Rule by Merit

It was a typical Beijing scene. I was in a private room in a restaurant having dinner with a handful of academics, the head of a Daoist temple, a rich young businessman, a senior official in the central government, plus the usual coterie of wives, protegés and assistants. The 15-year Maotai was flowing and the boisterous priest was making frequent and extravagant toasts around the table. I had just finished reading The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy and my head was buzzing not with the smooth and potent spirit but Daniel Bell’s compelling argument in favour of political meritocracy, the notion that power should be distributed according to ability and virtue rather than on the basis of democratic elections.

For a Torontonian who survived the Rob Ford years, it was not hard to be convinced that democracy may not be the best way to distribute...