3 Review(s)

Distilling history and logic, this book now poses an epochal challenge. Is political meritocracy the universal solution that liberal democracy is not? All men are not equal and never will be. Yet democracy’s poetic lie on “self-evident truth that all men are created equal” has universal acceptance. Its Calvinist origins have transmuted spiritual equality into equality of consent in the government of man. The Chinese, with their meritocratic traditions, have not been bound by this leap of logic. However, a hundred and fifty years of decline had rendered its history of the meritocratic rule to a distant memory. Many fled the death spiral of its last dynasty to emerging settlements of Southeast Asia. Enduring harsh lives, descendants of these migrants would play unwitting roles in the restoration of the Chinese nation. This book unravels the conventional narratives of East Asian economic miracles, revealing surprising political meritocracies. But the logic of meritocratic rule is not an East Asian preserve. The west, too, had impressive historical successes adopting it. Boon Choo’s work will be controversial, but the logic of his arguments will reset many minds on long-held convictions.