Tan Kin Lian - Perspectives Communist system
I wish to give my objective opinion why the communist system is better than the liberal democratic system adopted in western countries. 

The communist system have the following features:

a) The leaders are elected democratically within the communist party by the party cadres (and not by the population at large)
b) The communist adopt a socialist economic system where a significant part of the resources are owned by the state (instead of private ownership). 

In a liberal democracy, the leaders are elected by the population based on the principle of one man, one vote. In practice, a significant segment of the population are not able to vote rationally. They are easily persuaded by false promises made by politicians during the campaign, or by bribes. 

The competition between political parties is also harmful. The parties spent a large part of their energy to bring down the opposing parties, rather than to solve the real problems faced by the country.  For the past two decades, many countries of the west, including America,  have suffered from this polarization of the parties. 

Critics of the communist system point out the poor economic performance of countries that are under communist led governments. It is true that the Soviet Union lost the competition with America during the cold war prior to 1990. Other communist led governments in developing countries have also performed badly. 

These were examples of the past. In recent years, some communist led countries have performed well, for example, China and Vietnam.  The communist political system allows these countries to have a stable government that can plan for the long term to deal with the challenges of improving the living standard of the people. 

Many western countries under the liberal democratic system have performed poorly in the recent decades.  The income inequality has widened sharply, and many ordinary people have not made economic progress. 

The western countries touted their better record in promoting freedom and human rights. Even so, they have found it challenging to prevent these values from getting out of control and being abused by irresponsible people. 

I recognize that there are examples of success and failures under both types of systems, and that an objective evaluation has to be carried out to decide on the system that work better for any specific country. 

We should get away from the notion that communism is bad, and liberal democracy is good. This has been the prevailing thinking, and it has proved to be largely a fallacy. 

Tan Kin Lian 
 

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