TR EMERITUS

People vs System or People & System?

Policies can change over time while Constitution should not keep changing. This is because Constitution sets the structure of the system that is supposed to provide the desired and sustainable political environment and conditions for a country, with its unique parameters and context, to strive for the welfare of its people.

My discussion with my friend in Kyoto went around this issue of whether the governance of a 'successful' country is based on the system or the people, or BOTH.

My take away is this:

1) It is possible for an authoritarian government to provide good Governance to enhance progress for the country but is this the "Necessary or Sufficient Condition" for that to happen?

2) It is also possible for an authoritarian government to mess up terribly when the highly concentrated powers made a grave mistake without counterbalance.

3) It is possible for a Democratic government to produce poor governance that resulted in devasting impact on the country.

4) However, a Democratic Government can also produce good Governance to provide progress for the Nation.

5) Corruptions or Corrupt practices occur in both Democratic and Authoritarian Gov.

6) So does it mean that Good Governance depends solely on the People put into power?

My conclusion is:

1) Authoritarian Rule is neither Necessary nor Sufficient Condition for Good Governance.

2) Democratic Government is a Necessary but Insufficient Condition for Good Governance.

The reason is that Good Governance depends on putting Good, Capable and Competent people to run the country via Civil Service.

The Authoritarian Rule alone could not possibly achieve that because Power Corrupts and it eventually develops into nepotism or cronyism.

A Democratic Rule may also develop into nepotism or cronyism if there is no sufficient proper checks and balances in place. Democracy is not just about voting or universal suffrage. It should be more than that.

Democracy ideal is based on the fundamental premise that human beings can change over time from good to bad. It's because Power Corrupts, Absolute Power Corrupt s Absolutely.

It is due to this distrust of human nature that we need to put in place a proper Democratic system that comes with proper Separation of Powers.

Thus, the other necessary condition for Good Governance is a proper system with Separation of Powers plus a system to select Civil Servants from the brightest in the society.

This is normally known as Scholar System.

The Ancient Chinese Dynasties depended on the Scholar System to provide the brightest people to become their administrators. Thus even with an authoritarian rule by the Emperor and the elite Royal family, no matter how incompetent these elites were, the scholar system normally sustain the dynastic rule for hundreds of years.

However, the Scholar System will eventually be corrupted by those in power themselves. Meritocracy is not Elitism.

Singapore is a Country under authoritarian rule with a minimal Democratic features and it depended heavily on the Scholar System aka PSC to sustain the relatively Good Governance.

What we need to change is the nature of One Party authoritarian rule because this is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for Good Governance but will result in a slow evolution of degration due to the lack of proper Separation of Powers plus Checks and Balances.

We will preserve and enhance the independence of our Scholar System so to continue provide Good Competent Governance, but we need to vote in good opposition MPs to check on the ruling party.

Most important of all, we need to reform our governance structure to install Real Separation of Five Powers for sustainable Good Governance for our future generations.

Goh Meng Seng