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.