nunia
[个人文集]
加入时间: 2005/11/04
文章: 2184
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作者：nunia 在 罕见奇谈 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org
4. The Mandarins
Almost alone among all the feudal societies, imperial China has had many intellectual admirers. While Europe was still ruled by petty princes governing small fiefdoms and engaged in incessant wars, a unified China as achieving high levels of stability and culture, with a government of scholars rather than warriors.
The imperial examinations were particularly praised: Hardworking and patient men who spent a life time practising calligraphy, poetry and essay writing were rewarded with government offices on the basis of their examination results. This gave suitable members of the lower class the chance to join the elite, rather than as potential troublemakers outside the system. It is no accident that two of the most famous leaders of peasant rebellions, Huang Chao and Hong Xiuquan, were both unsuccessful candidates in the examinations before starting their dynasty-wrecking careers.
The idea of achieving status, wealth and happiness through good scholarship is deeply engrained in Chinese culture. Chinese folktales and operas are full of stories of a young man marrying his dream girl after passing his examination - perhaps simply because of the increase in his eligibility; or in longer and more romantic stories, by using his position to rescue his girlfriend from prison, bandits, a rich man's house hold, etc. Poems blatantly say things like "In the book there are houses of gold; in the book there is beauty like jade..." Even the more downmarket kungfu stories usually have the hero (or sometimes, heroine) achieving greatness after developing his/her fighting power by learning from a superior master or by coming across a wonder instruction text, nothing other than scholarship of a more physical kind.
In Singapore and other former colonies, there is a second important tradition: promising native boys (girls were not usually acceptable in those days) were selected for education in the ruling country and then appointed to the civil service at home, so that they could help their colonial masters to govern their own people. These two traditions form the cultural basis of Singapore's meritocratic policy: Rulers must be well educated, and usually they must be educated in elite universities of the west, where they can absorb the ideas of liberal democratic government and modern capitalism, and form personal connections with future leaders of the host nations as well as others. Good scholastic achievements of this kind are the pre-requisite to higher things in later life.
To directly implement this policy, the government of Singapore, including the armed forces, education service, economic development agencies and government controlled corporations, recruits a large number of 18-year old high school graduates on the bases of their Cambridge A-level examination results and interview performances, as government cadets to be sent to universities in Britain, US and other countries on a kind of indentured labour contract: In return for the payment of tuition fees, living allowances and other expenses during the study, they are required to work in the Singapore government sector for a number of years; otherwise, repayment of the "bond" with interest is required, normally beyond the ability of the average indentured cadet. That is, there is a high penalty for leaving the system.
At the same time, the reward for staying with the system is also very high. A returned cadet's job performance is carefully watched by his superiors and by the original sponsoring agency, and good performers are given fast promotions and are often placed into important positions very early. A rising star often commands power well above his official position, because he/she would usually have high level patrons whose direct access can be used to facilitate matters, and he/she also commands deference from his/her peers who would be reluctant to offend a person on the move up.
This produces a situation of "positive feedback", where good performance leads to greater power and influence, and then even better performance. Despite these, the government has been constantly concerned about the difficulty of finding good candidates for high public positions. A somewhat paradoxical Newtonian dynamics seems to be at play with every action generating a reaction. A promising government cadet is immediately attractive to private companies, especially multinational subsidiaries in Singapore, because of their familiarity with the rules and regulations and of their access to powerful people. Cadets are often enticed to better paying jobs outside the public sector after a few years, sometimes with the new employer expending large sums of money to discharge the remainder of the bond.
Further, once a large number of fast track cadets are in the system, it becomes harder to recruit non-cadets: in the competition for promotion and for the attention of powerful patrons, it would appear that cadets should enjoy an advantage; among other things, they are less likely to quit and so are safer choices for critical positions and positions requiring considerable training and investment.
Hence, a marginally unsuccessful candidate for a government cadetship has the tendency to write off the possibility of a government career altogether, for his/ her prospects would appear to be significantly inferior to those of a marginally successfully candidate, even though the difference between their abilities is only marginal.
Consequently, another plank of the meritocratic system was introduced: public sector salaries must be pegged to private sector salaries. In particular the salaries of ministers and senior civil servants should be comparable to those of corporate chief executives, judges to lawyers in private practice, and so on.
The public sector executive salary scales were repeatedly revised upwards, such that now even junior ministerial salaries exceed that of the President of USA. With the strong economy generating high tax revenues, and with a relatively small civil service, the higher salaries are well affordable. They certainly showed their effect in reducing mid-level civil service staff turnover and increasing recruitment success.
A second justification, that highly paid politicians and civil servants have less temptation to be corrupt, is more difficult to quantify, but the argument seems logical enough in the abstract. So the official story is that Singapore has an efficient government controlled by well educated, well paid and honest public servants whose positions are attained for their merit and job performance. Because of this, the correct social and economic policies are implemented, resulting in productivity and prosperity, and generating high tax revenues to continue paying the public servants well. Here we have another positive feedback cycle.
Also, with money available and smart officials on selection panels, Singapore can afford to send even larger numbers of promising youngsters for overseas studies and to make them promising public servants of the future. Yet another feedback cycle. As one would suspect, such a picture is too simple to be exactly true. The life of a mandarin is no where so rosy. I now discuss some of the complexities not so readily visible.
more from...
http://sinazen.com/modernconfucianism
作者：nunia 在 罕见奇谈 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org |
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anti-trust vs. the merit/cost of competition
