To the astonishment of many international observers, US President Donald Trump won the US presidential election last year. Harvard professor Michael Sandel, known for his 2009 book, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, in a recent lecture explored the reasons behind Trump’s victory.
In his analysis, Sandel said that liberal political parties — that is, political parties or nations with elitist leaders championing a free economy who, when in power, support the free market and neglect wealth inequality — need to learn the lessons of the US election, and examine ways in which to solve four major issues: income inequality, meritocratic hubris, the dignity of work and patriotism, and national community.
A strong case could be made for the point that the most important of those four, in terms of their role in the election upset, was meritocratic hubris.
“The idea that the system rewards talent and hard work encourages the winners to consider their success their own doing, and to look down upon those less fortunate than themselves,” Sandal said.
Popular grievances born of this meritocratic hubris can be likened to a pressure cooker, which, when it blows, can cause catastrophic damage.
Indeed, people have seen evidence of this dynamic in Taiwanese politics over the past decade or so.
Meritocratic hubris has emerged time and again, leaving the electorate little choice but to express their dissatisfaction and discontent via the ballot box, causing three transitions of political power.
Yet this has done little to address the faults in the nation’s politics or society, essentially because of the tenacity of this hubris of the elite.
Taiwanese saw this 10 years ago, when then-Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) told Aborigines that “I [will] see you as a human being” and, more recently, when Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) attempted to explain away his countless arrogant statements by saying that he “lacked empathy.”
In Taiwan, politics has been dominated by officials with high IQs and impressive academic qualifications. The problem is that a high IQ does not equate with a high EQ, and neither is there a necessary direct correspondence between harmonious governance and the ability to wisely delegate tasks on the one hand, and impressive academic qualifications on the other.
When Ma was in office, then-premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) proved to be largely ineffectual and most of the officials in his Cabinet were drawn from academia. When President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) came to power, she appointed Premier Lin Chuan (林全).
After the Mega International Commercial Bank scandal broke, not one government official responsible for finance was disciplined. Not even Lin, with the power invested in him by his office, looked into the matter, and herein lies his hubris.
When Tsai embarks upon Cabinet reshuffles, she ought to do her utmost to smash the dogma of an “elite,” and cast her net further afield in looking for talent.
This is the only way she will do away with the meritocratic hubris in Taiwanese politics.
If she fails to do this, the fourth transfer of power will not be far off, however much many of us would be reluctant to see this.
Huang Rongwen is a professor at National Changhua University of Education.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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