12/03 (Tue.) Taiwan's Generational Divide (Host: Dan)
Re: 12/03 (Tue.) Taiwan's Generational Divide (Host: Dan)
Indeed authoritarianism can work more efficient than many if not most democracies. In this aspect, the former is similar to the ancient Chinese empires, where people's destiny depends on the quality of the ruler, which is close to random. And the bottom line of democracy is autonomy, where citizens have a say on their lives, including whether to improve the efficiency of their democracy. Democracies have the potential of being more efficient and peaceful than authoritarianism.
Re: 12/03 (Tue.) Taiwan's Generational Divide (Host: Dan)
That’s a rather positive spin on you put on authoritarianism a couple of days ago, Iris! 
You make it sound almost benign.
Among other things, I’ve heard the argument before that authoritarian government is more efficient than democracies. But it’s not true. It’s a myth.
Sure democracy is messy, but it certainly doesn’t result in chaos (which is defined as “complete disorder and confusion"), even if authoritarian regimes like to tell us that it does. And if you look at the richest countries in the world, they are almost always democracies (The small island state of Singapore is an exception).
Meanwhile, dictatorships spend lots of money controlling their own populations. And corruption almost always runs rampant in countries with authoritarian government, wasting resources while making the leaders rich.
Here’s a short article on why dictatorships are inefficient:
https://www.dandc.eu/en/article/why-dic ... t-us-think
It looks at China, in particular, noting that:
• “Having masses of people controlled by the secret police is expensive, but does not contribute to a nation‘s prosperity.” (China spends more on “internal security” than on national defense).
• “ Oppression discourages every entrepreneur or innovator who does not have a direct mandate from the government.
• “Where public debate is hushed up, policymakers only become aware of social or environmental problems very late – if they don’t prefer to suppress bad news entirely. (An example that comes to mind is the SARS crisis).
• “Corruption thrives in the lack of checks and balances, no matter how noisily the top leaders may claim to be fighting it. (Xi Jinping gets rid of his potential rivals under the guise of fighting corruption.)
This could be a good topic for a YoYo session!
You make it sound almost benign.Among other things, I’ve heard the argument before that authoritarian government is more efficient than democracies. But it’s not true. It’s a myth.
Sure democracy is messy, but it certainly doesn’t result in chaos (which is defined as “complete disorder and confusion"), even if authoritarian regimes like to tell us that it does. And if you look at the richest countries in the world, they are almost always democracies (The small island state of Singapore is an exception).
Meanwhile, dictatorships spend lots of money controlling their own populations. And corruption almost always runs rampant in countries with authoritarian government, wasting resources while making the leaders rich.
Here’s a short article on why dictatorships are inefficient:
https://www.dandc.eu/en/article/why-dic ... t-us-think
It looks at China, in particular, noting that:
• “Having masses of people controlled by the secret police is expensive, but does not contribute to a nation‘s prosperity.” (China spends more on “internal security” than on national defense).
• “ Oppression discourages every entrepreneur or innovator who does not have a direct mandate from the government.
• “Where public debate is hushed up, policymakers only become aware of social or environmental problems very late – if they don’t prefer to suppress bad news entirely. (An example that comes to mind is the SARS crisis).
• “Corruption thrives in the lack of checks and balances, no matter how noisily the top leaders may claim to be fighting it. (Xi Jinping gets rid of his potential rivals under the guise of fighting corruption.)
This could be a good topic for a YoYo session!