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...

stupidissmart SG

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?

U see, from a gobal perspective, singapore is doing well Rolling Eyes U claim there r a lot of problems in society but based on facts, singapore has a low poverty, low corruption, high pay, affordable housing, good public transport, economy portfolio etc etc.

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.

In tat case u should have an objective survey tat was carried out. Can u enlightened me of the result ? Another interesting question to ask is whether does other countries face similar problem during tat period too. Frankly speaking countries like hong kong etc also faced problems then. Tis is a globalised world. U don't expect a small trade dependent singapore to be very well off when the other countries r facing severe problems. I am nto talking about cambodia or myanmar, I am talking about hong kong, US, switzerland and taiwan. I am already comparing with countries tat r supposed to be tip top.

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

So wat should we do ? Democracy is worse off.

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.

The recessions r region wide. The stable governance is a pulling point for investors to come over. I don't see why democracy will make the situation better.

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.

And wat will democracy help ? Strikes, opposition to any reform, policies toward fund giver in election campaigns, short term policies tat wipe out past savings. So tat will help ? Again I have to reiterate. Other countries, the better one like France or Hong Kong or Taiwan or Japan or China, have problems even to buy a house. Furthermore, u use your cpf to buy HDB. And u can use tat money for retirement like reverse mortgage

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.

Democracy give a whole set of different problems as well Rolling Eyes Talking about corruption, established democratic countries like Japan or taiwan also face their own series of scandals and corruptions. Does democracy ensures no such problems from happening ? Nay...

robertteh SG

Our Problems are often denied by hypocrisy or fallacies so denials will have to be rebutted. If not the fallacies through repetition may become facts and eventually who suffer?

People are not the government so they are not the ones to prove any systems working or not working or even back up their criticisms with facts or logics.

So please I ask the cyber-agents not to go around people to harass critics and tell them to prove their case before criticizing.

People are the customers and if people are not happy they have every right to express their unhappiness with whatever way available.

I advise those who find posts too long or tedious not to read such posts because I don't force them to read them.

cloud210 SG

Have you ever wondered why not many people here agrees with you? Don't you find your posts are so lengthy that it stinks?

Your post are so filled with personal opinions that it resembles the very people you have been criticising.

In what way you may ask, the posts are so long, most of them are "facts" derived by your observations without strong evidence or statistics. They are no different to the constant bombardments of propaganda to us from the PAP. For each sgForum members rebuts your post, you serve them yet another longer post.

The long posts are just turning your audience away, just like how we switch off the TVs when the local news is being aired. To your audience, they're just thinking, "sigh, another propaganda thread against the PAP". To the local news audience, "sigh, another propaganda thread for the PAP".

If you speak of PAP being dishonourable and hypocrites and if you want people to buy your ideas, you've gotta differentiate yourself from the PAP and not constantly bombard with long posts like how the PAP bombards us everyday.

To me, you're just like a MLMer hard selling me or an internet CSJ

robertteh SG

I think you do not understand the role of government versus the role of citizens.

As a citizen he is and can have the luxury of being judgmental and can criticize the government even without fact. There is no crime committed for the citizens to demand proper service and if citizens are wrong they are not answerable for any mistakes in their judgments.

Not the same privilege for the government though.

If a government leader like a minister or MP who is paid to do a job failed in his work or policy he is answerable to all citizens who may criticize him for the failure.

It is because the government is paid to do a job and should have a responsibility to govern the country to bring about results - the greatest benefits for the greatest number.

People are only the customers so they have the right to judge and be judgmental even based on personal opinions.

But leaders should not lose their patience due to any criticisms without proof.

They should treat the vocal customers with great care and try to make them understand if their policies are right and criticism wrong.

As counseled by one guest speaking on TV CNA recently concerning the Myanmar crisis there is no need to resort to authoritarian rule as long as policies are well explained and clearly understood. People will accept policies and decisions if well presented with facts and figures and logics.

There is no need to buy their votes too with election goodies or resort to gerrymandering of election process to stay in power. People will vote for them if they are right and well taken care of. If they got in without voting due to gerrymandering of election process then do not boast they have the mandate of the people.

Just be honest and do their duties to the best of their abilities.

I hope you now understand that the opinions of people no matter how rotten or judgmental and without fact should be respected by our leaders and they should not be so thin-skin to find fault with such critics even if the critics are wrong so that they as leaders will always serve the customers dutifully.

Don't you see a government is only as good as a people. If people have no opinion or afraid to voice their views because of autocratic threats of defamation how are the government at the end going to benefit the people.

If autocracy has failed to understand one of the most fundamental and basic of principles of service and duties and roles of government then it is not sustainable and will be doomed to failure.

Uneasy is he who wears the crown as a saying goes.

stupidissmart SG

I love tis post Mr. Green Though I am guilty of writing long replies too

For robertteh, your reply is really too long. U pull in too many thing tat is irrelevant in. It is a virtue to be concise. I can give u an example. Tis first paragraph has nothing to do with the topic at hand, and u wasted 205 words on it. U just lead us to here and there and everywhere and we lost u.

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.

Poh Ah Pak SG

robert teh, I suggest you keep your posts short and to the point.

This is a forum, not a blog, most people will be turned off by a long post.

Simplicity is the best.

Less is more.

Here are three golden rules for propaganda:

(1): Keep it simple, so that even a fool can understand.

(2): Keep it short.

(3): Repeat at least three times in different ways.

kramnave SG

No hard feelings robert but i agree with cloud 210. Sometimes its very hard to get what you are trying to say especially when someone post a one liner and you come out with an essay.

Sometimes i see similarities in between your posts and i just take it that you are pasting "model" answers without directly answering the questions. After a while i totally switch off man...

robertteh SG

There are long and short posts in my replies. I have some long posts which were long for certain reason e.g. elaborate on points repeatedly used which I feel is quite hypocritical.

Apart from such occasions I will try to be precise. There is an escape for people who do not like to read long post though - skip.

robertteh SG

Singaporeans go through a lot of hardship and their problems today are still not being attended to.

Why ? Partly people themselves are often divided and lacking cohesive views about what is a good government. So they tend to split on minor issues and problems with different camps holding different views.

We the citizens are not taking over the government. We cannot hope to influence anyone to vote for us to form the government when we post here because we are just giving our two cents worth.

On certain occasions I feel that I need to give a substantial reply to debunk long-standing hypocrisy I will write long.

Other than this I will write short messages as I have done many times.

So please do not feel too sensitive about my views and just ignore them if not to your liking.

I do wish the government will change soon to be more people-friendly in all its doings so that we the citizens do not have to belabor so much here to try to correct their self-centredness and hypocrisy to get away from wrong doings or accountability to problems.

robertteh SG

I thank you for being frank enough to say that your posts too have been long.

Why were your posts long sometimes? Is it not because you are dealing with certain points of contention. Let me stop here to avoid another long post.

stupidissmart SG

Wow... u r really fast in pulling me into the water...

If u asked me, I don't think I have a lot of people reading my posts as well Mr. Green

So I am a bad example

robertteh SG

We are squared on this one. No complaint.

robertteh SG

A leader who gets his way with wit and charisma is good to have on the first day of nationhood because apart from such external qualities and showmanship people cannot really judge how good a person is.

The problem is that we have gone through some 20 years with such charismatic leadership talk using a lot of concepts and assumptions which could not be proven but only hoped for without real substance. Rhetorics and conceptual leadership alone did not seem to be able to fulfill the next stage goals - to upgrade the economic competitiveness to value-adding technology-driven economy after the more dynamic action-oriented old guards were made to retire in power game.

What we have seen was only continuous empty talks about talents and leadership and all the taxing and charging back for everything until people are struggling with 3 meals and mortgages so something has seriously gone wrong.

Singapore has given many chances to the first-generation charismatic leadership based on concepts and assumptions but did not see results yet.

How to tell man from the boys and get more action men like Goh Keng Swee or Toh Chin Chye or Lim Kim San to transform the economic to value-adding technology-driven one talked about for years is now the real challenge.

If for last 20 years new talents came and went and many of them were unable to make the difference to the goals set - transformation to the next level.

Leaders cannot be judged all the time based on rhetorics and charisma. In a fast-paced global rat race the old tactics of covering NKF problems will waste our time and opportunities and will not work any more.

Wit, academic ability, presentation and charisma is important but these are mere starters or passports and leaders should be people offering continuous results from good performances that could be openly debated and judged.

I prefer to judge our leaders now for the second phase of nation building and I feel that we as a people cannot remain fixated by rhetoric or look-good academic qualifications alone.

Atobe SG

Amazing but sad, that some highly educated and intelligent Singaporeans that peruse this Speaker's Corner will believe that Singapore is a democracy simply for the fact that our votes count - as there is some form of election process.

Is 'Democracy' dependent only on the existence of an ''Election Process'', or is 'Democracy' involving more then this simple process ?

Ancient Rome was as much a 'Democracy' until its process was 'bastardised' by the politics of Julius Caesar, and soon became ''rule by a single voice''.

Democracy was restored by the murderous act of Junius Brutus and sixty other conspirators, who killed an unsuspecting [i]Julius Caesar in the Halls of Senate.

In this modern age, with the hindsight of history, the POWER OF ONE has learnt well and prevented any acts of betrayal through a piece of legislation - Official Secrecy Act, and all those sworn to an Oath of Office remained bound by it - even as these men and women have retired from political office for more then thirty years.

Sadly, 'Democracy' can only exist when all who believe in this 'Political Concept' will defend its true implementation, and not sell its 'Principles' in exchange for immediate material gains'.

robertteh SG

What make some of our most educated scholars behave like they did - accepting bullying of the underdogs the weak and defenceless citizens for their own political self-glories?

Hedonism, one word. Such worshiping of material gains perhaps have made our educated Singaporeans turn to hypocrisy to accept whatever the self-glorifier told them as truths and dare not face the real or root cause of the problems.

The ex-Chief Minister David Marchall called such symptoms of our decadence as worshipers of the golden calves. Ex-Foreign or Deputy PM Rajaratnam called it moneytheism. These two could not have been dead wrong.

reddressman SG

Lets say there is a tabloid called monkey news.
The chief editors, chairman and every senior managment people are members of a club called prey-and-then-prey-somemore (PTP).

If PTP wants a favor from monkey news in such a way that they sell the people some ideas or products, would they get what they want?

What if these members do not support PTP and act in a very honest and unbiased and impartial way?

funny right? I think you know the answer.

How many are members?

Does that answer all the questions?

cloud210 SG

I don't know about you guys think, but to me, democracy may have hurt Singapore. Singapore is a port city, where air and sea trades are very important to us. In addition to the new globalised era, things change so fast where a few secs would mean millions of dollars earn/loss. We need to be fast and adaptable.

When there is a new and faster way to do things, we must adopt it immediately. When there are new opportunities or a trend, we must grab and harness it that we suck every single $ out of it. With no resources, this must be our way of life. Not waiting a voting process to decide what we should do and by then, the deal could be given to another country.

If everything demands an explaination from the government, we are wasting time and resources to consolidate data, to calculate, to analyse data and report the statistics through media.

maurizio13 SG

Democracy = Slow?

Fascism = Fast?

In that case, you must think that Hitler and Mussolini would thrive in today's world.

Sad to say, we have been losing money from lots of our overseas investment, despite it being a fascist state.

Collective intelligence from a democratic process is far superior to the intelligence of a fascist regime.

Collective intelligence from a group of 84 is far superior to 1 person's intelligence.

No wonder we have been losing so much money in our overseas investments, it's because they analyse the data and go on gut feeling.

Poh Ah Pak SG

If everything demands an explaination from the government, we are wasting time and resources to consolidate data, to calculate, to analyse data and report the statistics through media.

According to this logic, DPRK would be an economic success.

Economic wealth depends on correct economic organisation and correct economic policies, not on political model.

Under an autocratic regime, economic success may be hampered by the errors of one man.

For example, Mao Zedong's "great leap forward" plans in the 1950s.

So, your thesis is flawed.

robertteh SG

I think you are confusing democracy which refer to the framework of governing system with detailed operational issues.

Democracy is not concerned with issues as you have mentioned such as the faster way to meet competitions in delivering cargoes or manufacturing products or preventing terrorist acts which are mostly executable by lower-level organizations and departments depending on how efficient is our management.

Below the governing system there exists many details which need to be considered by respective operators covering such details from approvals of processes and resources and setting up of facilities etc which need to be in compliance with issues of safety, efficiency, fairness and relevant micro-level decision processes but these are often delegated. Unless of course our leaders are not able to delegate them to the lower levels and are too overly concerned with micro-management or nannying.

The most important and critical governing process is the overall functions and duties as spelled out in the constitutions and administering of these functions and roles. Good leaders should be capable of delegating these lower-level operational details to the respective rungs and not deviate from their major policy and implementation set-ups. If they cannot delegate them as are often the case then they are not efficient in delegation and governing that is all.

For a sample of such delegated management processes : see www.managefranchise.blogspot.com for illustration or even details..

So we should not have to have MM Lee overly concerned with challenging the SIA union chief on the pilot wage issue if he has succeeded in delegating all the such detailed operational issues to the proper operational level.

The fundamental governing framework of democracy should concern with the election and structure of government, establishment of laws, rights and obligations of government and citizens and facilities for proper balanced functioning of the three governing bodies known as judiciary, legislative and executive of the nation.

In our case our government overshadow the first two i.e. the judiciary and legislative and that may be the reason why they are being caught with too much detailed issues and have to handle every issue themselves in which case I agree with you that the government will be slowing down their competitions at the operational level.

So however busy or central is our island or global are our ports or facilities, we should not expect the government to look after them every day. The detailed operations are often delegated to the respective organizations and private sectors to look after them through regulations and operational set-ups by delegations somewhere systematically without involvement of any ministers unless of course the ministers do not know how to set up the delegated processes as sampled in www,managefranchise.blogspot.com.

There is no short-cut to having our ports bypassing government though when it comes to more critical and important issues of course but these are usually also well attended to by their respective boards or operators so there is no concern of the government to look over the shoulders of every entity to look after such mundane issues.

For example the modification of terminal facilities for arrival of A380 Airbus needs not be dealt with by the government or ministers. The enabling laws if any to allow widening of runway or facilities of course could be put up in advance to the relevant departments if necessary but usually in our governing system the higher authority is also involved unless the country does not have any framework except by some emperor who alone no matter how efficient cannot decide on everything anyway.

We will be slower if there is no delegated processes to determine the deailed issues but these depend on how efficient is the management and not the government.

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