WHY LIBERALS NEED NOT OBJECT TO VERTICAL DEMOCRACY MERITOCRACY

My book defends an ideal of vertical democratic meritocracy: democracy at the lower levels of government and political meritocracy at higher levels of government, with political experimentation in between. I argue that there is a large gap between the ideal and the reality, but that the ideal should be used to evaluate what counts as political progress for reasons that are particular to the Chinese context, such as the size of the country, the long history of political meritocracy in China, the recent experience with meritocratic reform, as well as the fact that the ideal is favored by the large majority of Chinese people according to survey data. From a liberal perspective, the most worrisome aspect of the ideal is the defense of political meritocracy at higher levels of government because it seems to require, as Macedo puts it, “political repression.” It is true that Chinese-style political meritocracy in traditional China often relied on heavy-handed repression and inhumane punishments such as public torture. But today—partly due to the influence of liberal values—China endorses basic human rights and the idea that all citizens should be equal before the law in criminal cases. Nobody officially questions prohibitions against slavery, genocide, murder, torture, prolonged arbitrary discrimination, and systematic racial discrimination. There is also widespread agreement that Chinese citizens should have the freedoms to marry, find a job, and travel abroad. Of course, there is a large gap between the ideal and the reality. But the same is true in Western countries. The task, in both China and the West, is to reduce the gap between the ideal of basic human rights and the reality.

Liberals may still object to political meritocracy on the grounds that it denies democracy. As Macedo puts it, the nature of communist-party rule is “anti-democratic.” But the CCP (at the level of principle) is not against democracy tout court. What the Chinese government does oppose is the system of electoral democracy as a way of selecting political leaders at higher levels of government. Instead, it affirms what we can call “political meritocracy”: the idea that the political system should aim to select and promote public officials with above average ability and virtue by such means as examinations and performance evaluations at lower levels of government. Here too, there is a large gap between the ideal and reality and the task is to reduce the gap.

Unlike fascism or totalitarianism, political meritocracy is compatible with most democratic values and practices. Forms of political participation, such as sortition, consultation, and deliberation, as well as elections at lower levels of government, are compatible with political meritocracy. But electoral democracy at the top would wreck the advantages of political meritocracy. An elected leader without any political experience could appeal to people's worst emotions and rise to the top (and make may beginner's mistakes) and an elected leader would be more constrained by short term electoral considerations at the cost of long term planning for the good of the political community and the rest of the world.

So the task in China is to bolster the meritocratic elements in the country's political system while selectively adopting democratic ideas and practices short of electoral democracy as the top. Liberals may still be uncomfortable with the ideal of political meritocracy because it seems to require constraints on the right to form political parties that contest for political power at the top. But no modern democratic system is entirely free of constraints on political participation. From the point of view of the ancient Athenian citizen, a representative democracy would be seen as defective because it does not give citizens the right to directly participate in political rule. But today we would respond that such constraints are necessary in a large political community and that they are justifiable so long as citizens have opportunities to make their voices heard and to participate in the political process in some meaningful form. In the same vein, a political meritocracy would be theoretically acceptable if citizens have opportunities to make their voices heard and to participate in the political process other than via political parties. The problem, once again, is the gap between the ideal and the reality, not the ideal itself.

Liberals may still continue to object to political meritocracy on the grounds that it seems to lack checks on the power of the ruling party. As Macedo puts it, the “undemocratic model depends on the self-sustaining virtue of the powerful, in stark defense of the old maxim that power corrupts.” But that is not my view. Checks on power are necessary, but they need not take the form of competitive elections and U.S.-style Supreme Courts. The two main checks on power at the top in China have been term limits and collective rule. My book also argues for further checks in the form of democracy at lower forms of government and free and fair referenda on ideal of vertical democratic meritocracy, held every few decades. I also argue for more extensive measures to combat corruption. These are all compatible with the ideal of political meritocracy. So again, the problem is the gap between the ideal and the reality—worsening in some respects (such as the recent abolishment of term limits) and improving in others (such as the recent efforts to combat corruption)—rather than the ideal itself.

WHY SOCIALISTS NEED NOT OBJECT TO VERTICAL DEMOCRATIC MERITOCRACY

My book's argument for political meritocracy appealed mainly to the Confucian intellectual roots of the ideal and the legacy of institutional mechanisms from imperial China such as the examination system. As Zhang argues, however, I largely neglect the “Leninist-Maoist source” of China's current meritocratic practices. Zhang's intervention is particularly helpful because it responds to the concerns of socialists who might object to the ideal of political meritocracy on the grounds that it perpetuates unjust hierarchies.

From a socialist perspective, the big problem with traditional China is that it justified rule by intellectual elites selected via the examination process and excluded the productive classes from political power. But the solution is not to abolish the idea of a ruling class. The communist ideal of a completely equal society where all people are free to realize their creative essence is only possible in a highly developed society where advanced machinery takes care of the socially necessary work. Meanwhile, Lenin argued that it is necessary for a group of elites to bring about the transition to higher communism. As Zhang notes, “Leninism emphasizes the leadership of a vanguard party consisting of professional revolutionaries. In recruiting party members and selecting party leaders, a Leninist party highly emphasizes the virtue and ability of candidates.” In contrast to the traditional Chinese practice that values rule by scholar-officials, however, the Leninist vanguard party puts political trust in peasants and workers as well: all classes of society would produce elites that constitute the vanguard party. Hence, socialists need not object to political meritocracy per se; the problem is to avoid what Zhang terms “narrow meritocracy,” meaning a political party that represents a narrow sector of society, and to strive for a “broad meritocracy,” meaning a political organization that cultivates and trains the elites from all sectors of society, including peasants and workers.

Zhang argues that the CCP in Mao's era better represented the interests of peasants and workers: “a meritocratic system may need an egalitarian discourse that each profession of the society could successfully produce role models. In this respect, one can also see that China during Mao's era successfully produced such an egalitarian discourse. Model workers formed the frontline of different professions enjoyed high honor in the society. Since the 1980s, the frontline of workers in the model workers has dropped significantly, and the ratio of managers and technicians has risen rapidly.” We can agree that there may be a need for a greater proportion of workers and peasants at the higher levels of the CCP: they are more likely to be sensitive to the interests of workers and peasants in society, and honoring more workers and peasants may improve the “enthusiasm” of the productive classes. But we cannot and should not go back to Maoist times that persecuted large numbers of intellectuals. The task is to continue to build a vanguard political organization that is constituted by elites from different classes and sectors of society and represents the interests of the overwhelming majority of people.

Socialists also worry about a political system that excludes the people—especially the productive classes—from political participation. There may be a need for a vanguard party that leads the transition to communism, but those elites need to be in constant close contact with the large majority of people both to know what the people want and to be motivated to act in their interest. Here Maoism made an important contribution. As Zhang explains, “While Lenin set down an elitist political structure, Mao added an egalitarian spirit to the daily operation of the structure: cadres should learn from the mass to approach the truth of history, and go to the mass to test the validity of their understanding of the truth. This is the so-called “mass line”. Cadres are required to conduct investigations on people's needs and concerns from time to time, and respond quickly.”

Zhang's argument is thought provoking. The mass line put into practice is a way of securing some form of political participation by the people and representation of their interests without a system of competitive elections. That said, the “mass line” can take extreme forms. In the Cultural Revolution, millions of educated urbanites had to spend extended periods in the countryside to be “educated” by farmers. It was a miserable experience for most intellectuals, especially because they had no indication of when they could return to the cities. But it did have the positive consequence that public officials in charge of the initial period of economic reform had experience with the countryside and a good feel for the needs of the farmers. In more recent years, cadres lost touch with the “masses” and were more likely to implement policies insensitive to their needs. In response, a softer form of the “mass line” has been implemented: young and ambitious public officials in China typically need to spend one or two years in poor rural regions so they can learn about the needs of the worst off members of the community. Still, even the most reasonable form of the “mass line” may not be sufficient to secure the interests of peasants and workers in the political system. Without more local-level democracy and meaningful opportunities for self-organization at the local level, even the most-well informed and intentioned political elites may lose touch with the masses once they “return” to the world of politics at the top.

WHAT COUNTS AS MERIT?

A key question for political meritocrats is what counts as merit for political leaders. My book argues that context matters: what may be appropriate in times of war, for example, may not be appropriate in times of peace. Hence, I specify the context I have in mind—higher levels of government in a large, peaceful, and modernizing political meritocracy—and I argue that intellectual ability, emotional intelligence, and virtue matter most for political leaders in that context. I also argue that not all qualities matter equally: virtue matters most, then emotional intelligence, then intellectual ability. But I note that the relative importance of each quality will also depend on the political priorities of the time: in the early days of economic reform, for example, GDP growth mattered most, hence it was most important to select and promote government officials with the right social skills to get things done, but now that corruption is widely viewed as mortal threat to the political system, more emphasis should be placed on the moral character of the political officials. Hence, Wong's claim that I rely on “fixed menu of qualities” is not accurate. It really does depend on the context. That said, Wong pushes me to think about which qualities may be important for political leaders regardless of context, and which ones might be more contingent. I do think virtue—in the minimal sense of being motivated to serve the community to a certain extent—is indispensable no matter what the context. Even in times when virtue may not be so important—such as China in the 1980s and 1990s, when corruption was not viewed as so damaging so long as it greased the wheels of economic growth—public officials who enriched themselves through corrupt means still had to get things done. If they were completely corrupt, the system could not be justified in any way. On the other hand, intellectual ability really does depend on the context. If it is a small political community in an isolated part of the world, where most people are satisfied with the current way of life, then it does not matter so much if leaders are not impressive intellectually. But in the context of a large, modernizing political community with many stakeholders and where decisions affect different people in different ways in different time periods, intellectual ability is much more important to assess what counts as a good policy.

What about emotional intelligence as a quality for political leaders? Wong provocatively argues that it is not important, and may even be counterproductive. He notes that my main proxy for emotional intelligence—namely, a record of success in governance—is unreliable because a socially inept leader with good luck may also achieve favorable governmental outcomes. This kind of scenario may be abstractly conceivable, but the decades long, multiple hoops rise to the top in the Chinese political system minimizes the role of luck. It is possible to be lucky once, or twice, but highly unlikely that a socially inept leaders will succeed over the course of three or four decades, even if s/he is intellectually brilliant and virtuous. Again, political context matters.

Wong does not directly specify the context for his argument against emotional intelligence, but he does suggest that emotional intelligence is not important for a model (“Bell's model”) where “rule is by fiat, and the state derives legitimacy from its ability to execute judicious decisions. The model's principal strength is tied to the leader's absolute power.” If it is just a matter of weighing scientific evidence and determining the most socially beneficial outcome and using the strong arm of the state to implement decisions, then intellectual ability may be most important for leaders, particularly in modern, complex societies, and we can forget about emotional intelligence. But this account mischaracterizes the “China model.” Even at the highest level of government in China, the top leader works in the context of collective leadership, and he must persuade the other top leaders. He must also have a long list of friends and supporters in the political system (aka “patronage network”) who are willing to implement his decisions—a list of friends and supporters that have been accumulated during the decades' long rise to the top. And he must be able to gain the trust of the people to an important extent: the people must recognize and accept that the leader favors and implements appropriate policies. All these desiderata require leaders with above average ability to understand how others think and to empathize what they feel.

That said, I accept Wong's argument that “empathy can encumber clarity in decision-making.” A good leader must be relatively impartial and do her/his best not to let personal feelings get in the way of sound decision-making, particularly in the context of large political communities where some decisions inevitably negatively affect some people. And some decisions, say regarding climate change and artificial intelligence, do require superior intellectual skills to understand and evaluate the arguments for and against and to plan for the long term. It is important to have brilliant advisors to put forward different arguments with different perspectives, but it may also require superior intelligence and knowledge of different disciplines to evaluate the arguments and settle upon the most socially beneficial policy. So there might be a trade-off between intellectual and emotional intelligence, and sometimes the former matters more.

LEGITIMIZING POLITICAL MERITOCRACY

One great advantage of an electoral democracy is that it basically solves the problem of political legitimacy: a political ruler is legitimate if he or she is selected by the people in free and fair competitive elections held every few years. In a political meritocracy, however, it is more of a challenge to legitimize the political system: why should the people accept to be ruled by rulers they have not chosen?

One important way to legitimize unelected rulers in the eyes of the people is good performance. If the leaders perform well in terms of delivering the goods that people want, the people will likely support those rulers and the form of government as a whole. Ci claims that I favor “communist one-party rule for a particular reason—it delivers better performance than democracy would, at least in the Chinese context … performance matters more than anything else.” But that's only part of the story. In my book I argue that the CCP has drawn on three sources of legitimacy: nationalism, performance legitimacy, and political meritocracy. Although all three sources of legitimacy have been important at different times to a certain extent, nationalism was most important in the early days of the reform era, performance legitimacy in the first couple of decades of the reform era, and political meritocracy is becoming an increasingly important source of legitimacy. I also argue that democratic legitimacy will become more important as Chinese modernizes: hence the need for more democratic mechanisms short of electoral democracy at the top and perhaps even a referendum in favor of “vertical democratic meritocracy” that would explicitly legitimize the political system in the eyes of the people. So my view is not (contrary to what Ci claims) that “it does not pay to initiate democratic change in China.” I do think democratic change is important, though it need not take the form of electoral democracy at the top.

That said, Ci is right to point to the ongoing importance of Marxist ideology in providing a form of “ideological legitimacy” for the political system. In my book, I rather optimistically argued that Marxism is losing its moral grip on the people and that it is being replaced by nationalism as a source of ideological legitimacy. But it is hard to separate nationalism from Marxism so long as the ruling organization continues to call itself the “Chinese Communist Party” and emphasizes the importance of the Marxism in 20th century Chinese history that is taught in schools and to party cadres. Moreover, the current government, led by President Xi Jinping, is putting even stronger emphasis on Marxism as the underlying ideological framework for the political system, with more funding going to Marxist studies in universities and party schools. Ci is skeptical that Marxism per se will be sufficient to legitimize the political system for the long term, and anybody who has spoken to younger generations in China is likely to agree.

Ci refers to the second appendix of my book—a dialogue with a communist party member who draws on Confucian ideas to legitimize the political system—to suggest that I am “betraying, ever so subtly, a lack of confidence in [my] assumption that China's one-party rule is rock-solid.” But that's not my assumption. I do not foresee the collapse of the CCP in the next few years, but I do think it needs to change if it is to continue to be viewed as legitimate in the eyes of the people. And part of that change involves retrieving and reinterpreting Confucianism as an underlying source of “ideological legitimacy,” ideally in combination with some form of socialism and liberalism. Even if the CCP does stick to Marxism and successfully leads a transition to higher communism, with people free to realize their creative essences, Marxism still won't be sufficient as a legitimizing ideology. The people will continue to have the “Confucian” need to live harmonious lives with others and the religious impulse to ponder the meaning of death and suffering will not “wither away” any faster than the state itself. What may need to change, then, is the CCP's commitment to “communist” atheism.