Today's Biggest Threat to Democracy: What it is and why Business Leaders should care.
It is widely acknowledged that democracy is under attack in much of the Western hemisphere in which it exists. Increasing I believe that this attack primarily revolves around one thing: SPEED
Let me explain:
As a Canadian, I'm excited and ready to exercise my democratic right to vote in this fall's federal election. Those who know me well know two things for sure:
- I'm an optimist, a glass half full sort of guy.
- Politics are a keen interest of mine. I urge people to exercise their right to vote and to seek out solid data on which they base their vote. I'm not afraid of a good debate on issues, I'm more concerned that people make the time and effort to form an opinion and act on it by voting.
So what I'm about to say may surprise those that know me:
While you should exercise your right to vote this fall in the election, as it pertains to this threat to democracy of SPEED, who we elect may not matter as much as addressing and changing the environment our governments operate in.
Why? Specifically in Canada's case, as it is in many Western democracies our issue is a lack of speed.
Democracy for all its positive qualities is messy. It means we take time to discuss, mull over, hold commissions on and work our way through multiple court challenges to anything moving forward or major project being built.
I believe that the legal and regulatory environments Canadians have built (with best of intentions to safe guard etc) render our prime minister and ruling party, no matter who they are, powerless to affect meaningful change in any sort of expeditious fashion. Special interests and debaters on all sides become rich at the expense of the country's ability to nimbly respond to some of today's global political and economic realities. The truth is our current environments mean we review any change initiative to death and so irregardless of whether the next Prime Minister is Liberal, Conservative, NDP or Green they will be held hostage to an environment that prevents them from taking any sort of decisive action.
For decades, taking the time to over thoroughly debate issues didn't matter as the influence of democracy widened in the world and the typical enemies of it declined. With few threats to it, the pain of these drawn out processes wasn't felt in a measurable way because there was no big consequences to be paid.
Times have changed.
My view is that the rise of China, with its authoritarian goverment, as a global economic and military power changes things. A while back I thought that the economic reforms introduced by the Chinese government would inevitably and in time lead to political change towards democracy as a new rising Chinese middle class exposed to the West would challenge and topple their existing government structure with it's record of human rights violations. In fact I had hopes that it would become a global example of how to transition from an authoritarian state to a democracy in an effective/stable way. Recent history is full of examples where democracies have been forced into the void left by a toppled authoritarian regime and failed miserably. I thought China might be different but a new reality is starting to emerge.
The truth is that the governing Communist party has recently taken steps to further entrench its absolute political power in the country and it has been met with very little resistance by its people. ( As a Westerner it may be hard to understand why they wouldn't resist. I'll leave the answer for now as simply that I'm starting to discover, through my travels in Asia and my many Canadian friends of Asian descent that just maybe some Asian cultures value order more than they value rights... more on that later. )
It means that a rising Chinese middle class is happy with both their newly found and expanding wealth and the order their current government structure provides for them to accumulate it in.
A politically authoritarian government combined with an aggressive capitalistic economic bent is a combination Western democracy hasn't really faced before and it is shining a huge light on an inherent weakness of our current state: a lack of speed to get things done.
You and I may not agree with human rights offenses but the fact is that this political / economic combination gives China what most democracies don't have and most global corporations are currently seeking as their weapon of mass competitive destruction: SPEED. Speed to operate in. Speed to adapt to change. Speed to engage new opportunities. etc.
If the Chinese see an economic opportunity they can move from Vision to Goal Setting and Action way quicker than we can because there are no vigorous drawn out debates and 1500 court challenges. Its red rubber stamped and away they go. Going they are. They are using this competitive advantage in being much more politically and economically aggressive than they ever have been.
So the question is how do we respond?
Let's start with how i don't suggest we respond: I'm not in any way advocating a move away from democracy. In principle it is the most empowering form of government that exists and we should continue the fight to maintain and grow it around the world.
As mentioned earlier, changing who is in power isn't necessarily the answer either as any new leader is held hostage by the system they operate in.
My conviction is that we need to radically adapt the regulatory and approval environments we currently have that bog down any change initiative.
Does it mean removing safe guards that these environments were created to be? I don't believe dropping safe guards is the answer either. I think they are good.
I believe western democracies like Canada need to face this new challenge by removing uncertainty that is inherent in our system today and replacing it with certainty.
How do we do that?
We replace the uncertainty created by a dragged out formal review of any application for new development after it is submitted with certainty by clearly putting forward in advance, the conditions, that if met, would allow someone's application for new development to be rubber stamped and approved in a quick period of time.
Long story short it means that safe guards can still exist but speed is empowered by placing the ability to realize it firmly in the hands of those applying because they know in advance the conditions that need to be met for a rubber stamp/ quick approval of their idea.
At this point some of you may think that my position means I'm a fan of Bill C69 for example because that is the rational the current government is using to promote it. You'd be wrong.
I'm not a fan of Bill C69 not because I don't agree that certainty is a good thing. It is. It should be our competitive response to the new challenge presented by China. I'm against it because the pre-conditions they are putting in place for pre-approval are so unrealistic to today's environment that it is creating certainty in a bad way. We can be certain that most new projects will die before they ever get started.
Introducing bills like Bill C69 that provide certainty to industry is important. Those bills though need to draw a much better balance between protections and responsible development.
And with that point I'll back track on my original statement of this blog that is won't matter who is in office.. maybe it will. If they begin to modify the environment that is responsible for our lack of speed. So go get some facts/ data, form an opinion and get out and vote this fall. Our democracy is on the line.
Have a great week.
David
www.authorenticity.com www.commonsenserevolt.com