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.