Village chief offers lessons in democracy

Opinion / You Nuo

 Village chief offers lessons in democracy
By You Nuo (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-03-13 05:37

A week ago I wrote about my conversation with a village chief who had
come to Beijing for the National People's Congress. The feedback I
received was divided,

To recap, the chief said that where he came from, "only poor villages
have heated elections." He however had hardly anyone to run against in
almost every election because in his village, which he has headed for
more than 40 years, the village committee does all the basic things the
villagers want before elections start.

One reader praised the village chief's experience as reflecting "a
fundamental reason" why some democracies have failed and some other
systems have succeeded, namely satisfying the needs of the people.

Another reader remained doubtful, and even went so far as to suggest that
life may be so good in the village that it has practically killed the
desire for more competitive elections.

I felt both readers missed the point slightly. The first reader was
concerned mainly about the needs of the people, which, he seemed to
insist, are more important than competitive elections. The other was
mainly about the weakness of human beings. It can be seen in all systems
that, when the economy is good, people generally have fewer things to
complain about.

Neither discussed why and how a local leadership could have kept doing
the right things for more than 40 years, and have avoided facing a major
challenge in elections.

I thought maybe I had not explained it well in my first article. So I
went back to my notes, to look for clues showing what factors have made
the village chief do the right things.

He started to lead the villagers to plant trees in 1963, after a flood
wiped out all their assets, thus embarking on a 40-odd-year afforestation
campaign that has changed the village into a local tourist destination.
That was a lesson about the environment.

In the 1980s, when farming was about to become less profitable, he lead
the villagers to plant more fruit trees. That was his introductory course
in the market economy.

Then he learned that no farmer can cope with market forces and earn a
better price for his crops individually. So the village started to run
its own fruit processing industry and developed its own sales channels
like a modern corporation. This was the beginning of the man's managerial
career.

In the last few years, having seen the cost of medical care skyrocket and
many local households virtually ruined by a visit to a big-city hospital,
he learned his lesson in public finance namely creating community-wide
health insurance.

So it is not because of a lack of competition that the village leadership
can stay in power for 40-plus years. Despite the fact that within the
village there has never seemed much of a race, the village chief has
taken seriously the competition, or perhaps pressure, from outside the
village.

If he had failed to react, first to the poor environment and then to the
everything-goes-cheap market economy, I'm sure dissatisfaction would have
started simmering and there would have been calls for his replacement.

Without pressure from the outside, a democracy may well degenerate into a
game for the powerful to seek self-entertainment, or for those with
vested interests to multiply their gains. This kind of game will estrange
farmers to a much larger extent than long-term village leadership.

Email: younuo@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/13/2006 page4)

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