House of Scholars - A Confucian Parliament

Daniel Bell's East Meets West proposed a bicameral legislature to China with an upper house called House of Scholars where the members are selected through a competitive examination, inspired by the Confucian tradition of respect for a ruling intellectial elite and the belief that democracy and confucianism can co-exist in China just like how capitalism and communism co-exist to give China a socialist system with Chinese characteristic.

To Bell, the infusion of Confucianism into Chinese political system gives the democracy the Chinese characteristic.

The key argument put forward is premised upon the dillema of having vulgar democrat on one side versus the reflective meritocrats on the other. This give birth to the idea of having the House of Scholars to restrain the democratic majorities who maybe too occupied with the next election and heavily influenced by the commercial interest to favor short term economic growth regardless of the long term ecological consequences.

Bell tried to balance the elitist view of good governance based on the need for capable and far-sighted rulers in modern societies and political legitimacy by conceding that the House of Scholars is nonetheless constitutionally subordinated to the lower democratic house to resolve the gridlock issue.

In the American context, Bell proposed to impose term limit for the American's House Representative and Senator to water down the lobbyist and donor's influence by retiring them to a proposed third chamber of Congress, the House of Counselors whose members are experienced and disinterested to act for common good.

The major weaknesses of the House of Scholars is one of political legitimacy and perceived independence.

Competitive examination together with the traditional Confucianist respect for elite in itself do not confer political legitimacy per se.

The UK's House of Lords and closer to home, the CPPCC (often regarded as the upper house but actually do not possess constitutional power), both unelected bodies face the problem of legitimacy.

The British govornment under the Labor Party has instituted reform by removing all the hereditary peers and resorted to political appointment based on supposedly meritocracy. CPPCC's delegated are selected along similar line with appointment goes to many retired senior politicians, officers and academics.

Functional constituency in Hong Kong's unicameral legislature is arguably more superior to using a competitive examination. Nevertheless, its limited electoral mandate drawn from professional or industrial bodies is widely regarded as antithesis to "real democracy".

In additional to the issue of political legitimacy, there are too many intrinsic problems with a competitive examination - what kind of scholars in term of talent and virtue are desired? what are their content? how can they be objectively appraised? how often they are to be conducted? how many are to be selected? how are they made accountable? These were not adequately and satisfactorily addressed by Bell.

A competitive examination is accepted to select the qualified to be officers serving the peoples. To be representative of the peoples, the qualified must however goes through the political baptism to obtain the legitimacy. This applies to all the aspiring politician from among the graduate of Ecole Nationale d'Administration of France, Harvard or Yale of USA, Oxbridge of UK, or even NUS of Singapore.

On ensuring independence of the House of Scholars from corruption, Bell went on to suggest a number of familiar mechanism, including free press, high pay and harsh penalty. What I find rather amusing is that Bell suggested family-based punishment as potentially a last resort to curb the rampant corruption in China. I supposed Bell didn't intend it as a serious scholarly argument.

Bell's generally favorably argument for elite rule, rooted in Confucianism, appears to me anarchronistic in conception and unrealistic in practice.