Good Governance: Which Country Has the Best Government?

[barts]

Spiegel Online is running a four part series titled Which Country Has the Best Government.

Using Rio de Janeiro as an example, the first in the series describes how Brazilian governments have managed to invalidate the seemingly irrefutable laws of globalization. The Chinese city of Lanzhou shows the practices that have turned China into a superpower in the second article. A third report from the US pinpoints the weaknesses plaguing the system of "checks and balances" that has been in place for more than 200 years, while the final piece on the exemplary European nation of Denmark explains how governments and their citizens can cooperate.

In my view, the series raises serious doubts about the notion that most people have in the "West", particularly in the United States, Canada, and some European countries about the superiority of the democracy/free market "religion" championed, in particular, by the United States and the global agencies, like the IMF and the World Bank, that serve its policies, the Washington Consensus.

In the article on Rio de Janeiro, for example, it is reported that,

The country has a nearly balanced budget, little debt and almost full employment. It is in the process of overtaking France and the United Kingdom, and is poised to become one of the world's five largest economies. Despite being a newly industrialized country itself, Brazil gives development aid, and its dollar reserves of over $350 billion (€290 billion) make it one of the countries with the potential to help save the European Union.

Globalization expert Nicholas Lemann sums up the Brazilian miracle in The New Yorker: "Among the world's major economic powers, Brazil has achieved a rare trifecta: high growth, political freedom, and falling inequality." That first factor stands in stark contrast to the United States and Europe, the second factor to China and the third to almost anywhere on the map.

Lemann's high praise for Brazil makes it seem that global leaders searching for the secret to good governance should make a pilgrimage to the Amazon.

Cardoso failed to achieve one of the central aims of good governance: an equitable distribution of wealth. That effort was taken up by his successor, who became president in 2002: Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known to all as "Lula," leader of the left-wing Workers' Party. A former shoe shiner, metalworker and union leader, Lula was himself a member of Brazil's lower class. His first wife and their unborn child died because the family couldn't afford necessary medical care. In 2003, as president, he traveled first to meet the world's economic leaders in Davos, Switzerland, then a couple days later to participate in the World Social Forum, an alternative counter-initiative held in Porto Alegre, Brazil. "At both gatherings," he later reflected proudly, "I gave the same speech on hunger and how to combat it."

Lula succeeded in easing the desperate situation of the underprivileged in his country with welfare programs such as Fome Zero ("Zero Hunger"), which he implemented against the express advice of his own advisors, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. He was accused of "assistencialism," a form of poverty relief that's limited to handouts with little potential to make long-term change. Yet Lula was successful. More than 20 million people made the leap from lower to middle class under his watch, and the proportion of Brazilians living in absolute poverty decreased by 50 percent.

In the introduction to the series,

Western democracies consider themselves to be efficient, farsighted and just -- in other words, prime examples of "good governance." But in recent years, the euro and debt crises, along with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have shattered faith in the reliability of western institutions. Disconcerted Europeans are casting a worried eye at newly industrialized nations like China and Brazil. Can the West learn something from countries that for so long sought its advice?

The answer, in my view, is "Yes". If the citizens and politicians in the West, particularly in the United States and my own country Canada, are to have any hope of alleviating the economic, social, and environmental pressures now plaguing them, it will be necessary for them set aside the arrogance, hubris, and chauvinism--and even racial prejudice--and show the wisdom to learn lessons from countries that have demonstrated better governance.

[Angry Citizen]

Brazil is one of the most corrupt and crime-ridden states in existence. You would seriously have us emulate them?

[barts]

Brazil is one of the most corrupt and crime-ridden states in existence. You would seriously have us emulate them?

Your comment, of course, is silly.

I would suggest examining other nations' successes and failures and consider adopting what works and avoiding what does not work. Is that a problem for you? Or is it your view that the United States, and Americans, have nothing to learn from any other country's experiences?

I know that the United States offers numerous examples of public policy and governance that are demonstrably harmful to most people. Other countries have much to learn from Americans about what not to do.

[grandpa]

Your comment, of course, is silly.
I would suggest examining other nations' successes and failures and
consider adopting what works and avoiding what does not work.

Name one country that is not as silly as Angry's comment allegedly is. Whatever country you are speaking of, silly and terrible things are bound to be a part of it. Most seem to pick that format as the default.

Grandpa h.

[crimethinker]

Does China's rise to power mean that communism is a win? No, because it has over 1.3 billion people in it, it will inevitably become more powerful than the US, and probably the "West". Mean global GDPs will level out, but I doubt many will overtake the West in terms of per capita, at least not anytime soon. Western countries also have by far the greatest ranks on the Human Development Index. China and Brazil are growing because they're emerging, unrealized economies. They will fizzle out.

[barts]

Does China's rise to power mean that communism is a win? No, because it has over 1.3 billion people in it, it will inevitably become more powerful than the US, and probably the "West". Mean global GDPs will level out, but I doubt many will overtake the West in terms of per capita, at least not anytime soon. Western countries also have by far the greatest ranks on the Human Development Index. China and Brazil are growing because they're emerging, unrealized economies. They will fizzle out.

What makes you think that what you consider the negative aspects of China will remain static? If we've learned anything from human history is that very little remains static.

Is it your view that the West has nothing to learn about governance from non-Western nations? Are we to ignore--for no rational reason--governance decisions made in Brazil that reduced poverty by 50%?

[barts]

Does China's rise to power mean that communism is a win?

Does the United State's continuing economic decline and increasing disparity between rich and poor mean capitalism is a win?

[Charlatan]

Having read up about this program, i don't think it is long sighted.

Giving people a fish today, doesn't mean they know how to fish, but, teaching people about subsitence farming is a good step - that might be like fishing you might say? Fact remains they still don't know how to make money, and as long as they are not making money they will remain 'fishermen.'

The best way to make them not fishermen, but employed, would be to cut education and make more factories. This will in turn lead to more corporate exploitation of the industry sector, so you double your jobs, if not triple them. A student without a job is reduced to subsistence farming.

[Angry Citizen]

What makes you think that what you consider the negative aspects of China will remain static? If we've learned anything from human history is that very little remains static.

Is it your view that the West has nothing to learn about governance from non-Western nations? Are we to ignore--for no rational reason--governance decisions made in Brazil that reduced poverty by 50%?

If I've learned anything from Chinese history, it's that China is an alien world unto itself.

As for Brazil, why should we care? They're still significantly poorer than us. If any countries should be emulated, it is France or Denmark or Norway or similar paradigms of social democracy, not backwards third world countries like Brazil or China whose meager accomplishments stand as triumphs only when referenced next to the horrible slums that they once were, and in many areas still are. No, Brazil has nothing to teach us, nor does China. The western world is supreme for a very good reason, and it will stay supreme for the same reason. Reports of the west's demise are greatly exaggerated, my socialist friend.

[Jack]

Does China's rise to power mean that communism is a win? No...

Here's an advantage I see China having over the U.S. I doubt their brand of communism will last long in its current state. China's citizens will demand more freedom and benefit from their economic successes. However, it's far easier to grant expanded rights to people who have never enjoyed them than it is to have to restrict the rights of people who have become accustomed to enjoying the perception of largely unlimited rights, like American citizens. China will be going from no or little freedom to greater rights, while the West is coming to the awful realization that our previously unfettered rights are slowly being diminished.

[Angry Citizen]

Jack, I think that hinges on an understanding of Chinese culture that you don't seem to have accounted for. Asiatic cultures, and particularly the Chinese, do accept totalitarianism more easily than westerners. The Arab Spring went through China, and China drove a stake through its heart and sent it back with hardly a whisper of discontent. Greater rights are not forthcoming.

[Yarn]

Hong Kong and Taiwan love their democracy, China just hasn't had much taste of it yet. Also, for the past 30 years their economy has grown at about 10% on average per year. That'll shut a lot of people up.