Wei
Jingsheng Foundation News and Article Release Issue: A535-W310
魏京生基金会新闻与文章发布号： A535-W310
Release
Date: April 3, 2010
发布日：2010年4月3日
Topic:
The Way Out for China (Part IV) -- Wei Jingsheng
标题： 《中国的出路》之四 -- 魏京生
Original
Language Version: Chinese (Chinese version at the end)
此号以中文为准（英文在前，中文在后）
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The
Way Out for China, Part IV
--
Wei Jingsheng
The
key condition for democracy is to have opposition parties and allow opposition
forces. To realize a dictatorship
from democracy, one must eliminate opposition. The reality after this elimination is dictatorship. To systematize the dictatorship is
autocracy.
A
few years ago, a group of hired intellectuals preached loudly that the Chinese
Communist Party had systematized its successors, and so established
"democracy". This talk
itself illustrates that they do not know what democracy is, and even do not
know what autocracy is. Any
political system has a system to pick its successors. "The son of the emperor should be an emperor" was
the system for older days in China.
But that has nothing to do with democracy.
Democracy
also has its system for changing the shift and choosing the successor: elections. All the political systems have their own ways to pick up the
best and most capable ones for themselves, except using different scopes of
selection and election. There are
people who think that there is no election and there is no official discussion
of the business in an autocratic system.
That is totally wrong.
Nowadays we Chinese like to watch dramas about the old dynasties. There you could watch the old system of
selection and election of the leaders at work. The emperors' "attending imperial court session in the
early mornings" was a system of "official discussion of the
business". The common folk
often say: "So and so makes the decision." That prerequisite was a policy-making system of "we all
can discuss it, but then there is someone who will make the policy."
In
the old dynasties, it was the emperors who made the policies. That is the same system as the
Communist Party's Deng XiaoPing and Mao Zedong making the policies. That is autocracy.
So
which kind of system is democracy?
That is when the common people replace emperors and Mao Zedong, and make
the policies themselves. But the
common people's opinion widely varies, so it would be hard to make policy
directly. Within a clan or a
village, it might be possible to exercise the most original democracy by having
town meetings to vote for resolutions.
However, for a larger scale, we will have to have a system of
representatives. Then, each
village elects their trustworthy representatives for a higher-level
organization of the leaders and representatives. Even so, certain policies can be brought before the people
as ballot initiatives or propositions.
Sometimes, the leaders are chosen as result of the election of
parliament members, and sometimes these are separated. The election of the president is
separate from the elections of representatives of districts in the USA. That is because the needed
qualifications are not quite the same.
The
needed qualities for a President, a Governor and a Congressional member are
different. The most reasonable
system is to choose different persons to bear different duties and have
different powers. This is the
decentralization of the power that people offer refer to. Keeping legislation, the judiciary, and
administration separate to serve their own functions results in the best
operation of the society. This is
the fundamental reason why the democratic system is more reasonable than
autocracy.
However,
a principle of autocratic systems is not totally without reason. That principle is often referred as
"efficiency first" or "security first". Then one gives all the powers to the
best person in an expectation of the most efficiency and most reliability. Unfortunately, the experience we get
from history proves this to be a wrong assumption; a classic perfectionism
assumption. There is no person who
is excellent on all the aspects, but there are people who are the best in some
of the aspects.
Some
people treat the others and the world with a fair and tolerant mind, and are
less likely to be prejudiced. They
are quite suitable to be judges.
But they might lack the creativity of odd thoughts, and capacity of
command and control, and acting according to the circumstance. When this kind of person has all the
power, he might not wrongfully treat the others, but might have difficulty to
accomplish much. The whole society
may have less wronged cases overall, but mistakes in the other areas will have
bad consequences. Some people are
more capable of speech and discussion with open minds. They are most suitable to discuss
business and provide the best opinions.
However, they might not be as fair as the judges, thus not as ideal to
be a judge. This kind of person
might not be as good at mobilizing and controlling people, and actually
carrying out decisions. Some
people might not be the best to be judges and legislators, but are capable of
taking command and control, and could act according to the circumstances. They are more suitable to be
presidents.
Since
the expansion of the human society, people have chosen many different systems
to improve political efficiency.
In the eras of strong competition and mutual massacre, obviously the
power of administration is the most important, and action will decide if a
group of people will survive or not.
To this date, the Chinese Communist Party still emphasizes the
"rights of survival" to prove its importance, uses
"patriotism" to overcome all the other important factors. If immediate threats are not present,
an autocratic system will create them.
Thus is the nature of autocracy.
However, when there is a concentration of the power, it naturally
results the concentration of the interests. Although this may be an advantage in the competition with
other countries, for sure it will lose its balance within its own society and
ignore the rights and interests of the majority, and thus produce instability
to the society.
A
political system cannot only be concerned with the need of one aspect. It must be concerned with the needs of
all aspects. If one only cares
about the importance of the administrative power, an autocracy would be the
natural system. But when
dissension and discord are in the minds of the majority, the administrative
efficiency will progressively decrease.
Thus, an imaginary concentration of power leads to a slackening of
popular feeling. The ultimate
result is low efficiency, and then competitive loss against a more reasonable,
inclusive, social system. This is
the main reason why modern democratic systems gradually have been defeating
autocratic systems.
The
reason that the modern democratic system is more reasonable is due to a balance
of the interests and separation of the powers as the characteristic of its
superstructure. Notice here we are
not talking about decentralizing the power, but a separation of the power with
limits, each performing its own functions. Some scholars think that decentralization is good and that
decentralization is democracy.
This is a totally wrong muddled concept. As a matter of fact, the power of the USA and Western
democratic countries is even more concentrated than that of the Chinese
Communist Party. Some of its
strict enforcement of the orders is no less than military. However, its power is concentrated in
the several highest organs, each performing its own function with mutual checks
and balances. This is the best
system which is most reasonable and less likely to make mistakes.
To
hear Mr. Wei Jingsheng's commentary, please visit:
http://www.weijingsheng.org/RFA/RFA2010/WeiJS100319ChinaWayOut4.mp3
(Written
and recorded on March 19, 2010.
Broadcasted by Radio Free Asia.)
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中文版
Wei
Jingsheng Foundation News and Article Release Issue: A535-W310
魏京生基金会新闻与文章发布号： A535-W310
Release
Date: April 3, 2010
发布日：2010年4月3日
Topic:
The Way Out for China (Part IV) -- Wei Jingsheng
标题： 《中国的出路》之四 -- 魏京生
Original
Language Version: Chinese (Chinese version at the end)
此号以中文为准（英文在前，中文在后）
如有中文乱码问题，请与我们联系或访问:
http://www.weijingsheng.org/report/report2010/report2010-04/WeiJS100403ChinaWayOut4A535-W310.htm
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《中国的出路》之四
-- 魏京生
民主的关键条件是有反对党和反对派。要实现独裁和专制就需要消灭反对派。消灭反对派之后的现实就是独裁。把独裁加以制度化就是专制。
前几年有一批御用知识分子大肆鼓吹，说什么中共接班人制度化了，就是什么民主了。这说明他们根本不知道什么是民主；甚至根本不知道什么是专制。任何政治制度都包括交接班制度，皇帝的儿子当皇帝就是制度化。这和民主没有什么关系。
民主也有交接班和继承制度，这就是选举制度。所有的政治制度都有选贤任能的制度。只是选择和推举的范围不同。有人以为专制制度就是没有选举也没有议事制度。
这就大错特错了。现在大家常看的辫子戏，里边明明就有选择和推举领袖的制度；每天的早朝不就是议事的制度吗？老百姓常说的“谁谁谁说了算”，前提就是大家都可以说，然后有一个说了算的决策制度。
辫子戏里边是皇帝说了算；和共产党的邓小平说了算，毛泽东说了算是一样的制度。这就是专制制度。
那么民主是什么制度呢？就是老百姓代替皇帝和毛泽东，老百姓说了算。可是老百姓是众说纷纭，好像没办法说了算。一个氏族一个村子还可以实行原始的民主，召开群众大会投票解决。再大的范围，就得实行代议制了。就是各村选出可靠的代表，再去选举上一级的领袖和代议机构。有时候选举领袖和议会由同一个代表进行。有时候是分开进行。原因是需要的品质不完全相同。
议员和总统、州长、县长所需要的品质不同。选择不同的人担任不同的职责，掌握不同的权力，是最合理的制度。这就是人们常说的分权制。立法、司法和行政各司其职，这个社会的运行才能够达到最佳状态。这就是民主制的合理性大于专制的根本原因。
专制制度的原理也不是完全没有道理，这就是常说的效率第一。把所有权力都交给最优秀的人掌握，不是更可靠、效率更高吗？只可惜历史的经验证明这是一个错误的假设，一个古典完美主义的假设。事实上没有最优秀的人，只有某些方面最优秀的人。
有些人待人处世公平宽容，不易带偏见，适合当法官。可是既没有奇思妙想；也不善指挥调度随机应变。权力集中于他一身，不会冤枉人，但也办不成事。整个社会冤案少了；但在其他方面一错再错，结果也并不好。有些人能言善辩思路开阔，适合议事。能提出最好的意见，但不一定公平，当法官显然不是最好；也不善于指挥调度。有些人当法官和议员不一定最好，但善于指挥调度随机应变，是当总统的最佳人选。
自从人类社会越来越扩大以来，人们选择了各种各样的制度来提高政治效率。在竞争激烈互相残杀的时代，显然行政权最重要。它决定了这一群人能不能生存下去。到今天共产党还是以强调生存权来证明它的重要性；还是以爱国主义来压倒其它的重要性。
这是由专制制度的本质所决定的。但是权力的集中必然造成利益的集中。虽然在和其他国家的竞争中更加有力，但在社会内部必然失去平衡。其必然忽视大多数人的权利和利益，造成社会的不稳定。
政治体制不能只考虑一个方面的需要。而是要面面俱到，考虑到所有方面的需要。如果只考虑行政权力的重要性，产生的自然是大多数人痛苦的专制制度。在大多数人离心离德的情况下，行政效率也会递减。从想象中的权力集中变为人心涣散，最终结果是效率低下，败给更合理的社会制度。这就是近代民主制产生以来，逐步战胜专制的主要原因。
近代民主制之所以更合理，在上层建筑方面的特征就是利益平衡，权力分掌。注意。不是权力分散而是权力分掌，各司其职。有些学者以为只要分权就行了，权力一分散就是民主了。这是完全错误的糊涂观念。美国和西方民主国家的权力比中共更加集中，令行禁止不亚于军队。只是权力集中在性质不同的几个最高机构之中，各司其职，互相制约。这是最合理又少犯错误的最佳体制。
聆听魏京生先生的相关录音，请访问：
http://www.weijingsheng.org/RFA/RFA2010/WeiJS100319ChinaWayOut4.mp3
（撰写并录音于2010年3月19日。自由亚洲电台播出。）
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