标题: Is democracy equivalent to a safety switch for national policies? Once mistak... [打印本页] 作者: Cheyenne 时间: 2025-12-5 05:09 标题: Is democracy equivalent to a safety switch for national policies? Once mistak... Is democracy equivalent to a safety switch for national policies? Once mistakes occur, they can be quickly corrected, while non democratic countries will go all wrong?
作者: Jessica 时间: 2025-12-5 05:09
I once had such naive thoughts, and then I lived in democratic France for 20 years. Now I can responsibly tell you that 'democracy' cannot be corrected.
One person, one vote, imposing too much responsibility on the people will only ruin the country, see Brexit in the UK. The United States is well aware of its harm. Although it is a democratic country, it never shouted the slogan of democracy in the early days of its founding. It has always been a free America, not a democratic America. It is not as SB as Europe.
A multi-party system cannot correct mistakes, because politicians' goal is never to "correct mistakes", but to gain more seats and votes. Therefore, even if they are wrong, they will persist; Even if they are right, they will destroy it. Refer to the German Green Party's push to drive away German manufacturing.
There is no 'democratic country' that has become prosperous through a democratic system. It has accumulated wealth through war, human trafficking, and then formed alliances to share technological innovation. It has suppressed the technological development of Asian countries by registering intellectual property rights. If the Asian region wants to develop, such as Japan and South Korea, it must first lose half of its sovereignty in order to obtain technology transfer and support from the United States.
On the contrary, the democratic system causes them to experience economic decline because they are unable to maintain a long-term plan. A change in leadership team would overturn a plan, and any good ideas would have to be debated for ten or eight years before they could be implemented. All factions have opinions and everyone has their own opinions.
This is also reflected in legal efficiency, as Chinese police stations dare to say 'if there are difficulties, find the police'. Chinese police are not proficient in all laws, but they always intervene first and manage everything, so much so that when I first arrived in France, I thought France was the same.
In fact, when ordinary people call the police, they don't even come.
Hello, my store has been robbed.
Alarm Hotline 17 (similar to China 110): Are you in danger?
I am not in danger.
17: We are handling emergency situations here. Since there is no danger, please call the police department (municipal police).
Hello, my store has been robbed.
City police: Where are the suspects?
The suspect has escaped.
City police: Since it's already over, let's go to the police station to report it.
Don't you catch thieves?
City police: We need to contact the police nationalization.
Hello, my store was robbed and the suspect ran towards the train station. Can you go and catch him?
National Police: We don't know what the suspect looks like, you can go take a record first.
I can tell you now.
National police: It's no use, they may have already disguised themselves.
Can't you watch the surveillance footage?
National police: This requires contacting the municipal and monitoring centers.
This is the trap of procedural democracy that democratic countries fall into. They have everything, but nothing operates. They have complete functions and each performs its own duties, but they are independent of each other and do not cooperate with each other, resulting in slow efficiency.
Don't talk about error correction, wait for them to realize that this mistake no longer needs to be corrected, the patient is already in heaven.作者: 火车炮弹射程之内没有真理 时间: 2025-12-5 05:10
Seven million people in the United States are organizing large marches in various places,
The slogan is not a king, but democracy.
Then Vice President Vance released the Ai video, Trump wore a crown to ascend the throne, and Pelosi knelt on the ground to be loyal,
President Trump released Ai video, and Trump flew a bomber with a crown on his head,
Dropping tons of feces into the parade opposing him,
The most hilarious scene is a close-up of a protester being drenched from head to toe by feces.
Is anyone answering me now, is this the democracy of the lighthouse you hope for?作者: Aiden 时间: 2025-12-5 05:10
Yes. Democracy is indeed a safe deposit box for national policies, capable of quickly correcting mistakes.
For example, we used to say that seeking medical treatment was difficult and expensive, but within a few years, this problem had greatly improved.
For example, the issue of wage arrears for migrant workers has received a lot of public opinion and high attention from the government, and the problem has been greatly improved.
In China, almost whenever there is something that the people are indignant about (such as many online incidents), the government will step forward to uphold justice for the people.
I have never seen such a democratic country before.
Western vote politics is not a democratic country at all.
Faced with a fire, Western governments say, "This is a natural disaster, and the government has no obligation to provide disaster relief
Faced with the high cost of medical care, the demands of the masses cannot be solved at all.
Because the West has confused Westerners with their votes: "No matter how bad this government is, you chose it, you have to admit it
作者: Henry 时间: 2025-12-5 05:11
Trump has appointed Charles Kushner, the father-in-law of his eldest daughter Ivanka Trump, as the ambassador to France, and Masad Burrows, the father-in-law of his youngest daughter Tiffany, as the White House's senior advisor on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs. He has recommended his daughter-in-law Laura Trump to take over the federal Senate seat in North Carolina and his son Barron to serve as a member of TikTok's board of directors.
Before and after Trump's first visit to the Middle East during his second term, the Trump family business is accelerating its expansion into the Middle East, with real estate, cryptocurrency, golf projects, and private equity investments all managed by Trump's son Eric. At the same time, Trump's son-in-law Kushner has received over $5 billion in private equity funding from sovereign funds such as Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi.
This is what Confucius and the public say about the world's largest and most successful democratic country in the past year. Where is democracy? Who will supervise? Who will correct it? Is it a family world or a country world?作者: Annie 时间: 2025-12-5 05:11
This article consists of two parts completed at different times, with the first part focusing on emotional value and the second part on intellectual value. I prioritize contemplation over emotions, so the later the more important it becomes.
This article was almost banned. I contacted the butler and said that it's okay for so many people to trample on the country and the system. Why was my confidence in the system still banned? The appeal is valid, thank you to the butler, thank you to Zhihu.
Comment settings are a requirement of the platform to prevent anyone from causing trouble. Everyone, take a look and cherish it.
How can democracy quickly correct itself? Does it mean that the previous president reduced tariffs, this president increased tariffs, the previous president sent troops to march, this president hastily withdrew troops, the previous president accepted illegal immigrants, and this president expelled illegal immigrants? This is not quick error correction, this is repeated tinkering.
If we can really correct it, the United States now has a chance. There are two major events happening in the United States now: one is the construction of the White House banquet hall, which was originally budgeted at $200 million but has recently skyrocketed to $250 million; Secondly, Dong Wang demanded a huge compensation of 230 million US dollars from the US Department of Justice, citing that the criminal investigation launched by the Department of Justice against him had caused him "great harm". This compensation needs to be reviewed by the Ministry of Justice (appointed by Dong Wang) and approved by Dong Wang himself.
Currently, the US government is facing tight spending and numerous federal employees are on unpaid leave. The measures taken by Wang undoubtedly added insult to injury to the government's finances, and it is not surprising that public opinion in the United States is boiling. However, where is the democratic process at this time? Where is the error correction mechanism? Basically, there is no way to restrain Wang except for his sudden repentance - as long as he has thick skin, there is no such possibility.
Speaking of the Lolita Island incident a few years ago, what investigation does the United States have into this matter? What are the corrections? The secret of the whole matter was brought into the coffin with Epstein's unexpected death, and the list held by the government was like a dragging soap opera, sometimes announced and sometimes not, and the result has not been released yet.
Look at Dongda University. A few days ago, they actually arrested a group of generals, who are actually generals. Converted to Xida University, whatever they say is enough to be a governor, senator, national security assistant, etc. Dongda University can send them to their classrooms. Can't you deal with a few state secretaries and secondary wealthy businessmen specifically targeting Loli Island? Let them stand in the courtroom and perform with tears streaming down their faces: 'It's all because of me who harmed the leader. I thought it was all about healthy and pure entertainment activities.'
The reality is that you can hardly find a scapegoat, and you're too lazy to even pretend.
At least it's a shining beacon of democracy, how did it end up like this today?!
————Part Two————
It is not entirely accurate to say that the United States has no error correction mechanism. The last time the US error correction mechanism was more brilliant, it should be regarded as the Watergate scandal in the 1970s. At that time, not only did Nixon step down, but it also improved institutional designs such as the Sunshine Government Act.
However, the most important and far-reaching correction in the world after World War II was not the correction at Xida, but the correction that occurred at Dongda in the 1970s. It was this correction that led Dongda towards reform and opening up.
So, the real theme of this article is: Western style democracy does not always have the ability to correct mistakes in a timely manner, and non Western style democracy does not necessarily mean it cannot be corrected.
There are actually two types of democracy in the world, one is vote democracy and the other is performance democracy. Voting democracy is the process of electing a leader to power through voting, while performance democracy is the process of selecting a leader to power through performance evaluation.
In Western political science, only vote democracy is considered a form of democracy, so we can call vote democracy Western style democracy.
Performance democracy integrates many Chinese cultural traditions, such as Confucianism setting many KPIs for rulers, which is actually a reflection of performance. However, Confucianism does not have many methods for achieving these KPIs, so performance democracy not only has Chinese culture, but also Western modern and contemporary ideological systems. It is a product of the integration of East and West, but considering the corresponding words, it is temporarily referred to as Eastern style democracy.
The biggest advantage of vote democracy or Western style democracy is that it solves the problem of the source of power, allowing power to continue in an institutionalized way and has high credibility.
The biggest problem with ballot democracy is that democracy often begins and ends with the ballot. The election stage is the most comprehensive and crucial manifestation of democracy, and after the election, it has little to do with the people.
After the election, politics entered a relatively self-centered, closed, and elitist operating mode. In fact, this mode has already appeared in the training and selection of candidates, but it is more reflected in the power operation after the election. This is what Michels called the "oligarchic rule" of democracy.
Starting from the votes and ending at the votes, the elected person has obtained a pass to squander their power, and during their tenure, they can basically ignore public opinion because their rise to power is the result of the greatest public opinion. We can see all of these in the King of Understanding.
Of course, the masses can express their dissatisfaction in some way, such as taking a walk on the street, but for these activities, both leaders and the masses in the West do not take them seriously. Those activities often resemble carnivals and are more performative.
The separation of powers can sometimes balance the president, but for the United States, the strength of this balance is quite limited, sometimes almost non-existent (such as controlling both houses of Congress). Secondly, the separation of powers not only balances the president, but also balances public opinion. The original intention of establishing the three powers was to balance the House of Representatives, which reflects the will of the people.
In vote democracy, the people know that they have no other way to influence politics besides voting. If they made a mistake in this election, all they can do is wait for the next one. To put it in our words, 'the president they elect must endure no matter what.'.
Power operates in the name of delegated agents by the people, and voting brings periodic political comfort to the people, as well as political alienation within the cycle, which not only enhances their tolerance for power but also increases their apathy towards politics. Here is a quote from Tocqueville:
If the head of a country is elected, it will bring great oppression to individuals. However, although this oppression is significant, it will not embarrass people. Because everyone believes that although they are oppressed, their obedience to this oppression is equivalent to obedience to themselves, because the head of state is elected by themselves, so they are willing to sacrifice their own interests to obey oppression. ——Tocqueville's "On Democracy in America"
Voting democracy provides the people with the opportunity to choose, but ironically, due to periodic political alienation and apathy, the fact weakens the people's political choice ability. People's voting increasingly succumbs to personal emotions or community influence, losing independence and autonomy, and making it difficult to make rational choices. Another quote from Tocqueville can be cited here.
A group of people who have completely lost their habit of autonomy will choose outstanding rulers. This is hard to imagine. But they believe that a group of enslaved people will one day elect a free and wise government. ——Tocqueville's "On Democracy in America"
A brief summary: For vote democracy, the institutional design that starts with the vote and ends with the vote, the political operation mode of oligarchic rule, the delegation of agents to isolate the people from power, the alienation and indifference of the people towards politics, and the weakening of political choice ability will all reduce the error correction ability of vote democracy.
The following focuses on performance democracy.
Performance democracy first requires performance goals. What are performance goals? Representing the interests of the people, satisfying the people, and giving them a sense of gain are all fundamental performance goals.
Western leaders rarely emphasize this goal, and their self expectations mostly come from two aspects: first, the policies formulated during elections, so they like to say the word 'fulfill election promises'; second, the responsibilities assigned to positions, such as defending the constitution, safeguarding national interests, and protecting national security. This is a manifestation of valuing votes over performance.
The President of the United States rarely says "what kind of country will America be built into by the middle of this century" because he relies on votes to come to power and only focuses on the period of time he is elected. Similar to this sentence, it is a pursuit of long-term performance.
The political legitimacy of vote democracy is based on votes, while the political legitimacy of performance democracy is based on performance. This is the fundamental difference between the two.
Of course, having performance does not necessarily mean having democracy. For example, during the Chinese imperial era, Confucianism also established a set of performance standards for the emperor: putting the people first, reducing taxes and levies, and appointing capable individuals But no one says that the imperial era was a performance-based democracy.
The democratization of performance also requires a democratic system centered around performance goals, which includes many aspects such as the People's Congress, political consultation, petition system, telephone and online channels for complaints and feedback, community public opinion communication, online public opinion, etc. They will put forward demands for performance, exchange methods for achieving performance, and provide feedback on the current situation.
Western governments rarely attach as much importance to online public opinion as we do. For example, when Western governments fail to provide disaster relief, public grievances may boil. However, governments seem less nervous about this because they value election promises more than online discussions, and we consider "timely feedback on public opinions" as a performance evaluation.
Performance democracy often has a persistent pursuit of performance, and performance continues to be updated and changed: in the past, the goal of getting rich was proposed when poor; Later, some people became wealthy and proposed the goals of poverty alleviation and common prosperity; When the economy is poor, improve the economy; when the economy is good, realize that the environment is also important, and propose the concept of "green mountains and clear waters"; When corruption emerged in the process of economic development, we vigorously fought against it .....
The rolling development of performance reflects the improvement of previous governance, the resolution of existing deficiencies and problems, and the natural formation of a mechanism or atmosphere for error correction. Therefore, performance democracy has a considerable ability to correct errors, which has been proven by history and reality.
From a political logic perspective, vote democracy also has a good ability to correct errors. However, in addition to the factors mentioned above, there are two other issues that weaken the error correction ability of vote democracy: democratic tacit understanding and institutional flatness.
Democratic tacit understanding refers to the fact that some problems are chronic and difficult to solve, and the originally competing parties tacitly accept that they cannot solve the problem. Since everyone is trying to win votes, if we don't solve the problem, it means we won't lose any votes.
In the United States, officials receive gray funding, public projects progress slowly, economic statistics are distorted and repeatedly corrected, all of which have become a trend of democratic consensus between the two parties.
System lying flat refers to the situation where the existing system is very difficult to solve a certain problem, so it is simply left unresolved and chosen to lie flat. A typical case is when the mayor of Texas said during heavy snowfall, 'Capitalist countries do not provide disaster relief,' which reflects the flattening of the system.
A well functioning performance democracy is less prone to democratic tacit understanding and institutional stagnation, because everyone pursues performance. Under the promotion of a performance democracy system, the pursuit of performance will lead to the internalization of officials' governance.
For example, analyzing China's development experience often mentions "county-level competition". The so-called county-level competition refers to the strong desire of Chinese county and city cadres to drive the local economy and promote local development beyond other regions, either for the benefit of one party or for personal assessment and promotion. This leads to different regions becoming competitive relationships.
The TV drama "County Party Committee Courtyard" depicts the scene of county-level competition: the secretaries and county chiefs of Guangming County and Jiuyuan County rack their brains and engage in both overt and covert struggles to compete for investment projects. This is the administrative infighting caused by performance democracy.
So, some people say that vote democracy can lead to power supervision and eliminate corruption, but this view is wrong. If vote democracy has democratic tacit understanding and a flat system, it will also lead to abuse of power and corruption.
On the other hand, if performance democracy operates well, it can also achieve power supervision and eliminate corruption. This is because the abuse of power and corruption by a certain official, for other officials, reporting and verifying the former issue is the performance pursued by the latter, which can form checks and balances and supervision.
There is a saying that goes, 'The mantis catches the cicada, and the yellow sparrow comes after it.' For the mantis, the cicada is its performance, and for the yellow sparrow, the mantis is its performance. One supervises the other, who will restrain the 'yellow sparrow' in the end? The chaos caused by his predecessor and the performance of his successor cannot be ignored by the current incumbent's evaluation of him.
Why can't we check the island of Xiluoli, but Dongda can handle a group of generals? The reason is that for Xida, Loli Island has formed a democratic tacit understanding and a flat system; For Dongda, those generals are important performance achievements.
Finally, I do not believe that vote democracy is completely useless, and performance democracy is perfect. Since the voting democracy with hundreds of years of practical experience still has shortcomings and may degrade, performance democracy, as a new concept, naturally has greater room for improvement and needs continuous development in order to continue to play an effective role.
What I oppose is that some people who have studied a few Western political textbooks only know how to apply them mechanically, lack in-depth thinking and understanding, cannot perceive the distance between theory and reality, and cannot develop their own thinking framework and knowledge system in combination with their own traditions and environment.