Time to think the unthinkable on system of government?

More than one political pundit on Taiwan has come to the reluctant conclusion that under democracy the people have a choice between two kinds of leaders: Competent but corrupt leaders such as Chen Shui-bian and uncorrupt but incompetent leaders such as Ma Ying-jeou.

Their characterization flatters Chen Shui-bian. Chen was hardly a “competent but corrupt leader.” Chen was an incompetent and corrupt leader.

But their characterization is correct in another, far more fundamental sense. Democracy does indeed force the people to choose between the lesser of two evils.

Since democracy forces the people to choose between the lesser of two evils, perhaps it is time the people started thinking about an alternative. Instead of resigning themselves to choosing between the lesser of two evils, perhaps it is time the people started thinking about “self-government,” a political system that would allow them to choose between the better of two goods.

In his landmark book, “The End of History and the Last Man,” establishment political scientist Francis Fukuyama argued that with the end of the Cold War, mankind's millennia-long political journey had reached its final destination. Western liberal democracy was the final form of human government. It would be the last form of government mankind would ever have, and the only form of government adopted by all nation states, East and West, from here to eternity.

“What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but 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,” Fukuyama said.

If the prospect that mankind is going to be stuck with Western liberal democracy, and compelled to choose between the lesser of two evils, from here to eternity depresses you to no end, you are hardly alone.

According to Winston Churchill, Western liberal democracy is “the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.”

1|2|Next Page>>

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email