The Indefensible Case for One-Party Rule

The underlying basis of this column is very disturbing.

Yet sadly, this is what some people want for Cuba.

By Paul Roderick Gregory in Forbes:

China's Flawed Case For One-Party Rule

Robert Lawrence Kuhn, an international investment banker, biographer, corporate strategist and paid advisor to the Chinese government, is the face of China's PR campaign for the Chinese Communist Party's (CPC) 90th anniversary. The publication of his China Daily article "China 'best served'' with CPC at the helm" as two-page advertising supplements in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal shows China's desire to legitimize itself in the eyes of the international community.

Kuhn is not the only advocate of Chinese-style one-party rule. Among those joining him are New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman and investor-philanthropist George Soros. Both praise the CPC's sound and timely decision making. Some scholars also argue that "benevolent" one-party rule is better for poor countries that cannot afford "messy" democracies at early stages of development. They point to contemporary China, South Korea and Taiwan in their early years as cases in point. (Both South Korea and Taiwan transitioned to democracy within two decades. The CPC has exercised one-party rule for more than a half century with no end in sight.)

Here's a summary of the brilliant counter-arguments made by Gregory:

- In market democracies, voters and the market determine "who gets what." In China, the CPC decides who lives where, which companies get state credits, what prices to charge for high-speed rail, how to clear occupied land for new construction, what wages to set, how much corruption to tolerate, and whether to allow citizens to attend church on Sunday.

- If we use history as our guide, only democracy has produced high living standards, not CPC-like dictatorships. And those countries that are now rich did not wait to introduce democracy until their peoples were rich and well educated. The slogan: "bread first, freedom later" has appeal, but it has yet to work in the long run.

- I know of no historical precedent of a dictatorial regime removing itself for poor decision-making in an act of self-flagellation. Instead, the worse the performance, the more the regime clings to power to avoid the day of reckoning with the people.

- [T]he CPC social contract gives the Chinese people a bad deal. They have preciously little economic freedom (as I would define it) to compensate for their lack of political freedoms. They are not allowed to live where they want. They do not have secure property rights to the land on which they live or the farmland they cultivate. Businesses cannot enter into contracts that will be enforced by courts that follow a rule of law. The CPC dictates how many children they can have. Private persons must bribe corrupt state and party officials to do business. Private businesses lack access to bank loans, and they are disadvantaged by regulators vis-à-vis state businesses.

- The ultimate lack of freedom is that the CPC can take virtually any arbitrary action against the people in their economic and social lives, and they can do nothing to stop this. The lack of a rule of law is perhaps more deadly than the lack of democracy.

- If the Chinese people support the one-party system, why is it so afraid of the people?

If you were an ordinary Chinese citizen, how would you answer a survey researcher asking you whether you like the CPC regime or not? The answer is obvious and so much for Kuhn's proof of regime popularity.

If the people support the CPC, why is it so afraid? Why does it crack down mercilessly on informal Christian religious services? Why does a Nobel Prize awarded a dissident poet create an international incident? Why does it grow hysterical when a foreign leader receives the Dalai Lama? Why is it so fearful of public protests or strikes?

The answer: The CPC realizes that it has no basis for legitimacy; therefore, it must repress any hint of an alternative or a challenge to its legitimacy. Growing church attendance suggests to the CPC that one day the church could challenge its monopoly, as it did in Communist Poland. If workers organize into real labor unions, the unions could eventually become an alternate political movement. A lone dissident may strike a chord among the people that sets off something that they cannot suppress by their usual repression. The CPC leaders look with fear and trembling at the Arab Spring, knowing it could happen in their backyard.