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李世默《經濟學人》撰文：自由主義民主的失敗與中國道路的崛起
李世默 複旦大學中國研究院谘詢委員會主任 2021-12-11 觀察者網
觀察者網經《經濟學人》授權，獨家首發中文版。
【文/觀察者網專欄作者 李世默】
近些年來，人們都在為民主的狀況敲響警鍾。來自“自由之家”的研究表明，“全球民主已在加速衰落”，即使是美國的民主水平也在“顯著下降”。瑞典V-Dem研究所的研究發現，那些民主水平下降得最為嚴重的國家好多是與美國結盟的。政治社會學家戴雅門（Larry Diamond）警告稱，民主的衰退正麵臨危機狀態，同時新冠疫情把其加劇。針對這一現象，還有不少學者作出分析。政治學家弗朗西斯·福山說，美國政府被精英控製，而美國人民則因文化身份認同問題陷入分裂。當然，也有人幹脆走捷徑：都怪中國和俄羅斯。
而在政治光譜的另一端，那些對民主一向持懷疑態度的人則有些幸災樂禍。俄羅斯外交部長謝爾蓋·拉夫羅夫最近批評西方試圖將民主“強加”給其他國家，結果卻因水土不服而失敗。他呼籲西方停止這種做法。新加坡前外交官和學者馬凱碩指出，美國現在已經開始具有了某些失敗國家的特征。即使是我本人——大約十年前也曾撰文指出中國的政治模式比西方更加優越，不無得意地對民主體製的失敗冷嘲熱諷。
但上述觀點其實都陷入了一個誤區，那就是對民主的定義是錯位的。具體地說，它們錯誤的把自由主義和民主畫上了等號，從而使自由主義民主製度成為了民主治理的唯一形式。這是不對的。
被自由主義包裹的民主模式，也被西方包裝成了民主治理的唯一形式
早在1992年，冷戰結束伊始，自由主義民主迎來了普世化的黃金時代。然而，政治理論家比丘·帕雷克勳爵（Bhikhu Parekh）當時在其文章《自由主義民主的文化特殊性》中寫道，“自由主義民主體製是自由主義化了的民主體製，即民主在自由主義設定的限度內被定義和構建。”他指出，這一結合體大約是在18世紀的歐洲被明確化的，直到第二次世界大戰後，西方才在全世界廣泛推崇這種體製, 其目的是將其作為對抗蘇聯的一種方式。而民主早在古希臘時期就已經出現，遠遠早於自由主義。
更關鍵的是，在“自由主義民主”這對組合中，自由主義才是主導性的老大，民主則是被壓製的。事實上，自由主義是相當敵視民主的，在過去的兩三個世紀裏，自由主義製度曾試圖以各種方式限製民主力量的發展。本著對曆史的嚴謹態度和對理論的客觀態度，我們需要認識到自由主義民主隻是民主的一個分支。
在歐洲啟蒙運動時期，洛克、孟德斯鳩、密爾等自由主義思想家提出了一種開創性的人類社會治理新主張，以自由主義理念為原則，例如個人是社會的基本單位，私有財產神聖不可侵犯，以及法治中的程序至上。現代的自由主義政治體製大多都是基於這些理念發展起來的——選舉產生代議製、分權、新聞自由、 司法獨立——這些理念構成了包括美國憲法在內的大多數自由主義社會的製度基礎。
歐洲啟蒙運動時期的自由主義思想家洛克、孟德斯鳩、密爾（從左往右）
但與此同時，許多自由主義的先驅也指出，自由主義製度的宗旨是為人民帶來福祉。如果沒能實現這一目標，就應該改變這些程序。例如密爾認為，如果公民是文盲的，連參加選舉的資格也可以被限製。
自由主義民主製曾經取得過巨大的成功，尤其是在20世紀下半葉。在那時，自由主義民主製國家為其人民帶來了前所未有的繁榮，以至於包括中國在內的許多國家都試圖效仿西方的諸多實踐，例如市場經濟。然而，當自由之家和V-Dem等機構針對民主水平對各國進行排名時，這些機構的評價標準基本上就是這些國家到底有多嚴格地遵循了自由主義製度的程序。因此，當人們說許多國家的民主正在衰退時，他們實際上是在說自由主義陷入了困境。
那麽自由主義現在為什麽陷入了困境？那是因為在不少國家，自由主義這個“老大”似乎辜負了民主製度這個“小弟”。 自由主義麵臨危機的原因是許多這種體製的國家麵臨死結：持續的不平等，政治腐敗，社會凝聚力喪失，政府和精英機構缺乏公信力以及政府的無能。簡而言之，自由主義沒能帶來民主的結果。
在蘇聯時期，有一個笑話很流行，“我們假裝上班，他們假裝發我們工資”。在許多奉行自由主義的社會，也許人們現在可以說，“我們假裝投票，他們假裝執政。”按照這種發展態勢，“自由主義”一詞可能很快就沒資格與“民主”相提並論了。
古希臘民主形式為西方推崇，但與現代國家的民主並不同
以更寬廣的視野審視國家治理
世界需要一種更好、更包容的方式來衡量民主。用自由主義的一套程序來定義和衡量民主，無論是在曆史上、概念上，還是在當代語境下，都顯得過於狹隘。早在古希臘，當民主率先在西方社會得到實踐時，個人權利、少數權利等概念還沒有被發明出來，那時的民主政治是非自由主義的。這也是柏拉圖和亞裏士多德這兩位非民主派思想家批判民主的原因——他們並不認同其多數主義的本質。選舉也並不是決定誰來成為領導人的唯一方式——事實上，通過抽簽選擇領導人的做法也很常見，同時也符合亞裏士多德對民主的定義。
如今在西方社會，右派和左派分別掀起了民粹主義運動和社會主義運動，目的似乎都是對自由主義的劣跡問責。重新審視民主無疑不是一項簡單的任務，需要展開大量的研究和討論。但我想先拋磚引玉，憑借基本的常識來提出一種新的方法——那就是看結果而不是看程序來評價民主。
在歐美國家掀起的民粹主義和社會主義運動，背後都是自由主義在作祟。圖為美國眾議院議員、“美國民主社會主義者”組織成員亞曆山德裏婭·奧卡西奧-科爾特斯和美國前總統特朗普
民主的終極標準必須是長期滿足絕大多數人的需求。如果選出的一直都是無能的領導人，民眾陷入“選完就後悔”的死循環中，那選舉有什麽用呢？如果獨立的司法係統隻保護富人的利益，那司法獨立有什麽用呢？如果利益集團綁架了分權機製以阻止必要的改革，那分權機製有什麽用呢？如果新聞自由或言論自由侵蝕了社會，使社會陷入到分裂與失能的狀態，那要新聞自由或言論自由有什麽用呢？如果像許多自由主義民主國家那樣，為了保障個人權利而導致數以百萬計的本來可以避免的死亡，正如這次疫情中很多自由主義民主製國家發生的災難，那麽個人權利有什麽用呢？
為了對抗崛起中的中國，美國總統拜登試圖在中美競爭中製造出一種民主與專製的二元意識形態對立。為此，美國當局將在12月9日-10日組織召開一屆由全球民主政體參加的大會，受邀者多達110個。據統計，這111個國家和地區（包括美國自己在內）的人口數量占全世界人口數量的56%，但在這些國家裏死於新冠病毒的總人數是420萬，占全世界總死亡人數的82%。更刺眼的是新冠病毒致死人數最多的三個國家，第一名是東道主美國，他們常常自詡為曆史最悠久的民主國家，卻有78萬人在這場疫情中失去生命；第二位是巴西，有61.5萬人死去；第三名是印度，盡管他們為“全球最大的民主國家”這一稱謂而洋洋自得，在這場疫情中卻已經有47萬人喪生。
作為這次民主峰會隱含針對的目標，中國有14億人口，卻隻有5697人在新冠疫情中逝去。
有人可能會提出反對意見，指責中國比“民主國家”限製了更多的自由。但什麽樣的民主會為了保障少數人不戴口罩的自由而犧牲數百萬人的生命？正因如此，我們可以說自由主義民主辜負了它的人民。
或許，我們可以製定出一套全新的衡量標準，以顯示哪些國家正在取得更民主的結果：大多數人民對本國的領導層和發展方向有多滿意？社會凝聚力如何？人民的生活比以前更好了嗎？人民對自己的未來持樂觀態度嗎？整個社會是否投入足夠的資源以確保子孫後代的福祉？在定義和評估民主時，除了參照狹義的、程序性的自由主義標準，結果也應當成為重要的考量標準。
我要指出的是，從結果上來看，中國的表現並不差。中國固然有自己的問題——例如不平等、腐敗和環境惡化，但政府一直在積極解決這些問題。
這可能就是為什麽民調結果持續顯示絕大多數中國人對國家的治理是基本滿意的。我們現在或許可以這樣認為：中國在發展的過程中為其人民帶來了更富有成效的治理和更民主的結果，用這些實實在在的成果來衡量，當前中國的政治製度比美國的更民主，盡管有所不同。
中國儒家推崇的民本思想，更強調以人為本、以人民為中心
亞伯拉罕·林肯用了最通俗的言辭，總結了民主的特征：“民有、民治、民享”。我敢說，當前的中國政府在這三方麵做得都比美國好。絕大多數中國人認為他們的政府屬於他們，他們生活在一個民主國家。並且，中國的領導人絕大多數都是平凡出身，這是一個事實。而這在美國恰恰相反，許多美國人似乎認為他們的政府被金錢利益所俘獲，由精英寡頭組成。至於"民享"，中國的治理成績也遙遙領先。
在對民主的定義上，世界需要一些多樣性，這會更符合民主的發展曆史（因為曆史上的民主不全是自由主義的），對現實也更加有益。許多發展中國家的經濟發展陷入了停滯，他們需要從僵化的自由主義意識形態中解放出來，嚐試用自己的方式實現本國民主。新的視角和衡量標準對於自由主義社會本身也可能是有益的。
12月2日，“中外學者談民主”高端對話會在北京舉行，外交部副部長樂玉成提出，沒有十全十美、高人一等的民主製度。
與自由主義民主脫鉤
長期以來，自由主義壟斷了民主的定義權和評價權，自由主義者認為他們理所當然是民主的。這可能是許多自由主義政權未能為其人民帶來民主成果的一個原因。如果自由主義國家以實際結果而非程序來作為衡量民主的標準，也可能會推動這些國家實施本國急需的改革。如果自由主義政權能夠再次帶來更民主的成果，全世界也該樂見其成。
“以結果論民主”這個觀點在全世界關於治理的討論中鮮有出現。自由主義社會此前一直在各個層麵倡導多樣性，但對民主模式的多樣性卻連在概念層麵都避而不談。但事實上，民主的理想和實踐有著豐富多彩的曆史。除了非自由主義的雅典民主製，在中國的儒家傳統中存在著長達數個世紀的民主理想和製度實踐，而這同樣不是自由主義的。此時此刻，世界需要進行更多樣化的民主實踐。
我並無意倡導某種特定形式的民主，也不是要推崇多數主義或直接民主——這也不是中國的製度。相反，我建議擴大民主的定義和衡量標準，並使之多元化。中國目前所實行的社會主義民主無疑是一個值得研究的範式，因為這個國家取得了顯著的成功。
美國外交政策學家安妮·瑪麗·斯勞特（Anne Marie Slaughter）最近提出：“美國至少（應該）接受一種可能性，那就是其他形式的政府可能更好。”她進一步建議，我們可以把實現聯合國可持續發展目標作為衡量政府表現的新標準，以此評估哪國政府表現得更好。
我為這樣的好主意點讚！讓我們結束自由主義對民主的定義權和評判權的壟斷，讓豐富多彩的民主百花齊放！
翻頁可參看英文原文
on the failure of liberal democracy and the rise of China’s way
Eric Li
ALARM BELLS are ringing about the state of democracy. Freedom House proclaims the “global decline in democracy has accelerated” and that even in America it has “declined significantly”. Much of the weakening is happening in countries that are aligned with America, according to research by the V-Dem Institute in Sweden. Larry Diamond, a political sociologist, argues that the “democratic recession” has reached a “crisis”, intensified by the pandemic. There are many diagnoses. Francis Fukuyama, a political scientist, believes the American government is captured by elites and the public is divided by cultural identities. And then there are those who always reach for the easy answer, blaming China and Russia.
On the other side of the spectrum, democracy’s sceptics are enjoying a moment of Schadenfreude. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, recently criticised the West’s failed attempts to “enforce democracy” on other countries whose cultures were ill fitted for such political systems and called on them to stop. Kishore Mahbubani, a Singaporean diplomat and scholar, believes America has in some ways “all the attributes of a failed state.” A decade ago even I weighed in, arguing that China’s model is superior to the West—a smug way of saying democracy is doomed.
Yet these pronouncements miss the mark because they share a flawed definition of democracy. To be more precise, they mistakenly equate liberalism with democracy, thereby rendering liberal democracy the only form of democratic governance. This is wrong.
In 1992, at the end of the cold war and beginning of a golden era for liberal democracy’s universalisation, Lord Bhikhu Parekh, a political theorist, wrote in an essay, “The Cultural Particularity of Liberal Democracy”, that “liberal democracy is liberalised democracy: that is, democracy defined and structured within the limits set by liberalism.” This combination, he noted, was crystallised around the 18th century in Europe and was widely championed in practice by the West only after the second world war as a way of opposing the Soviet Union. Democracy itself, in its earliest Western incarnation in ancient Greece, long preceded liberalism.
Moreover, in combination, liberalism was the dominant partner and democracy was subjugated. In fact, liberalism was hostile to democracy. The development of liberal institutions over the past two to three centuries has in many ways consisted of attempts at limiting the power of democracy. If we are to be historically accurate and intellectually honest, we need to recognise that liberal democracy is but one kind of democracy.
During the European Enlightenment, liberal thinkers such as Locke, Montesquieu and Mill proposed revolutionary ideas about how human societies should be governed based on the tenets of liberalism, such as the individual as the fundamental unit of society, the sanctity of private property and the primacy of procedural rule of law. Most modern liberal political institutions were developed with these ideas—representative government based on elections, separation of powers, freedom of the press, an independent judiciary and so on. They are fundamental to America’s constitution and to most other liberal societies.
But at the same time, many liberal forefathers also recognised that the goal of liberal institutions is to deliver happiness to the people. If that outcome is not met, procedures must be changed. According to Mill, even access to voting could be curtailed, say, if a citizen were illiterate.
Liberal democracy had enormous successes, notably in the second half of the 20th century. During that period, liberal democratic countries delivered unprecedented prosperity to their people—so much so that many countries, including China, sought to emulate many of the West’s practices, such as market economics. However when groups like Freedom House and V-Dem rank countries on their levels of democracy, it in essence measures countries on how closely they follow liberal institutional procedures. When people say democracy is receding in many countries, they really mean liberalism is in trouble.
Why is liberalism in bad shape? The reason is that in many places it seems to be failing its junior partner—democracy. Liberal democracy is in crisis mode because so many of these countries face severe problems: persistent inequality, political corruption, collapse of social cohesion, lack of trust in government and elite institutions, and incompetent government. In short, liberalism has been failing to deliver democratic outcomes.
In the Soviet Union there was a popular joke: “We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us.” In many liberal societies, people can turn that around: “We pretend to vote, they pretend to govern.” At this rate, the word “liberal” may soon no longer deserve to be followed by “democracy”.
A broader view of governance
The world needs a better and more inclusive way of evaluating democracy. Defining and measuring democracy by liberal procedures is way too narrow—historically, conceptually and under contemporary conditions. In ancient Greece, when democracy was first practised in the West, democratic politics was rather illiberal. There was no concept of individual or minority rights. That was why Plato and Aristotle—no democrats, both—criticised its majoritarian nature. Elections were not the only way of selecting leaders. Sortition—choosing leaders by lottery—was widely practised and fit Aristotle’s definition of democracy.
In the contemporary West, populist movements from the right and socialist activism on the left seem to be, at least in part, attempts to hold liberalism accountable for not delivering on outcomes. Looking at democracy anew is no easy task and will no doubt take a lot of work and debate. But I venture to propose a common-sense idea: let’s measure democracy not by procedures but by outcomes.
Democracy’s normative goal must be to deliver satisfaction to a vast majority of people over a long period. What good are elections if they keep producing poor leaders with the public stuck in perpetual cycles of “elect and regret”? What good is an independent judiciary if it only protects the rich? What good is separation of powers if it is captured by special interests to block necessary reforms? What good is freedom of the press, or freedom of speech for that matter, if it corrodes societies with division and dysfunction? What good are individual rights if they result in millions of avoidable deaths, as has happened in many liberal democracies during the pandemic?
In its attempt to challenge a rising China, America’s president, Joe Biden, frames this competition as a starkly ideological dichotomy of democracy versus autocracy. With that in mind, the administration is hosting a gathering of democracies on December 9th and 10th, to which some 110 countries or regions invited. A review shows that these 111 places (with the US included) consist of around 56% of the world’s population but had cumulative covid-19 deaths of 4.2m, which is 82% of the world’s total. More glaringly, the three countries with the highest deaths are the host country (780,000), which boasts of being the oldest democracy, Brazil (615,000) and India (470,000), which relishes being the largest democracy.
As for the seeming target of the gathering, China, it has 1.4bn people and just 5,697 deaths from covid-19.
Some may object that this was because China restricted freedoms more than “democracies”. But what kind of democracy would sacrifice millions of lives for some individuals’ freedom not to wear masks? It is precisely in this way that liberal democracy is failing its citizens.
Perhaps it is possible to develop a set of measurements that show which countries are generating more democratic outcomes. How satisfied are most people with their countries’ leadership and directions? How cohesive is society? Are people living better than before? Are people optimistic about their future? Is society as a whole investing enough to ensure the well-being of future generations? Beyond the narrow and procedural-centric liberal definition of democracy, outcomes must be taken into consideration when we define and evaluate democracies.
I would suggest that when it comes to outcomes, China doesn’t score so badly. The country has its problems—inequality, corruption and environmental degradation to name a few. But the government has been tackling them aggressively.
This is probably why a vast majority of Chinese people tell pollsters that they are generally satisfied with how the country is being governed. Can we at least now entertain the idea that China is generating more productive and democratic outcomes for its people and, measured by these concrete results, its political system is more democratic than that of the United States, albeit different, at the moment?
Abraham Lincoln characterised democracy in the most eloquent layman’s term: government of the people, by the people, for the people. I dare say that the current Chinese government outperforms America on all three. Chinese people overwhelmingly believe their government belongs to them and they live in a democracy; and it is a fact that a vast majority of China’s political leaders come from ordinary backgrounds. Quite to the contrary, many Americans seem to believe that their government is captured by monied interests and formed by an elite oligarchy. As for the last part, “for the people”, China is way ahead on outcomes.
The world needs greater diversity in the concept of democracy that is both historically truer (because democracy was not always liberal) and practically more beneficial. Many developing countries have seen their economic growth stagnate. They need to be unshackled from the ideological rigidity of the liberal doctrine and to experiment with their own ways of realising their democratic potential. New perspectives and measurements might help liberal societies as well.
Decoupling liberal democracy
For too long, liberalism has monopolised the concept of democracy and liberals have taken their democratic credentials for granted. This may be one cause for why many liberal governments are failing to deliver democratic outcomes for their people. Being measured not on procedures but on actual performance may be just the spur for liberal countries to implement much-needed reforms. If liberal governments could again deliver more democratic outcomes, so much the better for the world.
This perspective, on the need to judge democracy by its outcomes, is rarely discussed in global debates over governance. Liberal societies champion diversity in just about everything except for diversity in models of democracy, even at a conceptual level. But the reality is that the history of democratic aspirations and practices has been immensely rich and diverse. Besides Athenian democracy being decidedly not liberal, there were centuries of democratic ideals and institutional practices in China’s Confucian tradition—also not liberal. At this point in time, the world is certainly in need of more democratic experiments.
I am not attempting to advocate any particular form of democracy, and certainly am not making a case for majoritarian or direct democracy—which China is definitely not. Rather, I am proposing to broaden and pluralise both the definition and measurements of democracy. China’s current socialist democracy is surely a model worthy of study given the country’s obvious successes.
The American foreign-policy thinker Anne-Marie Slaughter recently argued that the United States should “accept at least the possibility that other forms of government could be better.” She further suggested, as a new measure of governance, that people evaluate which countries are doing a good job at achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
It is a great idea. And the broader point needs to be amplified: end liberalism’s monopoly on democracy—and let more forms of democracy flourish.
Eric Li on the failure of liberal democracy and the rise of China’s way
Democracy comes in many forms. The West’s liberal variety is failing, says a Chinese venture investor, while China’s governance produces better outcomes
The By-invitation section publishes commentaries by outside thinkers from a wide range of perspectives. For a view calling for China to move towards a constitutional democracy, read a commentary by Cai Xia. On the evil that comes from the absence of liberal democracy, read a commentary by Toomas Hendrik Ilves. More By-invitation pieces are here.
ALARM BELLS are ringing about the state of democracy. Freedom House proclaims the “global decline in democracy has accelerated” and that even in America it has “declined significantly”. Much of the weakening is happening in countries that are aligned with America, according to research by the V-Dem Institute in Sweden. Larry Diamond, a political sociologist, argues that the “democratic recession” has reached a “crisis”, intensified by the pandemic. There are many diagnoses. Francis Fukuyama, a political scientist, believes the American government is captured by elites and the public is divided by cultural identities. And then there are those who always reach for the easy answer, blaming China and Russia.
On the other side of the spectrum, democracy’s sceptics are enjoying a moment of Schadenfreude. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, recently criticised the West’s failed attempts to “enforce democracy” on other countries whose cultures were ill fitted for such political systems and called on them to stop. Kishore Mahbubani, a Singaporean diplomat and scholar, believes America has in some ways “all the attributes of a failed state.” A decade ago even I weighed in, arguing that China’s model is superior to the West—a smug way of saying democracy is doomed.
Yet these pronouncements miss the mark because they share a flawed definition of democracy. To be more precise, they mistakenly equate liberalism with democracy, thereby rendering liberal democracy the only form of democratic governance. This is wrong.
In 1992, at the end of the cold war and beginning of a golden era for liberal democracy’s universalisation, Lord Bhikhu Parekh, a political theorist, wrote in an essay, “The Cultural Particularity of Liberal Democracy”, that “liberal democracy is liberalised democracy: that is, democracy defined and structured within the limits set by liberalism.” This combination, he noted, was crystallised around the 18th century in Europe and was widely championed in practice by the West only after the second world war as a way of opposing the Soviet Union. Democracy itself, in its earliest Western incarnation in ancient Greece, long preceded liberalism.
Moreover, in combination, liberalism was the dominant partner and democracy was subjugated. In fact, liberalism was hostile to democracy. The development of liberal institutions over the past two to three centuries has in many ways consisted of attempts at limiting the power of democracy. If we are to be historically accurate and intellectually honest, we need to recognise that liberal democracy is but one kind of democracy.
During the European Enlightenment, liberal thinkers such as Locke, Montesquieu and Mill proposed revolutionary ideas about how human societies should be governed based on the tenets of liberalism, such as the individual as the fundamental unit of society, the sanctity of private property and the primacy of procedural rule of law. Most modern liberal political institutions were developed with these ideas—representative government based on elections, separation of powers, freedom of the press, an independent judiciary and so on. They are fundamental to America’s constitution and to most other liberal societies.
But at the same time, many liberal forefathers also recognised that the goal of liberal institutions is to deliver happiness to the people. If that outcome is not met, procedures must be changed. According to Mill, even access to voting could be curtailed, say, if a citizen were illiterate.
Liberal democracy had enormous successes, notably in the second half of the 20th century. During that period, liberal democratic countries delivered unprecedented prosperity to their people—so much so that many countries, including China, sought to emulate many of the West’s practices, such as market economics. However when groups like Freedom House and V-Dem rank countries on their levels of democracy, it in essence measures countries on how closely they follow liberal institutional procedures. When people say democracy is receding in many countries, they really mean liberalism is in trouble.
Why is liberalism in bad shape? The reason is that in many places it seems to be failing its junior partner—democracy. Liberal democracy is in crisis mode because so many of these countries face severe problems: persistent inequality, political corruption, collapse of social cohesion, lack of trust in government and elite institutions, and incompetent government. In short, liberalism has been failing to deliver democratic outcomes.
In the Soviet Union there was a popular joke: “We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us.” In many liberal societies, people can turn that around: “We pretend to vote, they pretend to govern.” At this rate, the word “liberal” may soon no longer deserve to be followed by “democracy”.
A broader view of governance
The world needs a better and more inclusive way of evaluating democracy. Defining and measuring democracy by liberal procedures is way too narrow—historically, conceptually and under contemporary conditions. In ancient Greece, when democracy was first practised in the West, democratic politics was rather illiberal. There was no concept of individual or minority rights. That was why Plato and Aristotle—no democrats, both—criticised its majoritarian nature. Elections were not the only way of selecting leaders. Sortition—choosing leaders by lottery—was widely practised and fit Aristotle’s definition of democracy.
In the contemporary West, populist movements from the right and socialist activism on the left seem to be, at least in part, attempts to hold liberalism accountable for not delivering on outcomes. Looking at democracy anew is no easy task and will no doubt take a lot of work and debate. But I venture to propose a common-sense idea: let’s measure democracy not by procedures but by outcomes.
Democracy’s normative goal must be to deliver satisfaction to a vast majority of people over a long period. What good are elections if they keep producing poor leaders with the public stuck in perpetual cycles of “elect and regret”? What good is an independent judiciary if it only protects the rich? What good is separation of powers if it is captured by special interests to block necessary reforms? What good is freedom of the press, or freedom of speech for that matter, if it corrodes societies with division and dysfunction? What good are individual rights if they result in millions of avoidable deaths, as has happened in many liberal democracies during the pandemic?
In its attempt to challenge a rising China, America’s president, Joe Biden, frames this competition as a starkly ideological dichotomy of democracy versus autocracy. With that in mind, the administration is hosting a gathering of democracies on December 9th and 10th, to which some 110 countries or regions invited. A review shows that these 111 places (with the US included) consist of around 56% of the world’s population but had cumulative covid-19 deaths of 4.2m, which is 82% of the world’s total. More glaringly, the three countries with the highest deaths are the host country (780,000), which boasts of being the oldest democracy, Brazil (615,000) and India (470,000), which relishes being the largest democracy.
As for the seeming target of the gathering, China, it has 1.4bn people and just 5,697 deaths from covid-19.
Some may object that this was because China restricted freedoms more than “democracies”. But what kind of democracy would sacrifice millions of lives for some individuals’ freedom not to wear masks? It is precisely in this way that liberal democracy is failing its citizens.
Perhaps it is possible to develop a set of measurements that show which countries are generating more democratic outcomes. How satisfied are most people with their countries’ leadership and directions? How cohesive is society? Are people living better than before? Are people optimistic about their future? Is society as a whole investing enough to ensure the well-being of future generations? Beyond the narrow and procedural-centric liberal definition of democracy, outcomes must be taken into consideration when we define and evaluate democracies.
I would suggest that when it comes to outcomes, China doesn’t score so badly. The country has its problems—inequality, corruption and environmental degradation to name a few. But the government has been tackling them aggressively.
This is probably why a vast majority of Chinese people tell pollsters that they are generally satisfied with how the country is being governed. Can we at least now entertain the idea that China is generating more productive and democratic outcomes for its people and, measured by these concrete results, its political system is more democratic than that of the United States, albeit different, at the moment?
Abraham Lincoln characterised democracy in the most eloquent layman’s term: government of the people, by the people, for the people. I dare say that the current Chinese government outperforms America on all three. Chinese people overwhelmingly believe their government belongs to them and they live in a democracy; and it is a fact that a vast majority of China’s political leaders come from ordinary backgrounds. Quite to the contrary, many Americans seem to believe that their government is captured by monied interests and formed by an elite oligarchy. As for the last part, “for the people”, China is way ahead on outcomes.
The world needs greater diversity in the concept of democracy that is both historically truer (because democracy was not always liberal) and practically more beneficial. Many developing countries have seen their economic growth stagnate. They need to be unshackled from the ideological rigidity of the liberal doctrine and to experiment with their own ways of realising their democratic potential. New perspectives and measurements might help liberal societies as well.
Decoupling liberal democracy
For too long, liberalism has monopolised the concept of democracy and liberals have taken their democratic credentials for granted. This may be one cause for why many liberal governments are failing to deliver democratic outcomes for their people. Being measured not on procedures but on actual performance may be just the spur for liberal countries to implement much-needed reforms. If liberal governments could again deliver more democratic outcomes, so much the better for the world.
This perspective, on the need to judge democracy by its outcomes, is rarely discussed in global debates over governance. Liberal societies champion diversity in just about everything except for diversity in models of democracy, even at a conceptual level. But the reality is that the history of democratic aspirations and practices has been immensely rich and diverse. Besides Athenian democracy being decidedly not liberal, there were centuries of democratic ideals and institutional practices in China’s Confucian tradition—also not liberal. At this point in time, the world is certainly in need of more democratic experiments.
I am not attempting to advocate any particular form of democracy, and certainly am not making a case for majoritarian or direct democracy—which China is definitely not. Rather, I am proposing to broaden and pluralise both the definition and measurements of democracy. China’s current socialist democracy is surely a model worthy of study given the country’s obvious successes.
The American foreign-policy thinker Anne-Marie Slaughter recently argued that the United States should “accept at least the possibility that other forms of government could be better.” She further suggested, as a new measure of governance, that people evaluate which countries are doing a good job at achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
It is a great idea. And the broader point needs to be amplified: end liberalism’s monopoly on democracy—and let more forms of democracy flourish.
_____________
Eric Li is a venture capitalist, political scientist and founder of the Chinese news site Guancha.cn. He serves on the boards of numerous organisations, including International Institute for Strategic Studies, Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business (where he earned an MBA) and the China Institute at Fudan University (where he received a PhD in political science).
Read more:
This article is part of a series of By-invitation commentaries on the future of democracy. Others include:
Toomas Hendrik Ilves on why liberal democracy matters
Cai Xia on why China’s one-party system holds back the country
Also, read The Economist’s Chaguan column on “China says it is more democratic than America”
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