Dabing Li：民主女神已是美人迟暮

【本文原载于香港《南华早报》英文版，原题“Democracy is on its last legs”，观察者网杨晗轶译。】

——不管是过去还是现在，民主国家都没有兑现它们的承诺。政客们为争取无知群氓的选票而力争下游，最终不可避免地造成灾难性政策。

支持“民主”的抗议者们的占领运动仍在香港继续。目前还看不到结束的迹象。然而，在这一出浮夸的传奇剧中，我们或许忘记了一些最基本的东西：究竟什么是“民主”？谁应该得到民主？民主真的有用吗？

必须承认，西方“民主”是一个极具诱惑力的命题——尤其是对于那些不通文墨、一事无成、怨气冲天的人来说。但是，纵观人类历史，“民主”似乎从来没有发挥过什么很好的作用。

公元前五世纪，古希腊首创了“一人一票”制度。这个制度历经变异，成为了西方世界的主流。但这是一个先天存在缺陷的制度：参与投票的群众通常对于票决的议题一窍不通，容易受到政治操纵。正是在民主选举制度下，诞生了希特勒统治的德意志第三帝国。

近年来，“民主”似乎在许多其他国家的社会经济领域屡遭失败。2008年，全球金融危机席卷世界。这场金融危机正是发源于将民主奉为圭臬的美国。几十年来，民主将社会权利的观念深刻地烙印在一代又一代美国消费者头脑中。

在民主的名义下，美国消费者们沉溺于物质享受，入不敷出地享受着虚幻的繁荣。选上台的政客们为了保持支持率而竞相迎合民意，挥霍财税收入向选民提供各种各样免费的经济和社会福利。显然，这样的民主能够帮助社会底层人士实现“美国梦”——向低收入人群提供次级贷款，圆他们在郊区购置别墅的土豪梦。

在美国国会的鼓励下，银行家乐于放贷，将这些次级贷款拆分重组为资产抵押债券，并将它们销售至全世界金融机构。由于垃圾次贷的爆炸式增长，按揭违约现象不可避免地出现，终于在2008年触发了全球金融危机。这就是美国民主取得的成就吗？

所有西方民主国家都像多米诺骨牌般挨个遭到重创。其中受打击最严重的是希腊。长期以来，希腊的政客从国库里掏钱补贴福利越慷慨，便越能得到选民们的支持。国库被掏空后，政客们就开始借债——所谓的“主权债务”。他们一遍又一遍地承诺；一次又一次地举债；一笔又一笔地开销。希腊人已经将这一切视作理所当然，仿佛他们有权利用别人的钱吃喝玩乐——直到有一天希腊无法偿还主权债务。

接下来到了需要勒紧裤腰带，采取紧缩政策的时候了，希腊人突然发现，原来恣意享乐的生活不是自己的权利，而是一场镜花水月；原来别人的钱是要还、却还不起的。他们走上雅典的街头，去抗议，去砸玻璃，去烧汽车，去与防暴警察肉搏。希腊人以追求民主为名；以捍卫权利为名；以发泄怨气为名，在全球媒体的注目下上演了一出闹剧。

这就是希腊民主取得的成就。

希腊2010年骚乱

为什么？为什么民主失败得如此普遍，如此狼狈？在突尼斯、埃及和利比亚，民主正在走向失败。在菲律宾和泰国，它已经失败。但在教育水平如此高、民主制度如此完善的美国，和民主的源头、文明的摇篮希腊，为什么民主也会失败？

不幸的是，答案或许在人的天性中。或许，我们生来就配不上民主。我们所有人，从本性上说，都是自私的。我们都极容易受到操纵，尤其是有人向我们违背常理地提供免费早餐、午餐和晚餐时。

民主最基本的机制是“一人一票”。根据世界各地人口结构规律，大多数选票来自各个社会的底层。工人永远比技术官僚的人数更多。这样，要获得选票，政治家们只能力争下游。下游的选民在乎的，是他们自己。什么社会公益，什么投资未来，底层人士即使听得懂，也往往听不进去。在民意调查中和投票站前，只有他们自己感知到狭隘利益才是最重要的。所有政治家都明白这个道理。他们力争下游，用国库的财富贿赂群氓。今天，所有的民主国家无一例外地堕落，都加入到这场通往深渊的竞赛中来。

要搞民主，选民们首先要知道什么是“大善”，并能理性地投出手中的选票。然而，这个前提只是乌托邦式的空想。另一个民主的乌托邦是“多数决定原则”。在现实中，非常小的少数派往往能够对票决过程施加极不相称的巨大影响力。

以香港为例。一个斗大的字识不了一箩筐的阿嬷，被几个人以“民主”为名忽悠一番，居然成了反对重要基建项目的海报人物。她导致工程延误，将给香港造成数十亿元损失。这位阿嬷和更多像她一样的人，是群众，是掌握着选票的群众。

逼停港珠澳大桥的香港阿嬷朱绮华

难道任何先进的社会能将重大事务的决策权交给这样的人吗？恐怕不可能吧。

在新加坡，良性的“独裁”统治在不到50年的时间里，使这个贫穷落后的蕞尔小国一跃进入第一世界，成为一个制造业和服务业中心，其经济繁荣、种族和谐令世人称羡。

在过去30年里，中国政府独特的协商性决策机制成功地使上亿人摆脱了贫困，促生了前所未见的经济增长和文化复兴。按购买力平价计算，中国现在已经是世界第一大经济体。

历史似乎正在重新书写关于民主的篇章。预兆已经出现，充满魅惑的西方民主女神可能已是美人迟暮了。

作者简介：出生于北京，经历了文化大革命，曾留美学习，毕业于哈佛商学院。原在香港任管理咨询师和投行高管。

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Democracy is on its last legs

——Dabing Li says now and in the past, democracies have failed to work as promised. Inevitably, they become a race to the bottom for the vote of the ignorant masses, resulting in disastrous policies

Dabing Li

The ongoing Occupy movement by pro-democracy protesters has wreaked havoc in Hong Kong. There is no end in sight. Yet, in this melodramatic saga, we may be forgetting the basics: What exactly is “democracy”? Who deserves it? Does it really work?

Western-style “democracy” is a seductive proposition, especially for those with little education and achievements but loaded with “grievances”. However, if we look through human history, it seems that this “democracy” hasn’t really worked too well.

“One man, one vote” was first instituted in Greece around the fifth century BC and now - with its many mutations - dominates the Western world. But it has inherent problems. The voting masses are often ignorant of the issues at hand and susceptible to political manipulation. Witness the ascent of Adolf Hitler, the democratically elected leader of the German Third Reich.

In recent years, “democracy” seems to have failed in many other places, both socially and economically, and often in glaring fashion. In 2008, the global financial crisis engulfed the world. It started in the US where democracy has, for decades, bred generations of consumers who have had the notion of entitlement ingrained into their minds.

In that name, they indulged themselves, lived beyond their means, and elected politicians who engaged in perpetual popularity contests by promising voters all kinds of free economic and social benefits funded by taxes and the treasury. Apparently, such democracy can help the lower ranks achieve the “American dream” - a suburban McMansion; hence, subprime mortgages to help low-income people buy one.

These subprime junk loans exploded after having been encouraged by the US Congress, extended by happy bankers, then diced, sliced and packaged into asset-backed securities, and sold to financial institutions all over the world. The inevitable mortgage defaults in 2008 triggered the global financial crisis. Was that American democracy at work?

Like falling dominoes, all Western democracies suffered. The worst hit was Greece, where, for a long time, voters kept electing those who promised the most from their national treasury. When the Greek treasury had been bled dry, politicians started to borrow - the so-called sovereign debt. They promised and promised, borrowed and borrowed, and spent and spent. Greeks began to take it for granted, as if it were their entitlement to live the high life on other people’s money - until Greece defaulted on its sovereign debt.

When the necessary belt-tightening - austerity - ensued, the Greeks suddenly found that the high life they thought was their entitlement was just a sham, financed by other people’s money, which they could not repay. They took to the streets of Athens, smashed windows, burned cars, and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with riot police, all in the glare of global media, all in the name of democracy, entitlements and grievances.

That was Greek democracy at work.

The question is why - why is democracy failing so broadly and so miserably? It is failing in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. It has already failed in the Philippines and Thailand. But why the United States, where education and democratic institutions are well developed? Why Greece, the cradle of democracy and civilisation?

Unfortunately, the answer may lie in human nature. We simply may not deserve democracy; we are just not made that way. We are all, by nature, selfish. We are helplessly susceptible to manipulation, particularly to perverse promises of free breakfasts, lunches and dinners.

The most basic mechanism of democracy is “one man, one vote”. By the nature of demographics everywhere, the majority of votes are at the bottom of each society. There are always more workers than technocrats. And so, in order to get votes, politicians race to the bottom. There, the voters care about themselves. What’s good for society, for its future, even if understood, often becomes irrelevant. In opinion polls and voting booths, only their own self-perceived narrow interests count. All politicians understand this. They race to the bottom, bribing the masses with the national treasury. All modern-day democracies inevitably degenerate into this race to the bottom.

The premise for democracy is that voters know what’s good for all and will vote rationally; this premise is utopian. Another democracy utopia is “majority rule”. In reality, a tiny minority can often exert a disproportionate amount of influence.

In Hong Kong, for example, an illiterate old lady, manipulated by a few in the name of “democracy”, became the poster opposition figure against a proposed key infrastructure project. The delays that she caused will cost Hong Kong billions of dollars. She and people like her are the masses, and they have the votes.

Should any advanced society let these people decide how to arrange its vital affairs? I’m afraid not.

In Singapore, a benign dictatorship has transformed a tiny poor economy, in less than 50 years, into a first-world manufacturing and service hub, where economic prosperity and racial harmony are the envy of all.

In China, for the past 30 years, a unique system of consultative decision-making by the government has succeeded in lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty, and generated unprecedented economic growth and cultural revival. By purchasing power parity, China is now the world’s largest economy.

It seems that history is being rewritten about the seductive system we call democracy. The writing is on the wall; Western-style democracy may be on its last legs.

Dabing Li, a Hong Kong-based former management consultant and investment banker, was born in Beijing and lived through the Cultural Revolution. He studied in the US, and attended Harvard Business School.