Upon return from Singapore, Bryan Caplan writes:
Singaporean bureaucrats are less afraid to criticize their government than American bureaucrats are to criticize theirs. Neither group would be afraid of legal punishment; but the Americans would be more worried that saying the wrong thing would hurt their careers.
Why is that? Commenter Devin Finnbar writes:
I believe it. Tocqueville noted that American democracy had less free speech than the European monarchies, because of the overwhelming social pressure to say the right thing.
I find this fascinating. Let me see if I can flesh out this idea a bit more.
In a democracy, policy shifts due to shifts in public opinion. Random changes in public opinion won’t do. They have to be coordinated. Opinion is coordinated through signaling and sanctions, both subtle and unsubtle. So, in a democracy, stating an opinion is a move in a delicate coordination game. There is a lot of pressure to be on the team. Coalition democratic politics is largely about trying to sabotage the other side’s attempts at solving the opinion-coordination problem. If you are a bureaucrat, you will be especially sensitive to the demands of conformity and solidarity in producing policy change, so you will tend to toe the line. You probably won’t think about this strategically. People whose sincere opinions tend to track the needs of their political coalition will be trusted within political coalitions, and will tend to get assigned to desirable government jobs.
In a Singapore-style technocracy, public opinion is just one of many constraints to take into account in formulating policy. But then public opinion can’t serve as the basis for a sense of the legitimacy of a policy or a policymaker. If the technocrat actually cares about legitimacy, then she probably cares a lot about effectiveness. The reason its okay to go over the heads of the people is that what you’re doing actually works to make them better off. Additionally, if you’re a bureaucrat, have a good idea, and can argue for it, it just might become policy. Especially if you are willing to let your boss take credit for it. In a well-functioning technocracy, status accrues to people who produce new ideas for effective policy.
So bureaucrats in a technocracy will be motivated to explore ideas, while bureaucrats in a democracy will be motivated to signal and recruit fidelity to the coalition’s pre-assigned ideas. Free-thinking exploration could spell defeat!
Some related thoughts:
- The glacial nature of shifts in democratic public opinion are part of what kept the U.S. from adopting more heavily socialist policies mid-century.
- Implementing the policies best supported by the social-scientific consensus once meant “economic planning,” and that is bound to fail for familiar reasons. But the fact that those reasons are familiar explains why technocracy is now less likely to fail.
- Milton Friedman claimed that capitalism and freedom are inextricably linked. If this is an empirical and not a conceptual claim, we could find that this is false if politically free people again and again choose against economic freedom, or if the rulers of politically unfree countries show some tendency to choose policies of economic freedom.
- In principle, free-market technocracies seem dangerously unstable in ways liberal democracies do not. But that doesn’t imply a free-market technocracy can’t have a good run before becoming captured by malign forces. How much will it matter to people in democracies that their liberties are more secure in the long run if it comes to pass that a technocracy on a heater is actually producing 3x the democracy’s per capita income?
- In that scenrio, “Canadian citizen living in Singapore” will dominate “Canadian citizen living in Canada” or “Singapore citizen living in Singapore.” Why not live in the richest jurisdiction as long as you can always retreat to the freest if things go south?
- Singapore can’t absorb a ton of Americans or Canadians, but China could. If China becomes a huge Singapore, do liberal democracies develop a brain drain problem? Could this push democracies toward freer market policies and vindicate Friedman in the end?
Your last two points touch on the important issue of free entry and exit. I think that the answer to what happens in the future is very different without those.
Technically, a ton of Americans is only about 10-12 of them. A ton of Canadians is maybe 12-15 people. So I think Singapore could wasily absorb several tons of us, including all of our stuff. But your point is well taken.
“Opinion is coordinated through signaling and sanctions, both subtle and unsubtle. So, in a democracy, stating an opinion is a move in a delicate coordination game. There is a lot of pressure to be on the team.“
The pressure of civil society's social networks to conform even against your own life interest is profound. We tend to underestimate it until it becomes stark, as currently in India for example. In parts of India, people are starving, and the government ignores them.
Why don't the starving toss the do-nothing fat-cats of the BJP party out of office? India is a democracy, right? The BBC quotes a citizen: “Village elder Budhia Pati says they will vote for the party their neighbours do. Somebody has even told her that if she votes for Congress she would not be able to sell firewood any longer.”
They will starve before they defect. We should think about this.
If this is an empirical and not a conceptual claim, we could find that this is false if politically free people again and again choose against economic freedom, or if the rulers of politically unfree countries show some tendency to choose policies of economic freedom.
Well, people who are now free choosing policies that will end up making them less free or unfree doesn't argue against Friedman's point of the two states being related, does it?
He doesn't (in your retelling; I haven't seen the original in its context) claim that the inextricable link between the two freedoms causes them to invariably support the other, in my reading, so much as claim that without the one you won't have the other (in the long run), or conversely, if going from a state where one has neither, gaining one freedom will lead to gaining the other or to the gained one being quashed.
In other, simpler, words, I read his claim as one that the combination of political freedom and economic unfreedom or political unfreedom and economic freedom is unstable and will revert to either neither freedom or both as an equilibrium state.
> If China becomes a huge Singapore, do liberal democracies develop a brain drain problem?
China is functionally (but non-maliciously) xenophobic. Foreigners would be incessantly aware that they are The Other. (Like how Japan treats resident aliens, but less maliciously, with less cruelness.) This is a huge psychic toll, over time.
Also – in a Latin American junta, if you fall on the wrong side of a political dispute, your dismembered trunk could be found on the side of a rural road. In China, you would maintain your corporal integrity, but your life would still become very unpleasant. I will keep my brain-pan and contents in a western liberal democracy, thank you very much, and not drain it on Chinese soil. My grasping for wealth has some limits.
This is interesting. I live in Shanghai, so I've had a chance to observe Chinese technocracy first hand. The Chinese- especially in Shanghai- are amazingly efficient at bureaucratic and “people processing” work. The mass transit system, the immigration authority, the telecommunications system, the high-end medical centers- all perform at a level beyond what you would see in urban America.
Likewise, it's interesting to observe what political issues and topics are taboo- and which ones people freely voice their opinion on. If you have a room full of Chinese and start talking about a domestic or economic issue, you'll have a room full of different opinions. Same way if you talk about a major politician (other than Mao, who has been turned into more of a mythological character than a real person, but that's another topic altogether). On the other hand, if you bring up an international issue or an issue related to the stability and integrity of the country (Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang Independence, Tiananmen Square, Falun Gong)- everyone, regardless of their opinion of the communist party, the government, etc.- tends to fall in line and speak with a single voice.
This demonstrates that China is in many ways in an opposite place from America. They're becoming highly innovative and daring in their managerial and economic approaches, but extremely conservative in their political views where national image and stability are concerned. This seems like a natural outgrowth of both their post-colonial legacy and their extremely competitive, hierarchical society.
As for manuelg's statement, I agree and disagree. It is true that as a foreigner in China, you're always a foreigner- “laowai”. You're never going to fit in in Beijing, Xi'an, or any number of Chinese cities or villages. On the other hand, Shanghai is being turned into (perhaps “back into”) China's international city- it's being specifically re-made as a haven for foreign capital, both financial and, increasingly, human. It's possible for a westerner to come here on a standard tourist visa, find work, and convert to a work visa/residence permit fairly easy (China has a very low bar for work visas- proof of employment and proof of education, along with a medical exam and a small fee, is the only requirement). While “brain drain” to China seems unlikely, “brain drain” to specific international enclaves- city-states like Hong Kong (pop 7 million, twice the size of Singapore), or massive “international cities” like Shanghai (pop 23 million, almost eight times the size of Singapore) seems like a very real possibility.
If China wants to make this happen, though, it will take more reforms. Shanghai will need a more liberal media, more autonomy, an increased civic role for foreigners, as well as a much better pay scale (the PCGDP in Shanghai is still only about $7500 by exchange value- $16000 by PPP; it's not competitive with the US, Canada, Hong Kong or Singapore yet) before it can really become a global player for talent and start bringing over foreigners (other than the general managers, journalists, teachers and doctors that are currently here). If this happens, though, Shanghai could become as good a place as any for an enterprising person from anywhere in the world to come build a life (and a few already are).
“In a Singapore-style technocracy, public opinion is just one of many constraints to take into account in formulating policy. But then public opinion can’t serve as the basis for a sense of the legitimacy of a policy or a policymaker.”
This is absolutely true. Sometimes we even make a virtue of imposing unpopular policies (that is, unpopular in the short run) for the longer term 'good'.
“In principle, free-market technocracies seem dangerously unstable in ways liberal democracies do not.”
The reverse is also true.
Is there a democracy which does not have a relatively freer market?
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i dont think there is a democracy which does have a more free market.
That Sounds interesting, I agree with you.Please keep at your good work, I would come back often.*
That Sounds interesting, I agree with you.Please keep at your good work, I would come back often.*
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