A Look at China’s ‘Political Meritocracy’

By Michael Mazza 

A system of above-average ability with below-average virtue.

Can the democratic United States draw lessons from one-party China to improve the American political system? Yes, says Tsinghua University professor Daniel A. Bell, writing for The Christian Science Monitor. Put simply, his argument is that (a) “political meritocracy” is in many ways a superior system to liberal democracy; (b) the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which runs the Chinese government, is a meritocratic system; and (c) by the transitive property, China’s political system is in many ways superior to America’s. “Democracy is a flawed political system,” Bell writes, “and meritocracy can help to remedy some of its flaws.”