Governance in the East and West

For the first time since the collapse of Communism in 89-91 a good deal of debate is going into the superiority of different systems of government most recently:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/opinion/david-brooks-the-battle-of-the-regimes.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0. Here David Brooks asserts that there is an ongoing battle between "centralized authoritarian capitalism and decentralized liberal democratic capitalism"; and he then proceeds to list the achievements of the former and failings of the latter before suggesting that more creative entrepreneurs are necessary to defend the current Western system.

This is extraordinarily misguided thinking. In places' like California's Silicon Valley, famed for their creative culture and prosperity, dissatisfaction with the US government abounds as it does in more economically depressed places. Following from this example, there is little reason to think that similar success would lead to support for Western style government in Brooks' example of Africa.

The fact of the matter is that Western governments are not only losing their competition with the Eastern alternative identified by Brooks and others but are failing and suffering from fundamental flaws. What has become clear is that the system which defeated Communism and that we Westerners have been taught as much by  faith as reason is failing.

The problem then is not that states like China and Singapore have hit upon a golden model. Their faults such as corruption and lack of creative thought are something most Western thinkers can list today. The problem is not that they are succeeding but that decentralized liberal democratic capitalism is failing. If Western states are to compete they cannot defend traditional systems on faith and worn out arguments. Rather it is time, for the first time in generations, to rethink many of our fundamental ideas about the composition and role of government.