Authoritarianism

Regarding yesterday’s semi-rant on Singapore’s government system, I think this article sums up my opinion really well: Benevolent Dictatorship: Is there such a thing?

First of all, let’s say, Democracy is a system founded on the premise that (1) absolute power corrupts individuals and institutions and that (2) representation dilutes power and therefore mitigates the corruptive tendencies of governing entities. In essence democracy is founded on an innate acknowledgement that individuals can never be truly 100% “benevolent”.

(Note that the term “corruption” is used in the broader sense of a degradation of the effectiveness of a functional entity).

Let’s also say that democratic processes are costly in terms of (1) administrative resources — i.e. conduct elections and maintain legislative bodies, (2) weakening of continuity of strategic vision — i.e. because of interruptions and changes in leadership, and (3) complications to decision-making specially during crisis circumstances.

In the end, I believe that pure democracy is nonsense and goes against the very concept of governance. To be led by a higher instutition of power is to lose part of your freedom. You can’t have both; only a balance between the two. See… you elect capable people to lead you because they are supposed to be more capable than the average Joe. If you then give every average Joe the right to throw monkey wrenches into the functioning of the leadership, then you defeat the point of having a capable leader in the first place.

That said, I think Singapore on the other extreme has gone too far in the opposite direction. PAP is fine and dandy and all, but I still feel better if there’s at least some fail-safe in the form of a viable opposition. Without opposition, the government can do anything it likes as long as it’s not serious enough to warrant an all-out popular uprising… (then again, we have no way of carrying that out either…)