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Indian democracy loses to Chinese efficiency - by 160 votes

One of the best threads on the forum, thanks to everybody who posted on this thread.

Where is the comparison between a democracy & a one party regime ?

If you read the article carefully the comparison is actually about the efficiency of the different political system.

The competition is about "delivering" - for all of us regardless of our nationality or particular ethnicity, in my opinion, it is Efficiency and Whether or not the system Delivers.

What is "Delivers"? Allowing people to create lives of dignity, allowing people to struggle to create into reality their best wishes for their family -- We should be looking at economic policies that have had the best and worst impacts on peoples ability to carve out lives of dignity, rather than esoteric debates about Democracy verus whatever, because if Democracy is understood as representative governance and the smooth transfer of power, there is little difference between the two, so which economic policies, social polices, have delivered?
 
If they are not contributing anything to the society, then why the society as a whole should be bothered by them other than give humanitarian aids. They should not ask the society and the government for anything other than charity and mercy.[/QUOTE
Agreed however. Not any one will want to be in that situation being a liability to the state. Its more to do with the skill and capability , that is lacking capability to contribute, while the state can give humanitarian aid. their right to express their opinions should be respected. ( This is just my opinion and probably it may not be true in real sense of the world but thats what the ideal situation should be).

Thanks
 
One of the best threads on the forum, thanks to everybody who posted on this thread.



The competition is about "delivering" - for all of us regardless of our nationality or particular ethnicity, in my opinion, it is Efficiency and Whether or not the system Delivers.

What is "Delivers"? Allowing people to create lives of dignity, allowing people to struggle to create into reality their best wishes for their family -- We should be looking at economic policies that have had the best and worst impacts on peoples ability to carve out lives of dignity, rather than esoteric debates about Democracy verus whatever, because if Democracy is understood as representative governance and the smooth transfer of power, there is little difference between the two, so which economic policies, social polices, have delivered?

While I agree with you that it is about delivering. I believe we should be talking more on "how". A Autocratic or Democratic system which would result in better efficeincy and satisfaction of the people.

China and India Both have been doing well in delivering at their levels and in their system ( India looks more chaotic but trust me it is delivering). The method with which they do is important , because in the long run they both will have to make some changes in their system to sustain the growth. Both the system are good and work well for them for now but for sure they are are far from perfect, Becaus if they continue with the same system without working towards changes in future while Common Indianswill get frustrated with poor execution and endless wait, Common Chinese will get restless for more say.
 
To be very true there is no effficeincy which i see here.
China growing by 10 percent.... India growing by 9 percent.
so what is the difference just 1 percent.

and considering all the hardships that the chinese go through and all the restrictions placed on them by the one party govt...for what just 1 percent extra...! is that efficiency...NO IT SEEMS MORE AS INEFFICIENCY.
coz for so much hardships and so much pain and restrictions and lack of freedom... for it to be justified Chinas rate of growth should be at least 50-60% greater then India say around 15-16% which is not the case.

So the lack of freedom and lack of rights is no way way worth just 1 percent. and that too considering that in next decade India can leave China behind in growth rates, then what will be the benefit of all the restrictions and lack of freedom..??
 
Democracy CANNOT be compared to Communist. (Words from an ordinary Guy).
 
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If you read the article carefully the comparison is actually about the efficiency of the different political system. It is not about protecting human rights or any of those idealogical mambo jumbos. It is about how to achieve one's goal in the long run.

Last time China had a goal they murdered a 100 million Chinese because they did not protect human rights or any of those idealogical mambo jumbos.

The Black Book of Communism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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To be very true there is no effficeincy which i see here.
China growing by 10 percent.... India growing by 9 percent.
so what is the difference just 1 percent.

and considering all the hardships that the chinese go through and all the restrictions placed on them by the one party govt...for what just 1 percent extra...! is that efficiency...NO IT SEEMS MORE AS INEFFICIENCY.
coz for so much hardships and so much pain and restrictions and lack of freedom... for it to be justified Chinas rate of growth should be at least 50-60% greater then India say around 15-16% which is not the case.

So the lack of freedom and lack of rights is no way way worth just 1 percent. and that too considering that in next decade India can leave China behind in growth rates, then what will be the benefit of all the restrictions and lack of freedom..??

Efficiency is not just about GDP growth. It is about how efficient the country can get thing done if the goal is set.

Also one year's difference is meaningless in this comparison, even with 1% difference cumulatively it will make a huge gap between the two.

About next decade India take over China in growth, that is yet to be proven. So it is still wishful thinking.

030610-Per-Capita-GDP-for-China-and-India-equitymaster.gif

indiachina.gif


India-China Growth Rate Comparison
 
@ Chauism.. BTW I loved your signature quote..It is truly inspiring..

Sorry for getting off topic. couldn't resist.

The quote was from a speech of Chinese premier Wen Jiabao during one of the Chinese version of State of Union. Personally I don't like him that much, but this quote is indeed very inspiring actually not only to Chinese, but should also have its implication for Indian as well.
 
Last time China had a goal they murdered a 100 million Chinese because they did not protect human rights or any of those idealogical mambo jumbos.

The Black Book of Communism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The highlighted part pretty much sums up about you.


WORLD VIEW
Fareed Zakaria
China Shouldn’t Be Inscrutable

To say that this new China is the same as the old is to be utterly ignorant or ideological—perhaps both.

With the Beijing Olympics starting at the end of this week, you might think this would be an occasion for serious analysis and reflection about China—how to understand the country and its changing society, how to handle the regime. Instead, we've mostly heard a familiar recitation of clichés. Conservatives rail against a "rising autocracy" and exaggerate China's military strength. Republican Sen. Sam Brownback went to Beijing and discovered—surprise!—that the Chinese government engaged in espionage. He fumed to CNN that the authorities could "listen to anybody and everybody and their communications and their recordings." One month earlier the senator had enthusiastically voted for the FISA Amendments Act, which allows the U.S. government to do pretty much the same thing.

China bashing is not just a right-wing phenomenon. The New Republic, mostly left of center, ran a cover story last month with the headline, MEET THE NEW CHINA (SAME AS THE OLD). Inside, the magazine thundered that "our ultimate solidarity" should lie not with the "odious government" in Beijing but "the billion long-suffering men and women of the world's largest dictatorship."

Except that Chinese people (who, by the way, number 1.3 billion, not 1 billion) seem to disagree. About the same time as The New Republic hit the stands, the Pew Research Center released the findings of its 2008 Global Attitudes Survey. Of the 24 countries surveyed, the Chinese people expressed the highest level of support for the direction in which their country was heading, 86 percent. Nearly two out of three said that the Beijing government was doing a good job on issues that mattered to them. The survey questioned more than 3,212 Chinese, face to face, in 16 dialects across the country. And while Chinese might not always speak freely to pollsters, several indications suggest that these numbers express something real. Such polls have been done for years and the numbers approving of the Chinese government have risen as the economy has grown (which should be expected). Those polled did complain about corruption, environmental degradation and inflation. And these attitudes—general approval of the country's direction coupled with many specific criticisms—are also the ones reported by most scholars and journalists who have traveled in China.

China is a complicated country. It has a closed political system but an open economy and an increasingly vibrant society. It is building up weapons systems at a fast clip, yet is not directly competing against American military power. It has been helpful in the negotiations with North Korea but callous in shielding Robert Mugabe and the Sudanese regime. Capturing these realities is difficult, but still we have to try. To say that this new China is the same as the old (meaning Mao's totalitarian state) is to be ignorant or ideological, or both. It is not an accident that many ferocious China bashers have rarely visited the country.

This ignorance of today's China has serious policy consequences. We don't understand how the country works. We don't know what to make of the views of the Chinese people ("our true allies" The New Republic tells us), who are more aggressive than their government on many issues, including Taiwan and Tibet, and who often seem more anti-American. A recent essay in The New Yorker by Evan Osnos brilliantly captures the complexity of the rise of nationalism in China—simultaneously Western and anti-Western—through the eyes of one intellectual, an expert in Western philosophy, who is also the creator of a wildly popular nationalist Web video.

The collapse of the Dohatrade round—the first breakdown of global trade talks since the 1930s—is vivid evidence that we have not found a way to partner with newly rising powers like China and India. If this pattern of misunderstandings, disunity and stalemate continues, there will be little progress on all kinds of urgent global issues—energy, food, environment, human rights, security.

There is enough blame to go around for the collapse of Doha. The Indians, Chinese and Americans were too obstinate in protecting their farmers. But the United States and Europe have not adjusted to the new balance of power. The last set of trade talks, in Cancún, was derailed by Brazil. These were blocked largely by India. (Dealing with these democracies has often proved as complex as with the Chinese dictatorship.) Our impulse is to criticize these countries for all their shortcomings, but in fact our goal should be the opposite. We should be making them feel empowered so they see themselves as rule makers, not free riders on the global system.

The greatest failure of Western foreign policy since the cold war ended has been a sin of omission. We have not pursued a foreign policy toward the world's newly rising powers that aims to create new and enduring relations with them, integrate them into existing structures of power and lay out new rules of the road to secure peace and prosperity. If the emerging countries grow strong outside the old order, they will freelance and be unwilling to help build a new one. The new world might well be the same as the old—the 19th-century world, that is, marked by economic globalization, political nationalism and war.
Fareed Zakaria: How to Handle China - Newsweek
 
Thanks guys for your excellent points re local governance.

I am aware local democratic elections ain't going to solve the problem overnight, and the record for village elections are mixed in China, and rest of the developing world all have the same problem.

But I do think we're at a turning point now, with rapid urbanization and rise of the Internet and citizen reporting. China has a reasonably high Internet penetration rate for a country at its stage of development and in the last few years citizen journalism has uncovered countless crimes and injustices committed by local governments (to the point I sometimes prefer not to visit major Chinese portals or forums because it's just too depressing to read about all those abuses. Western reports on China are far more superficial hence more rosy).

Urbanization will also help in this regards, like Sherlock Holmes once remarked to Dr Watson, the worst crimes are often committed in pastoral countryside and isolated villages. With people from nearby villages coming to one town or city, that's bound to be conflicts and it's important to establish some democratic process and let everyone has their voices heard. Rapid urbanization and growth of new population centers will mean a single faction or special interests will unlikely to be able to have the population under their thugocratic control from day one. Encouraging these different factions and interest groups to settle their difference in a transparent political process is a great way to introduce democracy, civil society and improve local governance.

I think we should begin more meaningful political and juridical reform in, say, next 5 years. In 10-15 years time, China will reach the development level in which South Korea and Taiwan first became democratic (8000ish GDP per capita). We'll be in real trouble if no major reform has been carried out by then.

An interesting fact that sometimes get overlooked is, no son or daughter of the last and current generation of Chinese leadership has gone into politics. Instead they're all in business. Perhaps the top leaders sensed something?
 
They may not be able to read your link Captain. Remember "The Great Fire Wall of China".

Generally Chinese censors only blocks Web2.0 sites like Twitter and Facebook. People in China can read Wikipedia, NY Times, BBC or Times of India without problems.
 
Good thought, but what happens to the one who is unproductive and has no capacity to earn the right. Isn't his/ her will and wish not important.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson declared that "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
 
In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson declared that "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

All men are created equal except blacks, native indians and women. This only applied to white men when he wrote it.
 

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