankrupt Western World reflects that same dynamic.

Democracy - Consensus

Advocates of democracy claim that, due to conflict of interest issues, only democracy can in practice deliver optimal policy. Chinese intellectuals reply: If democracy could deliver optimal policy we would employ it - but it in practice it clearly can't - the bold decisions of our economists and technocrats are incompatible with democracy's consensus politics. If voters were forced to choose between two parties whose policy was set in stone without their input, democracy might deliver the right verdict on occasion. However, democracy doesn't work that way because political parties adapt their policy to the voters and can not afford to alienate large sections of the populace. If you have three uncorrelated policies each one of which alienates 25% of voters then together your potential support base falls to 42%. So in effect only policy for which there is huge consensus can in practice normally come to pass in democracy.

Heretics argue that the success of liberal democracy, for example in the US, is not a function of it's ability to deliver effective government, but rather, by requiring vast consensus a function of it's ability to deliver gridlock which has emasculated the government and allowed the private sector to flourish (in the US the three way power split between President, House & Senate leaves an especially emasculated government). The failure of socialist democracy is the combination of interventionist government policy and poor populist decision making. In other words critics of democracy argue that it tends to produce only two outcomes: no government or bad government.

If democracy fails in business, why should it work in government? Are not the challenges of government just as hard as those in the world of business? Democracy is certainly an anathema to Military. Students are not allocated marks on the basis of democracy, their more learned professors decide. Democracy doesn't rule team sports, nor even charitable foundations. Indeed, how many large successful organizations in any field really employ democracy? For all the modern idealism Churchill's idea of necessary evil keep creeping back. Is democracy in fact a singularly unsuccessful model which is unapplied to any other field of endeavour, but which exists in government only to prevent greater evil? If so, is every other possible model really so at risk of greater evil? What about the new China Model of engineered performance legitimacy?

Democracy - Spin

Plato's Republic on the problems of democratic politicking:

Suppose the following to be the state of affairs on board a ship or ships. The captain is larger and stronger than any of the crew, but a bit deaf and short-sighted, and similarly limited in seamanship. The crew are quarrelling with each other about how to navigate the ship, each thinking he ought to be at the helm; yet they have never learned the art of navigation and cannot say anyone ever taught it them, or that they spent any time studying it; indeed they say it can’t be taught and are ready to murder anyone who says it can. They spend all their time milling round the captain and doing all they can to get him to give them the helm. If one faction is more successful than another, their rivals may kill them and throw them overboard, lay out the honest captain with drugs or drink or in some other way, take control of the ship, help themselves to what’s on board, and turn the voyage into the sort of drunken pleasure-cruise you would expect. Finally, they reserve their admiration for the man who knows how to lend a hand in controlling the captain by force or fraud; they praise his seamanship and navigation and knowledge of the sea and condemn everyone else as useless. They have no idea that the true navigator must study the seasons of the year, the sky, the stars, the winds and all other subjects appropriate to his profession if he is to be really fit to control a ship...

All those mercenary individuals, whom the many call Sophists and whom they [criticize for spin and deception]... in fact, teach nothing but the opinion of the many... I might compare them to a Wild Animal Trainer who must study the tempers and desires of the mighty strong beast he feeds, must learn how to approach and handle him, also at what times and from what causes he is dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his several cries, and by what sounds, when another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated. And you may suppose further, that when, by continually attending upon him, he has become perfect in all this, he calls this knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls this honourable and that dishonourable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the great brute he tends. Good he pronounces to be that in which the beast delights and evil to be that which he dislikes; and he can give no other account of them except that the just and noble are the necessary, having never himself seen, and having no power of explaining to others the nature of either, or the difference between them, which is immense...

Do you really think, as people so often say, that our youth are corrupted by Sophists... Are not the public...the greatest of all Sophists? Do they not... fashion them after their own hearts? When they ... sit down at assembly... and there is a great uproar, and they praise some things which are being said or done, and blame other things, equally exaggerating both, shouting and clapping their hands, and the sound of their praise or blame echoes and redoubles around the assembly -- at such a time will not a young man's heart, as they say, leap within him? Will any training enable him to stand firm against this overwhelming flood of popular opinion? Or will he be carried away? Thus, will he do as they do, and as they are, such will he be?

All this has parallels with the 20th Century rise of the "Political Class" which refers to a shift in the balance of power away from the elite and towards a new generation of professional politicians whose policy much more closely reflects the opinions of the average man. For example, critics accuse the UK Prime Minister Tony Blair elected in 1997 of introducing new levels of 'spin' to democratic government. Blair developed very close relations with the media and employed a tabloid newspaper editor as government spokesman. Opinion polls suggest the next elected prime minister of the UK may be David Cameron. He claims to be the "Heir to Blair", similarly courts the media and engages in spin, and was once famously caught demonstrating his commitment to the environment by cycling to work while a Lexus carrying his briefcase secretly followed behind. Taken to the extreme government policy detaches completely from all idealism and rationality, and becomes nothing more than a giant exercise in marketing and pandering to the whims of the multitude.

Considering the problem of spin in modern democracy we might imagine that plain speaking honest politicians focused on the rational communication of policy options is desirable. For example, just as financial products are regulated by the FSA in order to prevent miss-selling, we might regulate political debate and punish politicians who deliberately mislead the public. However, this does not take into account the aforementioned problem of consensus, the inability of non-specialists to make complex decisions about economic policy, and the inability of ordinary people to choose policy for the greater good instead of personal gain. Democracy might function much more effectively if policy debate was curtailed and voters instead decided simply according to the perceived standing and track record of individuals or political parties. Democracy in the past probably worked more this way. In Sparta candidates were elected to the ruling class for life according to their perceived honour and virtue, an example of this concept.

One also needs to steer democracy away from the choice between competing persisting political parties. For example, by giving a politician a fixed single term of office he can rise above short term populist policy designed to ensure his re-election. In the same way political parties are disastrous because their members tend to work towards the immanent re-election the party rather than the good of the state. Also, the limited number of visions associated with Party Politics emphasises the aforementioned problem of consensus. Democracy might work much more effectively if political parties disappeared and one simply elected talented upstanding independent candidates who have been pre-approved by an electoral panel that asses technical competence and track record, and in office these candidates would be given single ten year fixed terms.

Many of America's Founding Fathers hated the thought of political parties. They were sure quarrelling factions would be more interested in contending with each other than in working for the common good. The founding fathers wanted individual citizens to vote for individual candidates, without the interference of organized groups. This, however, was not to be and within 20 years Political Parties has taken root. By the mid 1800s party allegiance had become an important part of most American's consciousness. Party loyalty was passed from fathers to sons, and party activities - including spectacular campaign events, complete with uniformed marching groups and torchlight parades - were a part of the social life of many communities. The appalling violence of the US civil war was a product of this phenomena. By the 1920s, however, this boisterous folksiness had diminished. Municipal reforms, civil service reform, corrupt practices acts, and presidential primaries to replace the power of politicians at national conventions had all helped to clean up politics. The Great Depression of the 1930s discredited the prevailing laissez faire politics practiced by all political parties. Between the 1930s and 1970s fiscal policy was characterized by the Keynesian consensus, a time during which modern American liberalism dominated economic policy virtually unchallenged. Since the late 1970s and early 1980s laissez-faire ideology has once more become a powerful force in American politics. Today, modern American liberalism, and modern American conservatism are engaged in a continuous two party political battle, characterized by what the Economist describes as "greater divisiveness [and] close, but bitterly fought elections." Increasing polarization, rancour and irrationality now appears to be taking hold of American politics in much the same way as it did leading up to Civil War. George Bush was not elected for his perceived excellence, but rather because he is close to the average man, his psychology is in tune with theirs; this is politics as a group social consciousness, a way of life, a religion; not a group of individuals working in a non-ideological practical and cooperative way toward the common good.

In Italy it is widely recognised by economists, businessmen, politicians and probably even the average man that supply side labour market reforms are desperately needed. The inability of the politicians to reach consensus is primarily related to party political positioning. For example, the Prodi government's inherent instability resulted largely from voting rules introduced by Berlusconi in 2005. Critics say the rules were a "poison pill" introduced by Berlusconi at the end of his term when it became clear that he could not win the next election. The tragic irony is that the difference between Berlusconi's and Prodi's views on economic reform is probably negligible. If one thinks of democracy in Italy as a necessary evil, her economy is clearly paying a very high price.

Micro Economic Policy, NIMBYism and Democracy

On a micro level the potential advantages of authoritarian infrastructure / planning permission decisions are hugely apparent. It is interesting to compare Beijing's new airport with Heathrow’s Terminal 5 in the UK. China's stunning new airport was designed by Normal Foster and is currently over twice as large as the next largest airport in the world (including Heathrow Terminals 1-5 added together). The total time from design, through construction, to opening of the airport was just four years. By contrast the possibility of a new Heathrow terminal was first mooted in 1982. In 1989 an architect was selected to design it. In 1992 BAA announced it would be submitting a planning application. In 1993 the application was submitted. In 1995 a public enquiry began considering it. In 1999 they gave the go ahead. In 2001 the government validated the result and gave the project planning permission. In 2008 construction was completed and the airport opened. The democratic process arguably turned a 4 year project into a 25 year project. Even after all this, no new runways were built at Heathrow leaving the problem of chronic congestion undressed. Many experts also argue that replacing Heathrow with a new airport in the Thames Estuary linked by a high speed train to central London (China’s maglev airport train could make the journey in fifteen minutes) would be a much better option not least because flight paths over land could be virtually abolished. However, UK politicians regard this option as hopelessly ambitious and therefore impractical in the democratic UK regardless of its theoretical advantages.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the centre of Paris had the same structure as it did in the Middle Ages. The narrow interweaving streets and cramped buildings impeded the flow of traffic and resulted in extremely unhealthy conditions that were denounced by the first hygiene scientists and witness to many Cholera outbreaks. Napoléon III of France decided to modernize Paris after seeing London, a city transformed by the Industrial Revolution, which offered large public parks and a complete sewer system. A possible additional goal was to provide long wide streets allowing the military better control of a capital with a history of protest and revolution.

The Haussmann Renovations required an authoritarian regime to encourage capitalists to participate in the rebuilding and to expropriate the land of those who stood in its way. "Hausmannism" did not limit itself to the simple creation of new streets and utilities, it also intervened in the aesthetic design to ensure a high quality unified urban landscape. Although Paris was designed and built by the private sector, Haussmann's heavy handed regulations ensured a high quality end result.

In the 1860s, after 20 years of expropriations and building works, the people of Paris were in a state of near revolt. Napoléon fired Haussmann in order to improve his own flagging popularity, and work on the outer suburbs stopped. In hindsight, however, the rebuilding of Paris was one of mankind's greatest accomplishments and the quality of life in Paris dramatically improved. It's highly unlikely that projects of this scale can be accomplished in democracy. In the West our last outstanding governmental accomplishment was to put a man on moon, but even this just took money, nothing like the sacrifice of the Parisians, and even a project as expensive as this would probably be impossible today.

One explanation for the vast growth differential between India and China is that the chaotic liberal democracy of India, which is largely dominated by local issues, is incapable of making the tough decisions required to update the country's infrastructure. Some economists in India suggest that their country needs to make a 'cruel choice' between economic development and 'liberal democracy'.

Macro Economics, Socialism, and Democracy

The expansion of the democratic Roman Republic put the average Italian's income under increasing pressure from foreign competition. The rich, however, with investments abroad, profited from this "globalisation", thus income inequality rose dramatically. In 130BC two politicians, the brothers Gracchus, sought to parcel out public land to dispossessed peasant farmers. Many wealthy senators feared the brother's policy, and both eventually met a violent death. Nevertheless, the popularity of redistributive policy was not crushed, and the succeeding era of instability and civil war eventually left people so exhausted by the democratic process that in 44BC the popular politician Julius Caesar was made “Dictator for Life”.

After abandoning democracy, Rome grew more quickly despite the occasional bad emperor such as Caligula (In fact Rome had a primitive safeguard against poor Emperors - the Praetorian Guard simply murdered them - such was Caligula's fate after just fours year). The empire is though to have reached the zenith of its power around 180AD during the reign of the “five good emperors”. Edward Gibbon, in “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” describes this period as follows: "If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of the Roman Empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom". Heretics today do not, of course, advocate an emperor; but the point being made here is that historical analysis frequently does not support the economic superiority of democracy.

History began repeating itself in 1848 when the Russian philosopher Karl Marx and German philosopher Frederick Engels argued, amongst other things, for "common ownership of the means of production". Marxism challenged and changed government around the world. Russia eventually became a socialist dictatorship under the Bolsheviks, and many countries in Western Europe became increasingly socialist democracies.

Eventually socialism was proven economically unviable regardless of its philosophical attractiveness. Instead of common ownership, competition for capital in an unequal world turned out to be vital in ensuring both motivation and efficient allocation. Socialism did not necessarily leave its people starving, but it left them so much poorer than their neighbours that they rebelled against it. Furthermore, it ran contrary to man's competitive nature and socialist countries were forced to adopt increasingly brutal techniques for keeping public order in the face of public resistance.

Heretics draw parallels between socialism and democracy. They are both egalitarian systems (material / political equality) that fail to offer a mechanism by which power can be allocated efficiently. It is ironic that the fall of the socialist soviet union is so often offered as evidence of the economic superiority of democracy, when in fact, both socialism and democracy share so many parallels. The leading authoritarian power of today, China, has long since abandoned socialism. The inability of most emerging democracies to follow its example partly explains the vast growth differential.

What about the USA? Although socialism was popular with the masses many in the elite feared it. Where the elite resisted the will of the masses popular revolt often ended in socialist tyranny. Government in the USA also resisted the popular tide, eg with the 1918 Sedition Act, but much more effectively. Indeed the fight against socialism and communism became a cornerstone of American policy. Up until at least the 1990s the USA was arguably the least socialist country in the world, even today it remains the only major industrialised nation without universal heath care. Arguably the economic success of the USA today once hinged on the ability of its politicians to manipulate or override their public. Alan Greenspan has described democracy as a safety release value. In the USA, a notionally democratic system manipulated by the elite allowed the air to escape safely from the socialist pressure cooker. Thus the entire cold war, escalated by the US, did not necessarily reflect a genuine reflection of the Soviet threat, but rather a fight, by the American elite, to suppress a political system which the masses would have embraced. However, although this smoke screen of fear and misinformation had the laudable goal of manipulating democracy, the loss of transparency became so great that even the elite began to loose clarity. Today these dangers stalk Putin, the Chinese tend to simply steer their people away from emotive positions entirely. This is one reason why some argue that full enlightened authoritarianism is superior to manipulated democracy.  

In the UK, by contrast, thanks to the creation of the Labour party which was funded by the Trade Unions, democratic government began embracing socialism in the 1920s. Ramsay MacDonald rose from humble origins to become the first Labour Prime Minister in 1924 although his first government lasted less than one year. Labour returned to power in 1929 but was soon overwhelmed by the crisis of the Great Depression. In 1931 he formed a "National Government" in which a majority of MPs were from the Conservatives. As a result, he was expelled from the Labour Party who accused him of 'betrayal'. Nevertheless, socialism had taken root.

At the end of the Second World War the pace of socialist change in the UK picked up considerably. Experts in financial markets, who foresaw the problems of socialism, began moving funds offshore, eg investment in the non-democratic UK colony of the Bahamas boomed. The Attlee government responded to this capital flight with foreign exchange controls which lasted for the next 30 years or so. By the 1970s the UK was one of the most socialist countries in the advanced world with a marginal rate of income tax peaking at 98%. Some socialist policies, such as the creation of the Nation Health Service, were successful; but many others were not. Indeed, the economic health of the nation deteriorated to such an extent that in 1976 the UK was put onto an IMF program. Eventually the UK electorate tired of socialism and in 1979 they elected as Prime Minister the pragmatic right wing politician Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher’s reforms, which were based on received economic wisdom rather than ground breaking new ideas, eventually transformed the UK from being one of the poorest countries in Western Europe to one of the wealthiest. France never sank as low as the UK in the 1970s, consequently the electorate have not fully tired of socialism, therefore they still refuse to allow Thatcherite reforms in France, and as a result they are poorer than the UK electorate today. Critics of democracy claim that this example typifies the erratic and snail paced evolution of democratic economic policy.

Environment and Democracy

Many people on all sides of the debate believe that the democratic model is struggling to respond to three huge issues: globalisation, climate change and the depletion of natural resources. The democratic system can not easily adapt to a radically changing world in which difficult and painful decisions have to be made.

In the African county of Mali the average woman gives birth to 7.38 children, but in authoritarian China the ‘One Child Policy’ has cut fertility rates from over 5 births per woman to 1.7 today. China's One Child Policy is one of the most important pieces of environmental legislation ever enacted, yet it would be inconceivable under democracy.

Although global warming threatens the planet, the irrational masses in democratic Europe continue to fight over the merits of nuclear power, meanwhile the rational Chinese government prepares for cheap CO2 free nuclear mass production. Although this is not the place to rehash the debate on nuclear power, one can safely say that the scientific community are in favour of it (eg the Royal Society 2003 press release “Government must show political courage over nuclear power”) but the electorate remain opposed. The general public remain wedded to wind and solar power, and vast sums of money are duly pumped into it by their elected representatives, but in truth only the mass production of very very cheap Nuclear Power can possibly phase out gas/oil/coal heating and thus break our dependence on fossil fuels. Opinion polls show the main voter concern to be the disposal of high level radioactive waste, yet even if all the UK's electricity was produced by nuclear it would take 500 years to fill Albert Hall with high level waste - it's virtually an irrelevant issue. Perhaps voter resistance could be turned by a sustained publicity campaign - but what elected representative would take the risk of running one? It’s well known that the odds of winning the UK lottery are pointlessly small, yet a staggering 70% of the UK population still play - the chance of a rational campaign failing would be very high.

Education Levels

Even some conventional thinkers have lost faith in democracy for Africa, and many now believe there may be a educational tipping point before which democracy can not thrive. In the late nineteenth century, the European imperial powers engaged in a major territorial scramble and occupied most of the continent of Africa, creating many colonial nation states, and leaving only two independent nations. The colonial governments were, of course, completely undemocratic as far as black representation was concerned. In the 1950s Tunisia was the first colony to win independence and Zimbabwe, in 1980, was the last. However, in South Africa & Zimbabwe the large white population developed a system of second-class citizenship for other races. This system followed the example of the Jim Crow Laws in the USA which circumvented having to give black people the power to vote in Southern States, introduced after the abolition of slavery and repealed in 1965. As a result the white South Africans were able to retain control until an equitable settlement was forced upon them by the prospect of civil war in 1994. Since the end of colonization Africa has failed to develop and in many case the standards of living are though to be lower than in colonial days. Despite democracy, constant tribal conflict, corruption in every politician and poor policy decisions have dogged the continent. More recently the advantages South Africa gained by having more sophisticated management of their country until 1994 appear to be coming apart. Remarkably, it appears that an authoritarian government of educated colonialists, set only upon exploiting the region for profit with little or no regard for the local people, offers the uneducated Africans a higher standard of living that democracy. Hence some are welcoming China's recent increasing involvement in Africa.

Heretics, however, cleverly argue increasing advancement may not help democracy as much as expected. Increasing levels of knowledge in society are, and will always be, accompanied by increasing levels of knowledge inequality. For example, Newton's three laws of motion are taught in today's secondary schools, but by contrast, the latest results in quantum physics are, and will always be, far beyond all but a handful. Such specialization is a natural product of advancement, it is not limited to the scientific world, and it certainly includes the world of economics & politics. In the democracy of Ancient Greece the citizens could have rolled up their sleeves and probably designed together a half decent new city, a new weapon or anything else. Today, however, communal thinking could not possibly improve the design of a modern rocket, a public transport policy or much else. Since democracy gives value to average thought, in an advanced society the elite thinkers on matters of economics and politics are likely to find democratic decision making increasing anachronistic. Interestingly, it is financial market traders and investors who have begun advocating authoritarianism, exactly as would be expected, since they are arguably the best (certainly the most highly paid) specialists in economic trends.

War & Democracy

Today the heretic arguments against democracy are about economics, in Ancient Greece they were about war. Weak nations fell to stronger ones in a Darwinian process, and good government was primarily that which could survive. By 430BC the Greek World had largely divided itself into two great alliances, one headed by the brash wealthy democracy of Athens, one by the old fashioned kingdom of Sparta. Politics in Ancient Greece, just as today, was largely divided into two political parties. However, instead of Socialists-Capitalists, they had Democrats-Authoritarians. Also, as today, the poor tended to vote for one party (Democracy) and the rich tended to vote for the other.

"The History of the Peloponnesian War" by the Athenian Thucydides describes the terrible war that broke out between them. By the end of this war, which was said to have the largest and deadliest ever fought at that time, Athens was reduced to a state of near-complete subjection, while Sparta was established as the leading power of Greece. In the process democracy all but disappeared from Ancient Greece.

Beginning in about 600BC, many small Greek city-states, which had previously been oligarchies, became "direct democracies" in which every citizen could vote on every issue of government. There were no representatives in this system, instead, citizens ruled themselves directly. This was almost a total democracy except for the fact that women and slaves were not considered citizens and were not allowed to vote.

In 430BC Athens had 40,000 citizens and policy was decided at the Assembly which met several times per month usually with around 5,000 citizens in attendance. Government wasn't a spectator sport, ordinary citizens were expected to know enough about "world affairs" to make complex decisions. Any citizen could get up and speak, and we know from historical records that they did so. Government jobs were allocated to citizens for one year by lot. The Athenians had a name for one who opted out, who withdrew into his home and family or occupation, and didn't participate in this community. They called him an "idiotes", a "private person", and these people were looked down upon and said to be incapable of developing into really fine human beings. The Greeks believed completely in self perfection and self sacrifice for their community.

At the very top of the Athenian system were 10 military generals who were elected instead of being chosen by lot. The Athenians recognized the ability of Pericles and year in year out re-elected him as one of their generals. He became the most influential citizen although he never held a formal title such as President.

Athens became by far the most powerful and cultured city-state in Greece. However, by 430BC many had begun to question the democratic model. Reading Thucydides one can not fail to be impressed by both the intellectual and moral sophistication of Greek debate. Nevertheless, many felt that Athens had deteriorated and was embracing increasingly populist policy. Much of her wealth was extracted from her neighbours whom she was accused of treating unfairly. Sparta, although insular and much less wealthy, was respected for retaining the old fashioned Greek values, such as idealism and virtue, which the citizens of Athens were now accused of increasingly lacking. When Athens fell to Sparta many rejoiced and her downfall was said to have been supported and predicted by the Gods.

Explaining the fall of Athens, which occurred in spite of its vast wealth, Thucydides writes:

Pericles indeed, by his rank, ability, and known integrity, was enabled to exercise an independent control over the multitude--in short, to lead them instead of being led by them; for as he never sought power by improper means, he was never compelled to flatter them, but, on the contrary, enjoyed so high an estimation that he could afford to anger them by contradiction. Whenever he saw them unseasonably and insolently elated, he would with a word reduce them to alarm; on the other hand, if they fell victims to a panic, he could at once restore them to confidence. In short, what was nominally a democracy became in his hands government by the first citizen. With his successors it was different. More on a level with one another, and each grasping at supremacy, they ended by committing even the conduct of state affairs to the whims of the multitude... [many blunders then led to defeat]

The philosopher Socrates was both the leading intellectual of the day and a hero of the 400BC Peloponnesian War who fought for Athens. Socrates also criticised the democratic system which he considered culpable. His most intellectually accomplished student, Plato, wrote the 'The Republic', an influential work of philosophy and political theory in which he proposed rule by a 'Philosopher King' (later Plato moved away from the idea of concentrating power in the hands of a single individual and instead advocated an elite governing body). In 300BC Plato's student Aristotle argued that rule should be by an elite consisting of propertied citizens, judged by their fellows to be worthy, and willing to abstain from trade and pursue virtue over all else.

Aristotle taught Philip II of Macedonia and his son Alexander the Great. Philip conquered all of Greece (except Sparta), and the insatiably ambitious Alexander, at the head of a united army, went on to the conquer much of the known world. Unlike the Spartans, Alexander's philosophy was not at all nationalistic, which gave him much greater strength as opponents were fully absorbed as equals into his empire and his armies. Alexander did not consider himself a tyrant, but rather a liberator. Much to the shock of his people he said: "I only distinguish people by their virtues... I consider all peoples, black or white, as equals... I wish you to be my partners and not just members of our commonwealth...". To an even greater extent that the Spartan-Athenian conflict, Alexander's extraordinary achievement probably demonstrated that, if the goal of government is simply military power, authoritarianism was, in Ancient Greece, by far the superior form of government.

More recently examples of outstanding military success under authoritarian government include the achievements of the evil dictator Stalin in turning a poor rural society into an industrialised superpower capable of defeating another autocratic superpower, Hitler's Germany.

Shortly after the 1917 Russian Revolution in which Tsar Nicholas II was deposed the Bolsheviks took power. They called their economic policy "War Communism". All industry was nationalized, private enterprise became illegal and food was distributed in a centralized way. Strict discipline was introduced and strikers could be shot. The results were disastrous and by 1922 industrial output was just 13% of its pre World War One level. Lenin then introduced the "New Economic Policy" which restored some measure of private enterprise especially in agriculture. Eventually agricultural and industrial production was restored to its pre World War One level.

In 1928 Joseph Stalin took control and replaced the New Economic Policy with a series of "Five-Year Plans". These called for a highly ambitious program of state-guided crash industrialization and the collectivisation of agriculture. Stalin employed foreign experts, e.g. British engineer Stephen Adams, to instruct workers and improve manufacturing processes.

With seed capital unavailable and virtually no modern infrastructure, Stalin's government financed industrialization by confiscating wealth and reducing wages. By 1933 workers' real earnings sank to about one-tenth of the 1926 level. The death toll from famine in the Soviet Union at this time is estimated at between five and ten million people. In addition vast numbers of people were essentially enslaved and forced to do unpaid labour. The archives record that about 800 thousand were executed, 1.7 million died in the Gulag and 400 thousand perished during forced resettlement.

The brutal policy was, however, successful and achieved rapid industrialization from a very low economic base. Stalin essentially created an economic super power from a third world country, but at horrendous cost. Without Stalin, Hitler probably would have won the war. Stalin's army killed more German soldiers than Churchill's or Roosevelt's.

It is true that Russia subsequently declined, but Stalin's adoption of naive socialist economic policy made this inevitable. After Russia the UK contributed the most to Hitler's defeat, but Churchill also adopted many authoritarian policies in order to win the war.

Plato's Republic and Moral Decline

Plato's objections to democracy go much further. This section is rather philosophical, but it's impossible to do the debate proper justice without including it.

Plato categorised the political systems of the time, in increasing order of injustice, as:

(a) Timocracy: A government whose rulers are selected and perpetuated based on the degree of honour they hold relative to others in their society. Sparta was the prime example - it was said to be run by an idealistic, disciplined, proud and honour loving warrior class who, between themselves, voted on policy matters which were then applied to the society at large. Although Plato considered this to be the most admirable of the existing systems, he believed the aspirational push on the masses was flawed as it did not focus on open minded intellectual refinement, but rather some ossified vision of honour or goodness. Perhaps we can think of Timocracy as a quasi-religious society. Plato's dream was to take the next step and build a less traditional society ruled by an elite class of enlightened philosophers. In the Republic he speculates what structure a theoretically perfect society might take. His radical ideas include the collective upbringing of children who do not even know whom their parents are, which should promote a more advanced sense of brotherhood.

(b) Oligarchy: A government in the hands of a wealthy subset of the productive class. Power is not longer the exclusive preserve of the honourable, rather simply the wealthy. This society, Plato said, is characterised by an appetite for wealth, but appetites are at least to a degree reined in, leading to a careful and orderly albeit highly materialistic character. We can see how Plato considered Oligarchy to be a less idealistic and more materialistic society than Timocracy. In Greek history, or mythology, we have the era of heroes and aristocrats described by Homer giving way to wealthy merchantman and modern materialism.

(c) Democracy: A state in which any member can participate equally, according to his wishes. He believed that so much freedom and the lack of a upwardly guiding force led to disorder, moral decline, even in the very long term, chaos and tyranny. Today's democracy is representational. Therefore, in theory, if the majority decisions of society are of a high enough quality, and aimed simply at the selection of honourable representatives with a proven track record of success, today's Democracy and Timocracy would conflate. In practise, however, modern representatives are clearly more often shallow embodiments of fickle and factional political parties. In the Timocracy of Sparta the ruling class were democratically elected by the citizens at large, but they had to be of a certain age and standing, and once elected ruled for life (a lifetime tenure, subject to good behaviour, as with the Supreme Court of the United States, imparts subsequent impartiality, ie the tendency to work for the greater good without political motives).

(d) Tyranny: A state with a single ruthless dictator, who maintains rule by force and fear. Society looses all upward push, becomes utterly un-idealistic, ruthless, often perverse and sometimes violent.

For a feeling of life in democratic Athens, consider this quote from Plato's Republic:

Democracy?... In the first place, are they not free, is not the city full of freedom and frankness, a man may say and do what he likes. And where freedom is, the individual is clearly able to order for himself his own life as he pleases. Thus in this kind of State there will be the greatest variety of human natures. This, then, seems likely to be the fairest of States, being an embroidered robe which is spangled with every sort of flower. And just as women and children think a variety of colours to be of all things most charming, so there are many men to whom this State, which is spangled with the manners and characters of mankind, will appear to be the fairest of States... Is not their humanity to the condemned in some cases quite charming. Have you not observed how, in a democracy, many persons, although they have been sentenced to death or exile, just stay where they are and walk about the world -- the gentleman parades like a hero, and nobody sees or cares?... Is not this a way of life which for the moment is supremely delightful...

Eventually we find... complete equality and liberty in relations between the sexes... the father standing in awe of his son, and the son neither respecting nor fearing his parents, in order to assert what he calls independence... the teacher fears and panders to his pupils, who in turn despise their teachers and attendants... You would never believe - unless you had seen it for yourself - how much more liberty the domestic animals have in a democracy. The dog comes to resemble is mistress, as the proverb has it. They are in the habit of walking about the streets with a grand freedom, and bump into people they meet if they don't get out of their way. Everything is full of this spirit of liberty....

What it adds up to is this, you find that the minds of the citizens become so sensitive that the least vestige of restraint is resented as intolerable, till finally, as you know, in their determination to have no master they disregard all laws written or unwritten.

Thus Plato describes how democracy deteriorates. At first it's a light hearted disregard for the ideals of statesmanship and honour, but gradually the decline becomes progressively more serious. Perhaps one could say that Democracy is the most philosophically attractive system, but it fails to take into account the tendency of humans, without upward pressure, to languor and decline.

For a feeling of life in authoritarian Sparta, by contrast, consider this quote about the education of male children:

A child deemed worth raising is given to its mother to be cared for until the age of 7, although during the day, it accompanies its father... picking up Spartan customs by osmosis... Children are barefoot to encourage them to move swiftly, and they are encouraged to learn to withstand the elements by having only one outfit. Children are never satiated with food or fed fancy dishes.

At the age of 7 the boys are organized into divisions 60 strong, living in barracks under the supervision of an elder youth. There they are encouraged to give their loyalty to their fellows rather than their families. They are intentionally underfed and if they want more food must hunt or raid. After dinner, the boys sing songs of war, history, and morality, or the eiren quizzes them, training their memory, logic, and ability to speak laconically. The boys play ball games, ride, swim, wrestle and do gymnastics. They sleep on reeds and suffer floggings -- silently, or they suffer them again.

At 18, the young men become reserve members of the Spartan army. At 20 they become full members and are finally permitted to marry but continue to live in barracks and compete for a place among the the royal guard of honour. Any who do not successfully pass through the agoge [educational system] are denied Spartan citizenship.

Sparta did not produce philosophers like Socrates, historians like Thucydides or artists like Phidias, that was not its goal, instead it produced an idealistic cohesive self sacrificing army of the worlds best and bravest fighters. Fans of Democracy today champion the advanced culture of the Athenians and denigrate the comparatively backward Spartans. But this is to loose site of the historical context of an unsafe world constantly at threat of invasion, also the accusation that the mercenary armies of Athens maraudered whilst her cowardly citizens leisured themselves with the ill gotten gains. In ancient times many of the noblest Athenians considered the Spartan state near ideal. The word "Laconophilia" was coined to indicate love or admiration of Sparta. Classical historians consistently championed Sparta. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (whose political philosophy influenced the French Revolution and the development of modern political and educational thought) contrasted Sparta favourably with Athens in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, arguing that its austere constitution was preferable to the more cultured nature of Athenian life.

The extreme bravery of the Spartans has been immortalised by the film "The 300 Spartans" which tells the story of a small unit who willingly sacrificed their lives by engaging the entire Persian Army. Their formidable fighting prowess blocked the only road through which the massive invading army could pass, delaying the Persian assault for three days, giving the Athenian fleet time to prepare, and possibly saving the entire Greek world from defeat.

It is said that Spartan King Leonidas who commanded the small unit was convinced that the invading army needed to be delayed and he and his men would certainly die in the process. He told his wife who, despite her love for him, encouraged him. As he was leaving she asked what she should do afterwards. He replied "Marry a good man and have good children". The Persian King Xerxes laughed when he saw the small force but his advisers warned him "they are as brave as any man living, and together they are the best warriors on earth". Xerxes sent emissaries offering to make Leonidas ruler of all Greece if he joined with him. Leonidas answered: "If you had any knowledge of the noble things of life, you would refrain from coveting others' possessions; but for me to die for Greece is better than to be the sole ruler over the people of my race". It is said that when one of the Spartan soldiers was told the Persian arrows would be so numerous as "to block out the sun", he responded with a characteristically laconic remark, "so we shall fight in the shade".

We can see that Ancient Greece was a time of intense idealism, personal self sacrifice and social cohesion. Democracy was accused of corrupting this structure, of creating moral decline and cowardice. Perhaps we can say that Plato was a modernist who rebelled against historical traditions and proffered an advanced new values system based on progressive intellectual and spiritual analysis. This elite revolutionary movement began in the democracy of Athens, but the philosophy that took hold of the masses was instead a postmodernism in which traditions were simply discarded without a compensating new value system. As this un-idealistic philosophy took hold society gradually failed, both as a result of internal chaos and Darwinian competition with its neighbours. Some will see a parallel with what they consider to be today’s increasingly rudderless democratic societies. Many Westerners find the self sacrificing idealism of the Chinese people so extraordinary they can only attribute it to government indoctrination.

One of my favourite moral dilemmas which I ask people in both the West and the East is this: Suppose, hypothetically, it was discovered that your blood, and your blood alone, by some genetic anomaly, contained the cure for Aids. Unfortunately, in order to mass produce the cure the government must take your life. Would you volunteer? The majority of people in the West say no. In China almost everyone says yes. This Western moral choice would have been inconceivable both to the old fashioned Spartans and more modern idealists like Plato. I suspect too, that even our great grandparents would have been horrified.

I believe that China's Enlightened Authoritarianism is truly reaching toward the ultimate political system Plato aspired to create. I marvel at the impact of authoritarianism on the pysche of the Chinese people. A highly competitive education system with an emphasis on science is expanding rapidly and now boasts the worlds largest pool of post graduate students. The leadership now deems Classical Music an essential component of the “advanced culture” it vows to create in order to make the country a true great power. Not only is China producing musicians of the highest quality, Classical Music is becoming popular with the masses. Amongst the Chinese people there is a palatable sense of optimism, idealism, hard work and self sacrifice the likes of which we have not seen in the West for many generations. This enviable ethos is a relatively recent phenomena in China, and it is a quality patently lacking in most developing countries.

Film-maker Zhang Yimou principle director of the Chinese Olympic Cerominies spoke of his frustrations when working with New York's Metropolitan Opera. "In one week, we could only work 4 1/2 days, we had to have coffee breaks twice a day, couldn't go into overtime and just a little discomfort was not allowed because of human rights. You could not criticise them either. They all belong to ... unions. We can work very hard, can withstand lots of bitterness. We can achieve in one week what they can achieve in one month." In the segment showcasing the Chinese invention of movable type, the nearly 900 performers who crouched under 18kg boxes donned adult nappies to allow them to stay inside for at least six hours. Despite the sacrifices, performers were grateful for the opportunity to participate in the historic event and viewed it as an honour. In the West we find this behaviour so baffling we write it off as brain washing. No doubt the Athenians felt the same way about Spartan bravery - before they died.

From “China Today”:

In many cultures it is taboo to raise the topic of death in everyday discourse, but this is not the case with the Chinese people. To them life and death are a common conversational topic. Their matter of fact approach is illustrated in the sayings: "Human life is nothing but a stage over which the sun and the moon function as two spotlights"... "Life is not to be rejoiced as death is not to be resented".

This could be construed as negative on the grounds that it encourages hopeless passivity at the prospect and inevitability of death, viewing life as something to be muddled through in the comforting knowledge, as described in the Chinese saying, that "The misery one suffers in life is no worse or greater than the death of their heart". Waiting for the Damocles sword of death to fall and make an end of it means that to be or not to be is no longer a question, as living life this way is in itself a kind of death.

From another point of view, however, the Chinese Daoist attitude toward death can engender a positive life stance. Acceptance of death's inevitability gives rise to a sense of meaning and purpose in the natural passage from birth to death that motivates a person to make the most out of it, treasuring every minute. The knowledge that time is on the wing and can never be recaptured creates a sense of mission and social commitment. The resultant redoubling of effort and hard work so as to live life to the full extends the significance of an existence within society into history. Transcending the mortal limitations that arise from the mystique of death thus makes it possible to handle hardship, difficulty, misery and suffering. This, in turn, creates a particular mindset, most obvious in revolutionaries and religious martyrs, who willingly devote their waking hours to worthy causes and sacrifice themselves for the sake of their ideals. In Confucianism there is also the idealized character junzi (superior man), who is expected to give up his life unthinkingly in the interests of preservation and advancement of humanity. Such a spirit of devotion can arise only from a positive conception of death.

This article mentions also the concept of the “superior man”. Plato’s objections to democracy revolve around the inequality of mankind and the importance of the enlightened few. Christianity, by contrast, teaches equality and utopia, all men are born equal, all good men go to heaven, at death all good men are saved and equalised by the Lord (divine redemption). In Eastern Philosophy we have the exact opposite, man is born the worm and gradually, by reincarnation and spiritual progression, evolves into the eagle (self redemption). Plato also described the qualities of the eagle, a detached intellectual purity, in contrast to the irrational, aberrated, emotional and opinionated worm majority. Plato believed that if worms were allowed to vote they would tend to pull themselves down, but if they were led by an eagle they could spiritually progress.

This eagle-worm active viewpoint was passionately developed by misanthropic Nietzsche. Nazi Germany was inspired by these ideas, but Plato's ideal government aimed to lift the herd toward the guardian class of ubermenschen, not treat them as expendable farm yard animals. Nevertheless, Plato's advanced views on the elimination of the nuclear family, selective human breeding, and the termination of the mentally retarded are a step too far for most modern readers seeped in Christian Morality. It takes eagle like detachment to see through the clinging passive Christian viewpoint and understand the righteousness of the cruel looking detached active opposite. Most readers should instead simply try to accept in good faith that these ideas have arguably superior merit.

Much of the natural animosity towards the Chinese system in Westerners is: (a) An irrational fear of authoritarianism instilled by the bitter memories of Hitler (He was in fact a populist figure chosen by the masses who was despised by the establishment and the elite - a textbook example of Plato's described transformation from a democracy in crisis to a tyranny. By this framework democracy is no safeguard against tyranny, in fact it ensures it!) (b) An unconscious conflict between the prevailing passive Christian morality and the active intellectual viewpoint (c) The threat the active system poses to the ego of the self interested, lazy and stupid majority (Who by failing to understand both their inferior nature and their superior potential are in a state of spiritual regression. Of course this can not continue indefinitely, eventually democracy must collapse).

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Practical Steps Toward The Toning Down Of Democracy

Let us consider the case of the UK. Suppose David Cameron, who is expected to win the next UK general election, understood that the excesses of modern democracy need to be toned down. How could he go about achieving that?

To begin with Cameron would have to win the election with as large a majority as possible. Only once he is in power can the reforms begin. Unfortunately the skills required to win a modern election are exactly the opposite of the skills required to govern well afterwards. Therefore, Cameron would ideally announce his immediate resignation after winning the election and hand over to a successor. Alternatively he must remain in the background after the election, perhaps a PR role with no policy responsibility. It would require a candidate of exceptional brilliance to run a long emotive duplicitous campaign and then turn into a media shy pragmatic intellectual technocrat focused on performance legitimacy. It's unlikely that the electorate would vote for an intellectual technocrat in the UK, even a famous one with a proven track record, unless perhaps he was perceived as exceptionally humble and from working class roots. The US's most successful modern president was Ronal Regan, a simple but charismatic man who delegated most of his responsibility after winning the election.

Once in power it is vital to move very quickly because radical policy is inevitably unpopular initially. Thatcher waited too long before implementing her reforms and would have lost the next election had it not been for the fortuitous Falklands War. Although often unpopular with the electorate during her time, she is now remembered as one of the UK's greatest Prime Ministers. As well as moving quickly it's vital to have the support of ones MPs. Tony Blair came to power in 1997 wanting, amongst other things, to build Nuclear Power Stations. However, in order to win power he was forced to employ MPs capable of attracting the popular vote. Unfortunately these MPs proved very poor technocrats, and his government was characterised by constant dissent and almost no radical reform was actually achieved. Silvio Berlusconi appoints MPs, often female, from TV and Modelling. This is democracy at it's logical limit - politics turned into the sexualised vacuous celebrity entertainment on which the masses most thrive. Berlusconi's MPs have no interest in politics and tow the party line, unfortunately he has still not amassed enough of them to implement the vital reforms every economist knows Italy so desperately needs. Italy, like the US, is a gridlocked democracy, but unlike the US it is still deeply encumbered by the 1970s socialist chains which Regan's government was able to sever.

Cameron's newly elected Conservative party would be well advised to greatly reduce the number of MPs, perhaps from 646 to 100. Extending the electoral cycle to once every ten years instead of once every four years would help a great deal. Abolishing Prime Ministers Question time is a priority, this type of theatrics has no place in sophisticated government. Nor in fact does Parliament, abolish it and move debate online. No more video clips of naughty schoolboys hissing and chanting as points are scored. Government must be run like a business. Can you imagine Shell Plc executives behaving like MPs at their board meeting and then publishing it on You Tube?!

Today's 646 UK MPs are constantly completing with each other for media coverage. In one extraordinary example the MP George Galloway spent 21 days on the controversial reality show Celebrity Big Brother. Shell Plc control all publicity through a special Media Relations Department. So must it be with the new Conservative Party. No more MPs giving interviews to all an sundry, all publicity on message, coordinated and authored by the PR Team. Tony Blair employed the Political Editor of the Daily Mail as his media spokesman. There is nothing wrong with this but the relationship between the Media and the Party needs to be completely rejigged. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword. The goal must be to make politics so boring and so technical that the average man looses all interest. Subsequent elections should not be about policy the average man in ill qualified to judge, instead the party must project an image of responsibility and track record in which the average man places unquestioning confidence.

Other ways to tone down democracy in the UK would be to: Delegate more responsibility to Quangoes - an independent treasury is a popular idea given the tendency of elected governments to run budget deficits. Abolish political parties and introduce single fixed terms for the independent MPs. Punish misleading media coverage of important current affairs to ensure stories are fair and un-sensational. Add a multiple choice examination to the ballot paper and ignore uneducated votes. It sounds controversial and unpopular but begin with referendums and gradually extend. Give the party with the highest share of the popular vote complete power without the circus of representative voting (subject only to the constitution etc).

Full Authoritarian Models in More Detail

The orthodox argue that "power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely", and only democracies are protected against these evils. Although democracies have in fact committed many evils, for example the killing of Native Americans and Aborigines, the orthodox argue that the risk of one all powerful dictator going bad is much higher. Corruption does not lead only to evil, it also, inhibits growth. The heretics acknowledge that authoritarian government has challenges but they propose solutions which they believe are workable. For example, today's authoritarian thinkers do not advocate rule by one all powerful dictator, especially not a dictator who cares about personal financial gain, or a dictator who rules for life.

In fact the focused scientific application of China's definition of legitimacy by an intellectual committee almost precludes corruption because it so de-personalises policy. For example, it makes no difference to the passengers if a train driver is corrupt or perverse because these psychological issues are irrelevant to his work. One early Chinese philosopher, Han Fei Tzu, believed that only law ensures human benevolence, even in the emperor, and these laws must be therefore be supreme even over him. Ideally, if the laws are written well enough and enforced aggressively, there is no need of individual leadership, for the laws alone are sufficient to govern a state. Democracy is almost by definition the antithesis of this de-personalised process, and is therefore deeply prone to human aberration, which is synonymous with incompetence. 

A possible model for the UK is to replace the hereditary and politically appointed Lords with a small number of experts perhaps selected by an international institution such as the IMF. The role of the House of Lords and House of Commons could be swapped so that the elected representatives in the House of Commons would only have the right to veto and propose legislation. Imagine the House of Commons acting as shareholders and the Lords acting as management - "UK Plc". Government departments would be headed by House of Lords members rather than elected politicians. Alternatively the role of the House of Commons could be entirely abolished and the shareholder role could be achieved by democratic referendums.

Material corruption must be safeguarded against, but it is not the only risk. The extreme vanity seen in democratically elected politicians such as Nicolas Sarkozy must be avoided - these elite rulers should have only the barest contact with the media. Board members of public companies do not give unauthorised media interviews, neither should members of the council (besides ensuring against the corrupting influence of vanity, remember that fickle public reaction and focus on the human element ensures the old adage that 'all politicians end in failure'). China's leaders allow themselves to be seen but rarely address the public in emotive ways (The Prime Ministers high profile response to the Earthquake was a controversial exception). Such an auspicious group should be far less likely to commit evil than the masses, and also far more capable of tearing down bureaucracy and maximizing economic growth. Some worry that such an illustrious council would not give sufficient attention to the welfare of the poor, ignorant or lazy etc. However, this issue can be dealt with by feedback from opinion polls, then guidelines and statistical targets. Although the council would no doubt have a tendency towards Utilitarianism (pursuit of the greatest good without care for distribution), compromise is possible.

Injecting competition into rule is also vital - monopolies often stagnate and fail. The UK Judiciary is well known for it's humanity and lack of corruption, but some argue that it is slow to adopt new ideas or respond to change; eg deciding to what extent cherished humanitarian principles should be compromised by the publics increasing intolerance of crime. In addition to limited terms for council members, a constitutional requirement to experiment with policy should be built into government. For example: Is a free market in education supported by vouchers a good idea because it will raise standards or a bad idea because it will concentrate and amplify underachievement? Experimenting with policy and measuring the results is the only certain way to answer these questions. Competition amongst ideas followed by the measurement of their success also provides feedback on the quality of the council members. Thus the council can employ the same tactics as a corporation which promotes or demotes its employees on the basis of their successes and failures.

Enlightened Authoritarianism has its roots in the idea that economic policy today is well understood by experts (but not by the masses). The advancement of society and the pragmatic resolution of the philosophically difficult socialism vs capitalism debate has made it possible. As a result the heretics sometimes envisage an almost global system of enlightened government devoid of nationalistic interest. In the same way that large corporations employ chief executives of any nationality and operate across borders some heretics imagine government working in a similar way. Modern advocates of authoritarianism often touch upon Cosmopolitanism (Cosmopolitanism is the idea that all of humanity belongs to a single moral community and may entail some sort of world government. They believe the boundaries between nations, states, cultures or societies are morally irrelevant).

However, others argue that Enlightened Authoritarianism is all about improving economic efficiency using economic expertise and it should interfere as little as possible with national moral preferences. Indeed frequent referendums for soft issues would help endear the public to authoritarian economic policy. For example: Should Euthanasia be legalised? Let the people decide. Should the names of Sex Offenders be published? Economists don't care. Should Tampons be subject to VAT? The fall in tax revenue can be made up elsewhere. Should the UK host the Olympics? Give the people the numbers and let them choose. However: Should the government be allowed to use compulsory purchase orders to knock down 500,000 existing homes and build something new? Ask for public input, but let the policy experts decide. Should we build Nuclear Plants? Leave this one entirely to the scientists and the economists - it's an important issue and public opinion here is worthless. This idea of soft people power usually results in the outrageously unjust treatment of unpopular minorities, such as men whom have had sex with girls under 16, but it may be a price worth paying.

However, this idea of moral democracy and economic authoritarianism gets more complex. Consider Healthcare. Political gridlock in the USA has left healthcare to the market and the situation is clearly economically undesirable with 16% of GDP (highest in world) going on care despite 25% of the population having no insurance. Universal healthcare looks like the best policy option even on economic grounds so at least this decision is easy. Now turning to the UK: Margaret Thatcher spent approximately 6% of the UK's GDP on healthcare before Tony Blair raised that to 8% much to the satisfaction of most voters. How should the rate be set outside democracy? An economist could calculate the best spend by optimising GDP. Given access to antibiotics death / incapacity levels plunge therefore pushing growth upwards. However, many more expensive treatments are much less likely to be productive. Clearly this is the wrong metric - it's a moral issue as well. However, handing the emotional masses the decision could drive the level irrationally high damaging the economy. It's a very hard problem because we can not get at the utility curves for income vs heath easily - which is what the experts would try to target according to the Chinese definition of legitimacy. Nevertheless, it's far more likely to be solved by a panel of experts and some experimentation than it is by popular political representatives. An aside, on the subject of healthcare: Authoritarian Singapore offers perhaps the worlds most enviable health care system. Total Government plus Private spending comes to just 3.7% of GDP but life expectancy and infant mortality rates outperform the much higher spending US and UK. Why? Supply Side Regulation (see: Health Care in Singapore: What's the Secret?)

Control of the media is a controversial subject connected to authoritarianism. Russia has achieved an authoritarian democracy by controlling the media. It's a interesting system because in the event of real incompetence, North Korea style, no amount of manipulation would prevent the government being ejected. President Musharraf of Pakistan, who described himself as a liberal authoritarian, on the other hand missed few opportunities to extol the virtues of a free press and did more than any leader in Pakistan's history to make that freedom available with his decision to open up the airwaves and allow a mushrooming of cable channels. China exercises considerable control on Chinese content, but English language speakers have access to more or less anything they want. Even many democracies censor some content, for example pornography, paedophilia and information on explosives.

Control of content is probably not an issue one needs to address unless one moves well beyond the simple toning down of democracy. If one does, one can argue that the government has a duty to massage public opinion in an intelligent direction and to inspire it toward a positive viewpoint. Recently the FT reported that 30% of Americans believe, to some extent, in a September 11th CIA conspiracy theory. If this is the consequence of a free press, perhaps Plato would encourage us to find ways to constrain it. It's hard to see Governmental control of the media as worse than Rupert Murdoch control. It all depends on your viewpoint- if you come to believe the government is more enlightened than the self interested private sector then you welcome it's intervention. The complaint against the Russia system is that media censorship may have been used to suppress even reasoned debate of government failure, control of the unthinking masses might be acceptable, but intelligent dissent must be allowed. China seams to have the right approach - you can read what you like if you are smart enough to speak English, and you can say what you like unless it begins to stir up the masses.

Finally it's worth saying that libertarian economic and social policy has contributed to a world primarily driven by mass consumerism built on debt. This model is deeply inefficient. Consumer spending is mostly used as a way to signal status, much of it contributes little to the long term well being of society, and it carries an environmental cost. Too often new consumer goods come onto the market which offer no improvement in functionality, too often vast sums are spend on marketing, economies of scale are damaged, vast sums are wasted on pointless upgrades. Would society suffer if there was just one brand of toothpaste designed by a respected panel of experts? Since the average man has no dental expertise, and the private sector conceals the value of it's products anyway, relying on branding, price, lifestyle images etc, what possible utility comes of giving man a choice in it's purchase, especially when that choice contributes the vast bulk of the product's cost?  As well as consumer goods we have appalling Hollywood moves and the promotion of vacuous celebrates. Would mass consumption, debt, hedonism and low brow entertainment underpin Plato's ideal society? Obviously not.

I believe that the collapse of the the Soviet Economic model was not due to the widespread ownership by government of the means of production, but rather the failure to incentivise the workforce and promote competition between and inside government organisations. To my mind the private sector is a wasteful way to promote creativity and incentive, and a new vastly more efficient structure is possible. I am speaking of the post consumerist enlightened scientific society Thorstein Veblen dreamed of back in 1899. If China is reaching towards this goal then we in West generally misunderstand it entirely, we fail to see that the competitive structure is not a signal of China's gradual transition towards a Western Model, but rather a stepping stone towards a giant vastly efficient State Owned Enterprise which is far closer to a philosophically ideal society. (Further Reading: China State Owned Enterprise)

Restructuring the value systems of society and the role of consumerism goes beyond well the toning down of democracy and takes one truly into the realm of Enlightened Authoritarianism. China's experiments with reviving ancient spiritual and philosophical systems may demonstrate how remarkably ambitious the leadership there is.