Diversity and Occasional Anarchy: On Deep Economic and Social Contradictions in Hong Kong

12: Core Values, Functional Constituencies, and the Democratic Principle

12 Core Values, Functional Constituencies, and the Democratic Principle Two related issues surfaced in the 2012 public debates for the post of chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. One was whether functional constituencies in the legislature should be abolished as being incompatible with the democratic principle of equal political rights. The other, larger issue related to the commitment to uphold the core values that Hong Kong people subscribe to. These core values concern inalienable, fundamental human rights, including freedom and the rule of law. Human rights are conceived as universal (applicable everywhere) and egalitarian (the same for everyone). Freedom embraces economic freedoms, civic freedoms, and political freedoms, and the rule of law is what protects those freedoms against the arbitrary rule of the sovereign. The historical articulation of human rights originated in Western Europe and its development is the outcome of both necessity and logic. It was necessary to construct a new theory of justice rooted in human rights to contest the divine right of kings. It was logical because the concept of human rights emerged out of the medieval concept of natural rights associated with the natural law tradition. Natural law was a product of the gradual secularization of Judeo-Christian ethics that led to a conception of eternal law (or the mind of God), which could be discovered through human reasoning. Natural rights were a forerunner of the human rights discourse that became prominent during the Enlightenment among English and French philosophers such as John Locke, David Hume, Montesquieu, and Voltaire. These universal values were embraced in Western Europe and the American Colonies and this was closely connected to the development of economic, civic, and political freedom in these communities. Economic freedom was underpinned by the protection of property rights and the freedom to contract and exchange, which enabled markets to flourish. Productivity increased and 124 Politics and Regulation standards of living rose over time. These institutional changes preceded the Industrial Revolution and laid the foundations for the modern world. The idea of economic growth became part of humankind’s vocabulary for the first time in history. Political freedom was enhanced by replacing the old absolute monarchy with a constitutional monarchy in England and a republic in France. The evolution toward representative government was more gradual and less convulsive in England than in France, and in America it took the path of a revolutionary war of independence from British colonial rule. The path leading to equal political rights for all became possible. Civic freedoms, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom of assembly, rule of law, equality before the law, habeas corpus, security against unreasonable search and seizure, and so on, were recognized as essential for and complementary to economic and political freedoms. Geographical Constituencies and Policy Divisiveness From an economic perspective, the combination of economic, civic, and political freedoms holds out the promise of a society governed by predictable and transparent rules. In its ideal form, the civic and economic freedoms of citizens are enshrined in political institutions designed to protect people’s political rights in a transparent and predictable way. Uncertainty is thus reduced for all members of society, and the economy flourishes and human creativity thrives. These core values and their associated institutions are considered more compatible with the needs of the modern industrial era than the arbitrary sovereigns that lorded over pre-modern agricultural societies. Western Europe was the first region to achieve this. And yet in many places there is a hangover from pre-modern societies in the form of geographic constituencies. The most important pre-modern economic activity was agriculture, the crucial form of wealth in pre-modern societies was land, and the dominant social group was that of landlords or feudal lords. For this reason, the early representative governments were founded on geographic constituencies based on clusters of largely self-sufficient farming communities and villages. This birthmark of the pre-modern agricultural economy became the norm for representative governments. In the US, for example, until the eve of the Civil War in 1860, almost every elected president was from the Democratic Party, which represented the interests of farmers. Core Values, Functional Constituencies, and the Democratic Principle 125 Geographic constituencies are a natural institutional arrangement in an agricultural era where economic self-sufficiency is the norm. They are less obviously suited to an industrial era which is market-based and where the fortunes...