Quality, democracy and policies: a few more words

Tsang Shu-ki (9/07/2003)

Hong Kong certainly has a high-quality population, compared with the Mainland average. To be fair, though, the brightest in the north are probably far superior, while the worst elements would make ours look like naughty boy scouts. So we are just talking about the average. And we should restrain our pride, given that the SAR is economically more advanced and culturally more metropolitan and internationalised than our patriotic counterparts.

The Hong Kong people undoubtedly deserve a more democratic system than the present one, which is fraught with problems in design and implementation. The Administration is theoretically powerful but in practice rather weak, especially when led by a CE with little charisma and limited political experience like Tung. A more democratic, or at least more sensitive and responsive, government could have avoided quite a number of the blatant mistakes committed in the past six years.

However, many of the problems that are confronting us would still have developed and persisted, given the sea change in the external environment and the very diversified ideologies that different sectors of the population have been harbouring---from diehards’ anti-communism to faithful/opportunistic patriotism, and from laissez-faire capitalism to welfare-oriented populism. Democracy empowers people, increases their sense of community and could help to alleviate the negative consequences of their behaviour. It also provides a more civilised mechanism of conflict resolution. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, people are different, and democracy is not a cure-all. The swaying of the SAR government’s stance on critical issues has to a certain extent reflected the very high degree of local heterogeneity, on top of its own indecisiveness.

United we are against an incompetent and surprisingly arrogant leadership. Yet regarding detailed political, economic and social policies, I wonder if anything approaching a “broad consensus” exists.

Pluralism is not a bad thing in itself: but it does mean that reality is cumbersome rather than romantic. Moreover, short-run maximisation may not be consistent with long-run optimisation, as economists know.

I am pro-democracy, but from the early 1980s on I have not been a “democratic populist”. The key is that while people should have all the right channels to participate in decision-making (not just in the legislature, but also at various social levels---hence I am more a “social democrat” than a “liberal democrat”), it counts as well if the community is mature, intelligent and capable enough to come up with the appropriate solutions to unfamiliar challenges and unanticipated shocks. That sort of quality takes a lot of time and experience to develop, if ever.

Ultimately, substance matters as much as form. We would be deluding ourselves if we think that democracy (or Tung’s departure) can solve most of the difficulties troubling the SAR. Well, many of us have been bored for so long that some might just become “irrationally exuberant”---which is entirely understandable.