Brief note on the author

Zhao Tingyang was born in 1961 and is a graduate of Renmin University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He is currently a Research Fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Institute of Philosophy. He has also held roles at a number of other Chinese and foreign institutions, including Capital Normal University, Tsinghua University, Beijing University, the Berggruen Institute and the Harvard-Yenching Institute. His main areas of research are political philosophy and ethics. He is well known for his work describing how the ancient Chinese concept of ‘tianxia’ (‘all the world under heaven’) might be updated for modern times. Around 140 of his essays can be read (in Chinese) on the 爱思想 website and some have been published in English.

I will be commenting on an article by Zhao Tingyang entitled “A Possible Type of Smart Democracy” (‘一种可能的智慧民主’), that was published on 爱思想 on 11th June 2021; it was originally published in the China Social Sciences Journal (2021, issue 4).

I would stress in advance that Zhao Tingyang does not seek to promote particular policy prescriptions in his work. He does however describe very clearly possible ways in which governing principles and institutions might be changed and improved.

Summary of article

The writer argues that democracy as practised in western countries has been transformed into a type of ‘agency democracy’, whereby individual voters are manipulated to serve the interests of powerful finance and media groups. People decide how to vote based on prejudiced views spread by the media (including social media) and not on real knowledge of the issues at stake. They are thereby manipulated into implementing policies that suit the interests of these powerful groups through what appears to be a democratic system.

The writer accepts that democracy is definitely preferable to autocracy under modern day social conditions, but he says that in its present form it is not able to deal with many practical problems. He therefore asks whether there is a better system than democracy as we now know it and says he will discuss a type of democracy that he describes as ‘智慧民主’ (‘zhihui minzhu’). He provides his own English translation for this: ‘smart democracy’.

Before going on to describe the nature of the ‘smart democracy’ that he has in mind, the writer discusses in some detail the ways in which democracy has been subverted by powerful forces that control capital, the media and the dissemination of information generally. It is they and not the people or governments that have derived the greatest benefits from present day democracy. The writer uses the term ‘Trojan horse’ to describe this phenomenon. He says there is a high probability this type of democracy will avoid violent revolution, but it can easily give rise to political struggles, disputes relating to values and ideology, and cultural conflicts, which could ultimately lead to the breakup of society.

The writer says that the future of democracy depends on whether it can move from its current ‘opinion based’ form to a new ‘knowledge based’ form, that he describes as ‘smart democracy’. The key to implementing ‘smart democracy’ will be the systematic application of reason and knowledge to determine a ‘community consensus’ (‘共同体的共识’). The writer considers that a ‘community consensus’ (or a ‘community value consensus’ as he also describes it) is essential to the operation of democracy, because it will avoid the break up of society. So long as such a consensus can be maintained, the issues to be resolved through politics will be limited to tactical and technical arguments over how to achieve common goals. Disputes over common goals that could give rise to serious disputes and social collapse can then be avoided.

The writer then sets out ideas on the practical measures that could be used to implement ‘smart democracy’. He focuses on two particular measures: (i) each elector would have two votes, a positive vote and a negative vote, and (ii) votes would be exercised not just by citizens, but by a combination of citizens and committees comprised of intellectuals drawn from the sciences and humanities.

‘One person two votes’

The writer argues that a system in which each voter has both a positive vote and a negative vote would better express the will of the people and reduce the chance of a voting system causing actual harm to minority groups. The positive and negative votes would then be combined and the candidate with the highest net share of votes would win. The writer provides an example of how it would work. The example he gives involves voting on two proposals. Proposal A would provide the same benefit to all voters. Proposal B would provide an increased benefit to 51% of voters, while providing a reduced benefit to 49% of voters. The writer notes that under a ‘one person one vote’ system Proposal B would very likely be approved, causing loss to the 49% minority. He does not show definitively how this would be avoided under a ‘one person two vote’ system, but he says he is convinced that a ‘one person two vote’ system would reduce the chance of Proposal B being approved, thereby causing harm to a minority of voters.

The writer goes on to discuss in some detail his reasons for believing that a ‘one person two vote’ system would be better than the ‘one person one vote’ system. He says that ‘approval’ and ‘negation’ are two basic dimensions of every person’s consciousness and psychology, in addition to being basic conditions for an individual’s thoughts and actions. No-one can think through a problem and choose a solution without taking account of both positive and negative views. The writer goes on to discuss a number of philosophical and psychological reasons for adopting a two vote system. If anyone reading this post wishes me to summarise his views in more detail please let me know.

Five vote based ‘smart’ democracy

After briefly considering the merits and demerits of ‘drawing lots’ as a method of selecting candidates (a method used to some extent in Ancient Greece and Rome) the author goes on to outline a type of democratic system which is described in the Shang Shu (or the Book of History, one of the Five Classics of ancient Chinese literature). One part of the Shang Shu is called the Hong Fan (or ‘Great Plan’). This part contains a description of a system designed to resolve disputes, which the author believes may have originated in the thinking of a sage called Ji Zi (箕子) who died in 1082 BC, around the time when the Shang Dynasty ended. After King Wu of Zhou destroyed the Shang Dynasty, he heard that Ji Zi was one of the ‘wise men’ of the Shang Dynasty and asked him to become a counsellor. Ji Zi refused to take on an official role, but produced a set of plans for running the new state called the ‘Nine Categories’ (‘jiu chou’/’九畴’) which he gave to King Wu. The contents of the Nine Categories included politics, the economy and ethics and the writer says a number of Ji Zi’s suggestions appear to have been implemented by the King of Zhou. The writer’s main interest however is in the section concerned with ‘resolving doubts’ (‘ji yi’/’稽疑’). Ji Zi said that if there were disagreements over important matters involving the state and the public, these could be resolved through a method in which both the people and ‘Heaven’ would exercise votes to decide on how to proceed. This particular suggestion of Ji Zi’s was not implemented by the King of Zhou because it was incompatible with a monarchical system of government. The writer nonetheless describes it as an ‘initial gene’ of a ‘smart democratic’ system.

The writer then describes this proposal in more detail. It would have involved five votes. Three votes would be cast by ‘people’: one by the Emperor, one by the senior counsellors of state, and one by the people as a whole. The writer believes the senior counsellors of state would have had to consult together to determine their vote, while the people would have been represented in practice by individuals of ‘noble character and high prestige’ (‘degao wangzhong’/’德高望重’). The other two votes would be ‘weighted votes’ representing ‘Heaven. As ‘Heaven’ could not itself cast votes, these votes would have been determined through divination (‘zhan bu’/’占卜’). The writer points out that in the early stages of civilisation, divination was not considered to be a type of superstition, but was seen as a source of reliable knowledge; its status was on a par with today’s scientific knowledge. The shamans who were entrusted with the interpretation of natural bumps and cracks on animal bones and turtle shells (‘oracle bones’) were regarded as experts and had a reputation for wisdom.

The writer then sets out the principles governing how the voting system would have worked in practice. For example, if all votes were cast in favour of the same choice, that would be the optimal choice. If, however, votes were split, the result would be determined in accordance with set rules. If the Emperor and the two votes representing ‘Heaven’ agreed on a choice, but the senior counsellors of state and the people opposed it, that choice would be regarded as non-optimal but could be ‘carefully implemented’. If the two votes representing ‘Heaven’ opposed a choice, but the Emperor, counsellors of state and the people all voted in favour of it, then that choice could not be adopted. And so on. The writer concludes from the way that the system was organised that it was designed to elicit what the ‘human’ voters (the Emperor, counsellors of state and people) wanted to happen, while leaving it to ‘Heaven’ to decide whether that was in fact feasible. The writer describes this as a’knowledge weighted democratic system’, in which ‘knowledge’ guides human choice. As such, it provides a basis, or ‘inspiration (‘启示’/’qi shi’), for developing new ideas about democracy.

The writer firmly believes that democracy must be based on ‘knowledge’ in order to be effective. He says that modern life (and democracy) have been undermined by short term thinking and our insistence on ‘living in the moment’. This results in our understanding of events and our value judgements being ‘individualised’ and based on short-term thinking. It therefore becomes impossible to reach rational conclusions on our individual and collective long-term interests. The writer introduces a concept from ‘game theory’ to demonstrate that in a ‘once off game’, a player’s rational choice of tactics will not be the optimal choice and will inevitably cause problems for the ‘collective’ (he says the ‘prisoner’s dilemma’ is a classic example of this). Applying this to democracy, the writer says that just as individuals playing a game can create problems for the ‘collective’, in the same way the totalling of individual views (in a ‘one person one vote’ democratic system) will inevitably fail to result in a ‘reasonable common choice’ (‘合理的共同选择‘). He says that in present conditions where we are mainly motivated by short term considerations, this will inevitably result in democracy losing its effectiveness. Only ‘universal knowledge’ can approach ‘universal reasonableness’; for that reason, democracy can only be rational and reasonable if it is based on ‘knowledge’.

The writer also says that ‘credibility’ (‘可信性‘/’kexinxing’) and ‘stability’ (‘稳定性’/’wendingxing’) are essential attributes of a democratic system. He says the importance of credibility was understood by Legalist philosophers such as Shang Yang (‘商鞅’). But the Legalists did not realise credibility and stability alone were insufficient to ensure the people’s support for and loyalty to a particular system of government. For a system of government to work, it must both promise to provide shared benefits for the ‘community’ (‘共同体‘/’gongtongti’) and also be capable of resolving the contradictions between the demands of requirements by different groups and between people’s unlimited demands and the limited ability of government to meet those demands.

The writer concludes that all government systems have a common weak point, in that they lack ‘rational intelligence capability’ (‘理性的智慧能力’/’lixing de zhihui nengli’), i.e., they lack the intelligence needed to deal with the serious problems they have to resolve.

The writer then goes on to describe how a ‘smart democracy’ inspired by Ji Zi’s recommendation described above could be implemented in a way that would meet this intelligence deficit. This would be a type of ‘weighted intelligent democracy’ based on two rounds of voting. The first round would involve all the people voting on a particular desired policy or outcome; the second round would involve two ‘knowledge commissions’ (‘知识委员会’/’zhishi weiyuanhui’) voting on whether the desired policy or outcome is feasible (‘可行’/’kexing’). The first round of voting by all the people would be based on the two vote (positive and negative) system described above. The second round vote by ‘knowledge commissions’ would involve votes by two different commissions: a ‘scientific commission’ and a ‘humanities commission’. The writer says he has followed Ji Zi’s approach in allocating votes to two different knowledge commissions (in the same way as Ji Zi’s system would have given two votes to shamans to be exercised based on divination). He says however that in principle the ‘knowledge commissions’ would be voting as representatives of ‘knowledge’ and not on their own personal account. As a result there could in practice be just one, or more than one knowledge commission.

As for the make-up of the ‘knowledge commissions’, the writer says their members would be selected from ‘credible’ scientists and humanities scholars who have reached the highest level of knowledge and expertise in their fields. The members would include both established experts plus individuals considered to have ‘the best prospects for true advanced knowledge’ (‘最有希望为真的前沿知识’). The writer says that as these would be the individuals with the highest level of contemporary knowledge, that would reduce the possibility of error in their decisions to a relatively low level.

To ensure the credibility of members of the knowledge commissions, it would be necessary to ensure that they do not hold important administrative roles in government. They would also have to publicly declare their assets and the sources of those assets. If their declarations revealed anything inappropriate, then they would be ineligible to join one of the commissions. The writer considers this would prevent commission members being influenced by interest groups. It would be important to ensure that commission members act solely on the basis of their knowledge and that they are not influenced by financial interests, government or political parties.

The writer says this system would give the knowledge commissions the highest (and final) power to determine public choices, while government would have the highest power to implement those choices. He says this would ‘in part achieve’ (‘部分达到’) the goal of creating a ‘smart democratic system’.

The writer accepts that the members of the knowledge commissions would not necessarily be able to avoid all personal prejudices in deciding how to cast their ‘weighted knowledge votes’. He says that the ongoing development of ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI) would help to reduce the remaining influence of personal prejudices by increasing ‘the total of cross disciplinary knowledge’ (‘加强跨学科的总体知识和整体知识’). This would in turn reduce prejudices arising from ‘specialised’ single discipline knowledge. The writer further describes this as a type of ‘systematised intelligence’ (‘制度化智能’) that would help to ensure a country and society make the optimum common choice. The writer ends his essay by saying that rational thought can never satisfy all of men’s desires. However, a ‘smart democratic system’ like the one he describes could be the way to identify and implement the ‘meeting point’ between reason and desire.

My comments on the article

I was struck by a number of things when I read Zhao Tingyang’s article:

• Zhao’s plan for ‘smart democracy’ is not a practical plan that he proposes the Chinese government or Communist Party of China should definitely adopt. He is a theoretical scholar. The plan he describes is also a reminder to us that when and if China does adopt a more democratic system of governance than the one it has now, that system may not be based on the ‘one person one vote’ model we in western countries are used to. If the Chinese do decide to democratise, they could adopt elements of multiple voting or weighted voting like those Zhao describes, or other elements that are entirely unfamiliar to us. A Chinese democratic system could also contain elements derived from China’s long history, like Zhao’s plan.
• Zhao in my view accurately describes current weaknesses of democratic systems in western countries. Many of us are concerned that voters’ views are being manipulated by the traditional media and also by social media. There are also dysfunctions arising from elements of our existing democratic systems that have not been modernised. The ‘filibuster’ system that requires large majorities to pass many bills in the US Senate is one example. In addition, the checks and balances that were designed by the ‘Founding Fathers’ of the United States to prevent tyranny now seem to be preventing much needed changes from being implemented even when they are clearly supported by a large majority of Americans. In the UK our ‘first past the post’ electoral system enables a Party to secure a majority in Parliament with the votes of around 40% of the public. That Party can then introduce legislation that harms the interests of a majority of the population. It is also difficult in the UK (in glaring contrast to the US) to adopt laws that cannot easily be changed by a subsequent Parliament. Correcting dysfunctions like these that have developed over long periods of time, in fact over centuries, can be extremely difficult to do.
• Zhao’s recourse to plans and concepts set out in classical Chinese literature is notable. We in the west have of course also derived much inspiration from Greek and Roman classical writing and philosophy. However, it seems to me that Zhao and other Chinese scholars are much more influenced by these ancient concepts than are scholars in the west.
• It seems almost incredible that Zhao derives his inspiration for a system of ‘smart democracy’ from a prototype system that gave huge weight to the results of divination. For those of us living in modern ‘enlightened’ times, nothing could be more superstitious and antedeluvian than divination. Zhao does however make a very good point that divination in ancient times had a similar status to science now. Throughout the Covid pandemic, there have been persistent calls to ‘follow the science’. We all know that scientists do not have all the answers and some of their advice has later been shown to be wrong. But what better source of advice do we have?

Link to original article: http://www.aisixiang.com/data/126981.html

Michael Ingle – michaelingle01@gmail.com

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Tags: 赵汀阳, smart democracy, weighted knowledge voting, 智慧民主