Yu Keping: The six axioms of political science

April 2019

If a few officials are corrupt, it is indeed due to their lack of faith, etc. If there is corruption among officials, there must be something wrong with the system. Just like in a fish pond, if a few fish die, it may be a problem with the fish itself; if there are many fish dying, there must be a problem with the water in the fish pond.

Political science has a very long history and is one of the oldest disciplines. This research discipline can be traced back to Aristotle, over 300 BC. He was the founder of many disciplines and wrote many books, one of which was called “Politics.”

If you ask Aristotle, among so many subjects, which subject is the most important? I believe he will definitely talk about political science. He said in “Political Science” that political science is “master science”, that is, “primary discipline” or “leading discipline”. Why? Because politics is related to the good of the community or the public interest.

27 years ago, I gave a lecture to students at Peking University and talked about the distinction between political science, economics and ethics. I said that economics mainly studies how to produce more products at the lowest cost and produce more benefits with the lowest input. How to distribute the products after they are produced is a matter of political science.

There are many definitions of political science, and the most recognized definition around the world is: Politics is the authoritative distribution of major interests. The same is true in China. If you go to work, what your leader says is very important. You should treat it from a political perspective. This is the most important thing.

Last year, a French economist wrote that economics no longer talks about distribution. When economics talks about distribution, economics is no longer pure economics, it is called political economics.

Politics is related to people’s fundamental interests. Different interests will have different positions and thus form different views. Therefore, it is difficult to reach a consensus on the axioms of political science. The situation of “the father-in-law is right when he speaks to the public, and the mother-in-law is right when she speaks to the mother-in-law” is common in political science.

Politics is indeed complex, but politics has its own axioms. Anyone who violates these axioms will be punished.

6 AXİOMS

1. Whoever produces power is responsible to whom power is derived.

For example, we are a socialist country and officials are the public servants of the people. It stands to reason that public servants should obey their masters (people), but you see many officials are submissive to their leaders and bossy to their masters and bossy to the common people.

Why is this happening? Because the current selection system for some officials violates an axiom of political science: whoever generates power is responsible to whom power is derived.

If the official position is given by the people, then the official must listen to the people. If this official position was given by a superior leader, then of course he would only obey his superior leader’s orders.

2. Governing ability and system design: Government must come from one discipline

Nowadays, the ranks and numbers of officials is very large, and it is very hard for so many officials. A doctor from Peking University conducted a survey and found that there were 124 institutions at the county level in a certain province. But with so many officials, everyone is still working very hard. There is a saying that is “5+2, white plus black.”

I often hear officials say that we are guaranteed no rest on Saturdays and no rest on Sundays. Once, I went to a place for research, and a very important local leader told me that I couldn’t figure it out clearly. Some of our cadres “worked from the morning when the chicken crows to the night when the devil crows.” They had endless things to do. Are the people still dissatisfied?

Why? This is because a considerable part of our system design violates a principle of political science: governing ability is closely related to system design: politics must come from one discipline. If one thing is managed by many departments, the efficiency will definitely be low.

Everyone is a scholar, so I took out a book as an example. According to publishing regulations, you must submit a topic for publishing a book. There are many topics that the publisher cannot decide on its own.

 For example, those with religious themes must go to the Religious Affairs Bureau for review, those with diplomatic issues must go to the Foreign Affairs Department, and those with ethnic themes must go to the Ethnic Affairs Committee. The manuscript is given to the publishing house. If the publishing house cannot make up its mind, it will be handed over to the leaders of the competent departments. After reading it, the leaders of the competent departments will send it to the relevant central departments, and then these leaders will review each copy. You see, a book published by a publishing house has to go through so many departments and has so many people reviewing it. Of course, officials will be overwhelmed.

3. Decision-making instructions and effect information should not go through the same channel.

There is another phenomenon. Leaders at the top went to the bottom to investigate and found that a lot of data was untrue and watery. When central leaders go to local areas for investigation, local areas must make preparations, but many of the preparations are actually fake.

In some cases, even the “people” are cadres in disguise. In some places, people will talk about one thing during the day in meetings, and at night, they will talk in private another thing. What they said during the day does not count. Now I will tell you some real situations.

Everyone wants to tell the truth, but why is it so difficult to tell the truth? Because many of our system designs violate another political science principle: top-down policy instruction information and bottom-up information on policy effects cannot go together. Anyone who violates this set of rules will, without exception, get information that is untrue to a considerable extent.

I think the central government definitely doesn’t want the party or government cadres below to tell lies, and the people don’t like cadres to tell lies, and they don’t want the government to tell lies. But think about it, if I am the maker and implementer of this policy, and I am asked to evaluate the effect of this policy, if I say that the effect of this policy is not good, will not be this a slap in the face to myself?

If I did not make this policy, It is formulated by the higher-level government, and I will implement it. If other departments or localities say it is good, and I say this policy is not good, will the higher-level department say that I am not good at implementing it? So lies are inevitable.

4. Power must be checked and balanced and a closed loop should be formed.

Another phenomenon is that corruption is now being severely punished, and more than 100 “tigers” have been arrested. In fact, successive leaders have attached great importance to anti-corruption. Three years ago, one of my postdoctoral fellows sorted out intra-party regulations and found a total of 102 intra-party regulations related to clean government. It is so detailed that it determines whether you eat “four dishes and one soup” or “three dishes and one soup”. So strict, but why are there still corrupt officials?

As a political scientist, what we see are institutional problems. If a few officials are corrupt, it is indeed due to their lack of faith, etc. If there is corruption among officials, there must be something wrong with the system. Just like in a fish pond, if a few fish die, it may be a problem with the fish itself; if many fish die, there must be a problem with the water in the fish pond. Some people think that talking about institutional problems is belittling ourselves, but this is not the case. To say that there is a problem with the system does not mean that there is a problem with our basic system, but that there is a problem with those specific power supervision and restriction systems.

Many people know that power must be checked and balanced. But there is another sentence that many people don’t know: power must not only be restricted, but also form a closed loop. No link can be missing. As long as one key link is missing, the other links will be ineffective. Especially when we talk about the constraints on the top leaders, there are too many gaps.

In the past two years, cases of corruption among top leaders have increased significantly. There are problems with the leadership of the CPPCC in many places. People who don’t understand Chinese politics think that the CPPCC is seriously corrupt. In fact, most of the CPPCC leaders involved in the incident had previously served as local secretaries, and most of the crimes were committed when they were the top leaders. The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) is a patriotic united front organization of the Chinese people, serving as a key mechanism for multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

5. Principle of subordinate rights

Under democratic political conditions, the superior-subordinate relationship of official power is not equal to the superior-subordinate relationship of official power. The power between superior and subordinate officials is unequal, but their rights as citizens are equal. But in real life, the phenomenon of “official officials crushing people to death” abounds.

Some superior leaders can do whatever they want to their subordinates. Subordinates sometimes lose their basic personality in front of their superiors, such as those who have a humble appearance and those who are physically dependent. Why do subordinates and superiors have such a relationship? Because some of our systems violate the “subordinate rights principle” in political science.

In other words, within the administrative system, there are levels of power and levels of administration. This is a basic feature of modern politics and is also normal. However, the exercise of public power requires hierarchical bureaucracy, which does not mean that there is inequality in civil rights between superior and subordinate officials. Even if he is a subordinate, he has his own legitimate private rights and his personality is independent.

Many of our system designs violate the principle of subordinates’ rights. For example, different official levels not only have different salaries, but also have different treatments in retirement, housing, cars, medical care, etc. This system design does not reflect the “subordinates’ rights principle” at all. “. Many developed countries have such provisions in their constitutions, that is, subordinates also have their own personality and rights, and they should respect their superiors when performing public functions, but you cannot always infringe on my legitimate rights as a subordinate.

6. Every official has his own “rationality”

There is a very troublesome issue in political life now, which is the departmentalization of public interests, the legalization of departmental interests, and finally the personalization of legitimate interests. They are both government officials and division chiefs, but the income gap between different departments and different regions is relatively large. This is why the central government will implement the new Civil Servant Law this year to standardize the income of civil servants.

Over the past thirty years of reform and opening up, there have been many great achievements. The economy has developed, people’s lives have improved, and society has progressed. However, different interest groups have actually been formed. Different interest groups have their own interest demands. Some groups have decision-making power and consciously or unconsciously favor the interests of their own groups or departments when formulating policies.

Every official has his own rationality. This rationality means that everyone will pursue his own interests. As long as they are legitimate interests, his pursuit is legitimate. However, many of our current system designs do not take into account the “rationality” of officials, assuming that our party’s leading cadres are selfless and do not care about personal gain.

In fact, officials are living people, they have their own interests, and their actions follow the principle of “rationality.” Accordingly, the country’s system design must regulate the “rationality” of officials, not only to protect their legitimate interest requirements, but also to prevent the excessive expansion of their “rationality.”