Comments, opinions and an occasional ramble
Our One-Party Democracy
The title of this entry was copied word for word from the headline of Thomas Friedman’s op-ed column on the New York Times a few days back, and the reason for borrowing his headline word for word is because it aptly describes the situation here in Singapore too, although there are definitely some differences.
In his column, Friedman acknowledged that a one-party autocracy by an enlightened group of leaders can have enormous benefits for citizens, and he used China as a shining example of the advantages of having a one-party autocracy, contrasting it with the currently dysfunctional (at least in my opinion) two-party democracy in America where the smaller party is constantly obstructing progress for the sake of obstruction while the bigger party is trying to create progress for the country, hence the term one-party democracy.
Actually, the one party democracy Friedman describes is not exactly unworkable. The problem in the United States now is that the Democratic Party is not dominant enough to completely ignore the Republicans. In Singapore, we have a one-party democracy that provides the same benefits as a one-party autocracy as stated by Friedman. Singapore does not have a problem with policy obstructionism simply because the Other is simply too weak to provide any decent challenge.
Does this then mean that a one-party democracy, Singapore style, is the ideal form of governance? Actually, I think so, provided that voters can cause the political pendulum to swing the other way when the need arises, for example, like what has happened in Japan recently. The only dangers in the Singapore-styled one party democracy are acts behind the shadows that are against the values of democracy.
Don’t be mistaken, though. There are great benefits of Singapore’s one-party democracy, but I still believe that the two dominant party democracy of the United States is still slightly better. However, after further contemplation, it really doesn’t matter whether it’s one-party, two-party, multi-party democracy, or even a monarchy, for so long as those in power use their positions to create a better life for everyone in society. At the end of the day, perhaps it’s pointless to argue over which style of governance is best, for everything is moot if those in power possess narrow, selfish interests.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Aaron Ng on 11/09/2009 at 11:16 am, and is filed under Perspective. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 11 months ago
Hi Aaron, not sure if you’ve been getting any of my emails, apologies for contacting you this way if you have (and are not interested). We now have an accumulated audience of over 145,000 unique visitors per month through the network of bloggers incorporating their sites and working with us. Myself and James are still really interested in making you an offer (and Clement if you speak with him and let him know, that would be much appreciated).
Best wishes
Sanj
about 11 months ago
Yeah you are right.
A wise and benevolent king is far better than any “perfect” democracy.
But the problem is, there is no such king.
In the real world we have real people. What we need is a system – any system – where the imperfections of real people, especially those with power – can be curtailed, controlled and limited to minimise the degree of potential damage and harm they can to do to those in their power.
And we ought not to measure any system of governance by any degree of goodness but rather by the degree of badness.
And that is the argument of PAP: anything else apart from the Men in White is worst off for Singapore. However it is just an assertion as yet, and there are no evidence to support their thesis.