The Similarities of Company Life and Communist Dictatorship

The western countries have been criticising the dictatorship of communism and bragging its democracy for decades. Communist dictatorship controls the media. All media must be the mouthpiece of communist propaganda. Citizens are not allowed to criticise the communist government. Dissidents must self-criticise, confess their sins, and swear to be loyal to the communist government, or they will be punished and lose their jobs. It is tyrannical and horrific.

But what about the company life in the west? It behaves in a similar way. The CEOs and the board of directors are appointed. They are not voted by the employees. The mouthpiece of a company must promote the company’s image and hiding its dark parts. Employees are not allowed to criticise the company or the leaders. Any dissident will be warned, disciplined, or dismissed. Employees are not allowed to talk to media outside the company without permission. The CEO and the board of directors have privileges whereas the grassroot employees don’t.

If you want to experience communist countries’ dictatorship, looking at how companies handle conflicts.

Centralised Governance is the Key to Technological Advancement

For centuries, the western countries have been congratulating themselves on their democratic model. In business arena, it means decentralised governance, of which the governments largely do not interfere with business and leave the technical innovations to the business world.

One thing they have ignored is that the decades of technical advancement from NASA space exploring is solely due to the US government involvement. The cold war accelerated the technology development of space exploration. Without the US government involvement, there won’t be NASA’s moon landing or planet explorations. This is the evidence that centralised governance can contribute to technology development.

In the last century, Singapore has also proven that direct government involvement can greatly lead to technology advancement and social harmony. From the western countries’ point of view, Singapore is not a real democratic country. The government dictates almost every aspect of people’s lives. But in reality, it is this kind of government involvement which has led Singapore to a prosperous country, where people must work if they want to eat, where the crime rate is the lowest comparing to those of western countries, where women can talk safely late at night and do not have to worry about personal safety.

In this century, China also proved that the direct government involvement, or central governance, is the key to technological advancement. At the end of the last century, China was still a poor country. It was a technologically backward country where people envied the goods imported from Japan and western countries. In merely two decades, China is now exporting electronics and appliances to western countries, leading 5G development, and is a fearsome competitor of the Silicon Valley. It also achieved moon landing and sent humans to the space. It all comes down to the centralised governance model.

However, the western countries are still hooked on decentralised governance model which leaves technology development to private business. Private companies are short sighted. They focus on the revenue of the next quarter and the next year. They don’t have a plan for the next ten years or one hundred years for their countries. These are the responsibilities of the governments.

The governments do not control the technological standards, e.g., 5G or 6G. This gives countries using the centralised governance model an opportunity to catch up and even supersedes the western countries.

The western countries must wake up and rethink its democratic model, and its way of managing technology development, if they don’t want to be despised by the rest of the world.

The Western Parliamentary System Is Detrimental

 The western countries adopted the election system from ancient Greece, which ensures everyone has his/her say. It is the fairest democratic system so far. The party wins most votes gets the opportunity to rule for a few years. If the voters are not happy with how it performs, the ruling party may lose the votes so the opposition party may get elected at the next election. Everyone has a say on which party he/she prefers and won’t be punished, unlike what happens in dictatorship countries.

The western countries also adopted the parliamentary system, where the opposition parties can question the policies of the ruling party and bring it to the attention of the public.

It sounds like a good system. The ruling party is to be watched so it must do what is in the best interest of the pubic. But in reality, the opposition party is holding the ruling party back. Whatever the ruling party does is wrong in the eyes of the opposition party and needs to be opposed, and whatever the opposition party proposes is wrong in the eyes of the ruling party. The political parties are locked in a vicious circle of opposing each other and pulling each other’s legs. Therefore, the progress of the society is so slow, comparing to the centralised governance system like Singapore and China. It took 20 to 30 years for Singapore becoming a wealthy country with advanced technology. It also took about 20 years for China to become a wealthy country which advances in information technology.

Another weakness of the parliamentary system is that it focuses on debating on unimportant issues like the tabloid news of the opposition politicians, forcing them to resign and disrupting the operations of the other parties, instead of focusing on important issues which relates to the wealth and security of the general public. the result is that political celebrities who can do public speaking well and debate well become the leaders, not the ones who can analyse the situations well, which is completely different from Singapore and China.

The sad story is that the politicians in the west are still in their dreams. they have not realised the weakness of their parliamentary system. They still think their system is the best in the world. They are not able to tell the difference between the democratic election system and the parliamentary system.

Epicurean Paradox

1. Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
2. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
3. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
4. Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

On Indoctrination

 Secular activists complain about the indoctrination by religious groups in public schools. First of all, what is indoctrination? According to the Oxford English dictionary, indoctrinate means to “Teach (a person or group) to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.” Better still, the Oxford Learners Dictionary says “to force somebody to accept a particular belief or set of beliefs and not allow them to consider any others”.

If it is the case, then what about teaching maths, physics, and chemistry in schools? Science teachers normally won’t mention the alternative ideas during the classes. They simply drum the scientific knowledge into students’ brains. Does that amount science teaching to indoctrination? I would say yes if the teacher does not mention alternative theories, or does not mention the historical background on how the equations were discovered. The purpose of teaching is to teach how to think, not what to think.

This leads to the topic of teaching intelligence design theory during the biology classes in US. In some states of US, biological teachers teach that humans were created due to the intelligence design. There is nothing wrong on introducing students to the alternative ideas. What is wrong is that the biological teachers teach students to believe intelligent design is true, and evolution is wrong.

Another good example is geocentric theory versus heliocentric theory. Instead of teaching students that the earth resolves around the sun, isn’t it better to introduce the brief history of Galileo versus the roman catholic church; introduce the pros and cons of both theories, and encourage students to contemplate on which theory is based on evidence, and which theory is based on faith.

Scientific education should not force students to accept the scientific theories without encouraging students to doubt about the legitimacy of the theories. Scientific education is supposed to develop students’ critical thinking, instead of accepting the knowledge uncritically.

Should I Be Praised, or Despised?

 My love for my children should not be questioned.

I drowned my disobedient children in our bathtub, but spared the ones that feared and obeyed me. I then slept with someone’s wife and had another child whom I managed to convince to throw himself in front of a bus because that child was so obedient and he was doing it to save my other children.

Now the remaining few children have a choice to listen and learn to love me, and learn by example of what my obedient son who committed suicide had done, or otherwise I will ultimately lock the rest of my children in a basement, drench them in gasoline and light them on fire.

Should I be praised, or despised?

Christians say that God cannot be judged using the moral standard for humans.

Employment – Candidate Selection Criteria

 In Australia, the recruiters tend to think their way of thinking is the only way.

The eastern cultures emphasise on academic qualifications. Asians reason that a person’s ability is proportional to the personal academic qualification. The higher qualification a person has, the more skills the person has.

Unlike the Asians, western countries emphasise on work experience and public speaking skills. The recruiters are not that interested in a candidate’s educational background anymore. They are more interested in how long the candidate worked in a similar position, and how well the person can communicate. They reason that a person’s skill is gained from work, not from studying. If a person has no work experience, the person has no working skills.

Ironically, in the past, the candidate selection criteria in the western world were identical to that of Asian countries. Educational background was highly looked upon. The selection criteria changed after the western world started education export. In the English-speaking world, it resulted in the mass intake of overseas students in the universities of US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, and these overseas students are mainly from north-east Asia and India.

The sheer number of overseas students in the western universities resulted in high marks are mainly achieved by overseas students from Chinese cultural background who have no interest in sports and are weak in public speaking. It seems to them that the only purpose of life is studying, whereas students from the western culture prefer a balance between study and sports.

As such is it safe to say that the western world changed the recruitment policy so as to demote candidates from the eastern culture? Probably not. It is more like demoting candidates who have excellent academic results, but weak in communication skills. Although the overseas students from the Chinese cultural background have been gaining good marks, they don’t have much extracurricular activities, except musical instruments (mainly piano or violin), and their public speaking skills are weak. Sports is the least area that north-east Asian students get involved in. But that doesn’t mean they will perform worse at work than the candidates focus on sports and public speaking skills. The working culture in western countries is still monocultural. It may be multiracial, but it definitely isn’t multicultural, especially in the management sector. I doubt multicultural working styles will ever work in a western corporate environment. That is why it is a lot easier for people with western cultural background to move into management positions.

The only time when recruiters do not concern with the work experience is during the graduate recruitment program, when recruiters mainly focus on the candidates’ language skills, and problem-solving skills.

Interesting to see what will happen when Asians are not interested in studying in western countries anymore, whether the candidate selection will go back to the previous way of thinking.