Review of Autocracy (called leadership) versus Democracy

last SG · 2007-11-06T18:05:37+00:00

Originally posted by stupidissmart: [Quote]Surprisingly, Switzerland has far surpassed Singapore in all fields of scientific discovery, economic and industr...

robertteh SG

Very often our government controlled newspapers will highlight horror stories of all kinds to give an impression that we need autocracy or leadership to succeed in governing Singapore.

For example it has been published recently of cases of an American judge abusing his judicial position by tossing coin to decide on a domestic case over custody of children.

This is yet another selective news to underpin our autocracy to make it look like very essential to our survival or progress.

The fact is while in America there exist occasional negligence or abuse by individual judges the system as a whole is free to work according to the general laws laid down without interferences or governmental interpretations to suit its own purposes.

But in Singapore how do our judges serve the people ? Have they not allowed politicians in power to misuse the civil libel suit to sue their political opponents to entrench themselves in power for words spoken in election campaigns.

So under autocracy can we claim that we produce better judges who know how to decide fairly and objectively on a case ?

At least given the individual negligence of judges there is little likelihood of wholesale abuses of system? At least Americans can trust the government for fairness and justice but can we claim the same in our own courts?

So even a choice of the two systems, autocracy versus democracy even if there may be occasional hiccups with the individuals which system is more open to abuses leading to the whole people suffering and political instability and breakdown of law and order?

The American democracy is not perfect and liable to abuse by politicians but at least their democracy will guarantee the ground rules and general laws safeguard the citizens from persecution or harsh laws and restrictions and all the hypocrisy of looking after people's interest or making unpopular decisions for the good of people which as we have seen are more often aimed at serving the narrow agendas of the politicians in power.

The Americans are free to pursue their many varying interests and talents from schools to universities such that their people as a whole would at the end contribute to building a greater and more competitive country for the larger good of the larger number.

In Singapore the government over the years have already restricted and curbed the citizens from many pursuits with a system full of prohibitions or restrictions by government departments or agencies.

So small businesses cannot thrive as they are being prevented to enter the competitive open market with their own products and new ideas as everything is based on compliance with existing pro-big pro-established selection criteria that deprive competitions.

I once attended a "Remake Singapore" feedback session and asked why the government's purchasing procedures only restricted tender submissions from the first timers with new ideas to propose to the government which were not yet accepted by some regulatory authorities like in the fire protection systems etc.

The reply was typical - without track record the government is unable to award tender to the right party. I suggested a more creative approach that is to allow an open category where those with new products and new ideas could be assessed in its own perspective to allow growths of entrepreneurship and creativity in the economy.

No one has listened to such new products or new ideas from the new entrants of entrepreneurs into the markets.

The whole autocracy is entrenched in protecting existing policies to avoid troubles of their own in accountability rather to remake the economy to a more competitive model which encourage entrepreneurship and growths.

For someone who has a better management system or solution to problems it will be found that he cannot get his biodata even accepted unless he is an established contractor or firm with credentials and complete profile of track records to be an acceptable party to take part in tenders or business.

Autocracy takes away drives through taking away the fundamental rights of citizens due to its own need to protect its own image and leadership success.

It autocracy is to venture into social engineering to claim to look after the citizens it will invariably be found that there were lots of hidden agendas to safeguard its own political and other agendas.

Playing God is what autocracy is all about. It is not great or leadership as often made out to be. In the event of any policy errors autocracy would quickly come out with hypocrisy to deny problems and get away from accountability.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFkpDRkiFg4&feature=bz302#

the Bear SG

please give the other side too..

as much as i do not like autocracy, democracy has its failings... you've not even come close to pointing them out...

there has to be a better way.. because democracy isn't cutting it and many in the world are questioning it now..

the democracy in the US is screwed.. look at the mess they've caused.. and people rant about 'money politics' in singapore.. they should go look at the elections in the US.. right now, all that matters is who has raised more money...

the democracy in India has gotten them.. uhh.. a mess?

even the Swiss model is showing cracks...

Hitler was democratically elected too..

right now, it's about the only touted way... but don't speak of it as the perfect way...

robertteh SG

Read my post again. I did not say that autocracy is totally bad or democracy is perfect. I am just doing my part to debunk the myth created by our autocratic leaders that autocracy is leadership which has succeeded by all its powerful propaganda taking advantage of the temporary recovery of our moribund economy due to recent world recovery.

Therefore we must try to arrive at the truths as regards autocracy and democracy and weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each so as not to be misled by the persistent media propaganda of the government.

It will be sad if our people cannot discern the hypocrisy frequently practised by our autocratic leaders and continue to accept what they say as truths.

Therefore when again we see all these propaganda being engaged in by the leaders with the help of their subservient press that autocracy or leadership as they often put it is the ultimate solution, I beg to disagree.

So to the people, I say : do not be deceived by selective comparisons or hypocrisy used by autocracy to tell the people that they were the ones who have built up the country. The success in building this country is not the work of any one man or politicians. It is the collective sacrifice of the people which is responsible for what we are.

Do not be deceived into believing that the M/W have cared for the people or they were the talents responsible for every success they claim.

Above all do not be deceived into believing that the leaders are the world's best talents and entitled to write their own pay cheques by benchmarkng their self-rewards to be paid the million-dollar salaries earned by the few lucky few entrepreneurs or CEOs in the private sector due to their own particular formulas and circumstances of success. Do not be deceived by such wrongful and self-serving comparison which is totally flawed.

Under our autocracy or leadership system our leaders are not held accountable so all their policies and many decisions are not necessarily the best or the most progressive for us.

Yet they are constantly denying the NKF and similar problems created by them. The majority of the people are suffering from rising costs of living due to taxing and profiteering by the government. So while the governing elites and the rich are benefiting and have no grouses to make the ordinary people are facing much problems.

Yet despite this rich-poor divide created by Autocracy our leaders are not acknowledging problems and are still presenting look-good propaganda to make it look like autocracy is our savior and more superior to democracy.

Yet from our past many years of our own experiences with autocracy it has not succeeded in governing the country for the greatest benefit of the greatest number so in this sense it has not succeeded.

Only the rich and elites are benefiting at this moment. The middle and lower income citizens are over-taxed to the degree of having to struggle with perpetual cost increases due to autocracy's many schemes to make more monies for the government.

Autocracy is full of hypocrisy and and is lacking accountability for its policies and decisions so it is not a sustainable political system at all.

This is the fact needs to be pointed out to the people. If they want to have better life then they have to play their part in ensuring are leaders will open up and make changes to stay the course on democracy as it is in the long term a more sustainable system which will check on malpractices and ensure progress and prosperity.

kramnave SG

how about Aristocracy/meritocracy….

the Bear SG

i know.. but so is democracy...

do you have an answer?

if not, you're just whining and bellyaching...

we ALREADY know..

tell us something we don't know...

kramnave SG

A rich-poor divide is not caused by Autocracy,meritocracy, monarchy, aristocracy etc. Even with democracy there will be a divide.

robertteh SG

You may not feel it but go and ask any ordinary citizens in the lower income group or even some in the middle income group how much of their wages go towards paying for the essential government services you will no doubt get a clearer picture of how ordinary citizens are coping with the rising costs of living imposed by the autocracy.

Back in 1970s the low-cost public housing was charged on construction cost at about S$7,800 for a 3-room flat and there was no need for subsidy or incurring of government deficit in the low-cost housing program. Over the years due to lack of check by the people on autocracy, the same 3-room flat is being sold for huge profits at excess of S$150,000.

However over the years the lack of check on the government has allowed the government to adopt a pay-and-pay policy using the hypocrisy of "no free lunch or welfarism". Actually throughout the government has not run into deficit or subsidy for provisions of basic services like housing or medical care because it has been recovering costs at the fee levels.

The root cause of the problem is that we the people have allowed the government to become over-bold to take them for granted and become a monster for making monies for its own coffer instead of serving the people.

As a result the citizens are being made to struggle to pay for basic housing and necessities their whole life. Today a family with S$1,000.00 monthly income will have to pay 50-60% of income just for necessities like utility and transportation costs. How is such a family going to feed their children.

The rich is not affected and are in fact benefiting from government policies to cut wage costs and CPF costs but the poor have no help to overcome rising costs of living caused by the hypocrites to avoid free lunch which actually is a huge profiteering scam many times worse than that of NKF under Durai.

Most of the citizens are therefore exhausting their life saving and retirement nest-egg just to have a roof over their head.

It is not that government must recover costs to avoid bankrupting the government or the country. In the first place the lands required for the public housing were acquired with people's own monies and taxes at below-market dirt-cheap acquisition costs.

There was no much costs to recover apart from construction and development costs. But because under autocracy and the lack of accountability people have allowed the government to function without check and consequently become over-bold in profiteering from public housing.

As such it is immoral for the government elected to serve the people and look after their basic needs to sell public housing at market price under the above-stated circumstance. The more correct price for public housing should have been market price (to be fair) less land costs (since lands were owned by people and acquired for public housing and to avoid double charge) less interest costs (tax monies no borrowing needed) were their own monies and lands were their own lands which should not have been charged again against them.

The same profiteering is seen in the charging for public transportation fares, utility charges, medical cares etc where originally all the lands assets and facilities were already paid by the taxpayers and services should have been provided from such taxes collected. However under autocracy the government has been able to avoid accountability by charging every costs all over again through privatizing these services to GLCs which consequently charge for such infrastructure all over again.

That is why there is a common saying among people the government is a Pay-and-pay and uncaring government no longer serving the people. That is why people are exhausting their savings hence causing problems to their retirement.

How about the taxes they have paid for such basic government services.

Go and ask the people why many of them can longer pay for their housing and necessities.

Don't just take my words for it !!!

walesa SG

Yes, the Swiss and American models are flawed. I suppose regimes like North Korea, Uzbekistan, Eritrea, Singapore and China must be utopian fantasy models the rest of the world should aspire to, eh? Laughing

TooFree SG

What made you think that the American model is the political system for the rest of the world to follow suit? Confused

LazerLordz SG

And when countries try to implement our model, chaos has/will/already have erupted.

So no model is perfect, but we should all aspire to improve.

googoomuck SG

Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried.

-Sir Winston Churchill

walesa SG

Point me out to the part where I indicated I regard the American model to be the one everyone else should aspire to.

robertteh SG

Individual incidents of abuse exist in both democracy and autocracy.

Such selective comparisons used by our government controlled press and media to underpin autocracy aside the issue now is since our MM Lee is trying to tell the whole world his autocracy has succeeded in building Singapore to what it is, we need to go in-depth to see how true is his contention.

If autocracy or dictatorship as a system (if it is systematic and sustainable at all) is better than democracy as put up by MM Lee to his world-wide audience there must be more substance in such a system and not full of skeletons in its own closet as pointed out by enough people and more than enough evidences.

Autocracy is on closer examination undefined and ad hoc and conceptual which lead to greater and far more serious abuses. Even Ngiam Tong Dow has disagreed with its auto-piloting of many harsh and anti-competitive policies which has set Singapore economic competitiveness back since 1970s for many years. The general lack of motivation due to close door system of government is obviously the root cause of many problems.

Now that there is a blip of world recovery MM Lee is quick to claim his leadership back in 1960s as successful.

Let us not get carried away by such outdated thinking and hypocrisy and start believing in the many propagandas which were mainly aimed at shoring its lack of substance and mass motivation required for fundamental and sustainable success needed for the little red dot.

robertteh SG

Let me assure all that I for one am hoping Autocracy will change to be more caring to the people for it is the people who have fed him with good life and gold opportunity to be great leader.

If that happens I will be the first to change my view about autocracy.

So without substantial change or trying to use justification to keep to old hypocrisy things will not work for Singaporeans who are still suffering from one of the most oppressed governance.

The selfishness of autocracy is still as merciless as ever and it has still failed to uplift the people since the 1970s.

It is still determined to prove its own superficial success deny all problems caused by autocracy and serve its own interest.

Three evidences :

(1) perpetual taxing of citizens with all kinds of profiteering schemes and sucking their disposable incomes to their own surpluses.

(2) sacrifice the interests of own citizens like biting the fingers that feed him with merciless importing of questionable talents and cheap foreign labor to replace citizens.

(3) postpone citizens' draw-down age to enjoy their twilight years till 85.

It is too early to change our heart about the evil of autocracy as long as the heartlessness is not changed.

walesa SG

If you regard the despot's cowardly brand of autocracy as being successful, how would you judge Hitler and the Nazi's achievements?

As the scope of success here is fairly limited to economic achievements, the Nazis' economic achievements in the span of 6 years from 1933 to 1939 (at the outbreak of WWII) would be nothing short of miraculous (all that considering how the Great Depression had afflicted them) and must surely go down in 20th Century history as arguably the finest economic transitions made by any dictatorship.

Even in the league of despots and tyrants alone, the economic progress (taking into account the economies of scale and time taken for the progress to be achieved notwithstanding)attained by this regime would come nowhere close to surpassing the Nazis or that made by China under Deng. Now, do the despots running this regime even belong in that exalted company to be worthy of being spoken about in the same breath?

stupidissmart SG

Tis really become an autocracy versus democracy thread. However is singapore purely autocracy ? Not really. Despite some methods employed by PAP, it is still democracy because your vote still counts. U find an MP to help u they still do help u. U try to complain to a department and they treat it very seriously. When election is approaching they still offer carrots. When the people r unhappy with certain policies, the gov do view it seriously such as the rule on homosexual. They also try to find ways to improve on the singapore economy. They r still concerned about trying to be popular with the masses.

Is singapore autocracy ? I don't think so. I think it is more on a debate between democracy, and modified democracy

My view is, full democracy itself is full of problems. The fact is most policies now r no longer win-win situation but lose-win situation. To cater to the bigger good, we have to sacrifice the smaller good. With democracy, little major decisions can be made. U see japan trying to reform but made little progress, french trying to reform but face mounting challenges and many other democratic country trying to reform but make little success because the opposition oppose just for opposing. Any major policies made by the ruling party face opposition. Even if the policy is good, the opposition will still oppose because it made the ruling party seems better and tat will affect their next election. It is time wasting and impossible. It is a fundamental problem with the idea of democracy itself.

stupidissmart SG

Three evidences :

(1) perpetual taxing of citizens with all kinds of profiteering schemes and sucking their disposable incomes to their own surpluses.

(2) sacrifice the interests of own citizens like biting the fingers that feed him with merciless importing of questionable talents and cheap foreign labor to replace citizens.

(3) postpone citizens' draw-down age to enjoy their twilight years till 85.

Tis is the problem of the whole world. Which country does not tax their citizen ? Everyone feel they r overtaxed even in switzerland or france or US. Which country does not import talent now ? Even japan, a conservative countries r importing foreign talents too. French and US r also importing talents to improve on their economy. Which country do not face problem on aging ? China, india, japan, french, US and every developed country r facing such problems. But wat solution do they have ? More taxes.

robertteh SG

What you have posted about "which country does not tax its citizens or which does not import talent" is nothing new. You have posted this sort of rebuttal to criticism or feedbacks on our citizens' problems and difficulties many times too in the past.

This kind of reply to criticisms against the many wrong doings, mistakes and policies has been called selective comparison which is one of the common methods used by the autocrats to deny problems. Some people also called this kind of autocratic denial "Justification Sydrome"

There is no lack of autocratic propaganda tactics to justify whatever harsh policies adopted by autocracy to cling on to their own self-serving and self-glorifying policies.

In this way the autocrats has in the past conveniently denied or explained away their policy errors and problems created without substantive solutions and without accountability to the people they are governing.

So there is nothing new really in your latest post which is essentially hypocrisy. There is little substance in such an argument as by coming up with examples after examples of worse countries we are not going to solve our own problems and are merely postponing solutions leading to breakdowns of laws and order and causing instability one day.

The citizens are no fools and they know there are many problems like corruptions, chaos and lawlessness elsewhere and they are not asking our autocrats not to govern the country based on boldness and creativity. If policies are made clearly with clear thinking and good explanation there is no need to resort to authoritarianism and lock up people or sue them for defamation to justify their doings.

So we need to have our own democracy which is not based on autocracy as such but which is more sustainable in the long run from collective responsibility and accountability otherwise we would end up the same as those corrupted countries being compared.

But if supposed we are truly interested in answering the question whether democracy or autocracy will offer a long-term political system to sustain our development and wellbeing, then we will have to go beyond fear tactics or hypocrisy with in-dept answering to criticism rather than superficial success claims often put up by our autocrats.

For example is it true that autocracy has done well for our citizens just because it has done well back in 1960s for a short period during independence?

Has autocracy done well since the 1970s especially after it has resorted to self-rewards with introduction of many scholars into the government with elitisms rearing its ugly head and stopping at denying problems with autocracy without change or accountability.

Will autocracy do well as a sustainable long-term governing system for the country?

Many people have already posted here and given their opinions on the performance of autocracy.

Whether autocracy has benefitted more of the rich and the elites or the ordinary citizens is clear for all to see.

Just go down to the ordinary people and conduct a proper objective survey to truly arrive at the fact whether the ordinary citizens have really benefitted and how many are still struggling from loss of jobs etc from their last recessions and are unable to pay their necessities and mortgage and cannot afford to pay basic medical cares their whole life.

For more information on our autocracy's political or social achievement read the overview posted in "The Little Red Dot" prose in other thread.

It will no doubt be clear after reading all the posts autocracy is at best a random collection of thoughts without substance.

Autocracy according to you have done well because other countries have worse problems so autocracy must be allowed to do as it likes.

But in the first place autocracy is not even a political system to begin with nor is it a modified democracy systematic enough to deserve copying elsewhere.

Apart from seizing the power of democratic institutional machinery and wearing the convenient cloak of democracy giving them this power the autocrats are at best taking a ride on the parliamentary framework of democracy and there is nothing much that is original to our autocracy.

In order to make up any shortcoming the autocrats have frequently employed fear tactics of worse happenings elsewhere so as to justify its harsh actions to entrench themselves in power or do as they like without accountability.

After many years of such taxing and cost-recovering system the people's lives are getting tougher with many recessions depriving them of their jobs and competitiveness due to lack of motivation under autocracy.

Throughout the whole period while the salaries to the ministers have benefited from all kinds of schemes such as NWC recommendation or private sector CEO benchmarking they have hardly brought about improvements to the lives of ordinary citizens.

Many ordinary citizens are struggling to pay higher and higher costs while experiencing dropping wages, Just paying for their low-cost housing and necessities would wipe out their savings and retirements.

As to be expected from the autocrats as soon as the world economy finally recovered in 2004 they would immediately come up with all kinds of hypocrisy to claim credit for whatever rebound in the jobs or property.

This has been our autocracy for the past 40 years which mainly relies on hypocrisy and psychology to frighten people so as to accept whatever they are doing.

...(to continue)

robertteh SG

...(continued from last post)

No wonder we have produced so many malpractices like the NKF and abuses happening in problem is. Without an accountable basis we will continue to suffer as a people from self-serving and self-glorifying policies where one man or a group of men could do as their like with their political power culled from democratic machinery.

Under autocracy, the PM and whole cabinet in a Westminster-modified democracy like ours could only become more powerful and more interested to work for their own private or party agenas which do not benefit the people.

From turning the whole governing into a grand powerful money-sucking machinery they could end up worse by taking people's monies and savings and splurge them on unwarranted investments to give themselves more glories.

Is that what we want or what we need as a country?

Therefore this is where democracy comes in as a long-term sustainable political system not autocracy to save us from such calamity.

To change and improve our political system we need to have new generation of moral leaders who are less self-centred and more accountable to the people.

Over time we have seen that no matter how highly educated are our elites or scholars they are unable to point out the above-stated shortcomings and wrong doings under autocracy. So the solution is not to keep taking more and more scholars to govern the country.

The period of stagnation in the management of the economy from the 1970s has been caused by the unthinking and unchanging support of autocracy which has failed to work well as it is unable to bring about motivational government to benefit the whole people.

The fact is that while there may be many countries not doing well under democracy that does not necessarily mean that we should let the autocracy carry on as it is in the present form where the leaders could do as they like to carry on the hypocrisy of denying the many fundamental problems caused as explained in the foregoing.

For one thing if our autocracy is being portrayed as a more superior political system with one man or a group of men at the helm deciding on what is best for the whole country there must be check and balance to see to it there will be no wrong doings or hypocricy or hidden agendas.

How to ensure that there will be no wrong doings?

For now autocracy will keep denying real and fundamental problems and is using a lot of fallacies and falsehood to get away from shortcomings and problems.

The rest of autocratic countries like Myanmar and North Korea at least did not come across as so arrogant and boastful and so there will be problem to deal with their arguments.

If our leaders will just modify themselves instead of democracy and perform their duties to serve the people, may be they will come across as more genuine and not so self-serving and self-centred and be more acceptable.

We are not here saying that there is no merit with autocracy but if autocracy is to be proposed as a viable long-term sustainable political system then it is doubtful and it is faked.

The worse we can do as citizens is to again allow autocracy to claim temporary world recovery to support their argument that they have been all that successful as claimed.

The truths of autocracy claiming succcess based on fallacies will have to be recognized for what it is.

cloud210 SG

Don't understand why 90% of your post are so damn long. Not new rebuttal doesn't mean its not a good rebuttal. I suppose you posted topics about citizens' problems and difficulties are many times too in the past too. I don't think autocrats aren't the only ones using this kind of methods.