My hypothesis today, I could be wrong. My hypothesis is, is it possible the problem today is liberal regimes are failing democracy, and that is what is ailing democracy？ Because liberal society has led democratic progress in the world for some time. We've got to credit liberal societies for that, but now liberalism is failing democracy. I want to venture a solution, too. We can't just measure procedures. If you look at V-Dem and Freedom House, they only measure procedures, the one thing they never measure is outcome, or result. I am a businessman. No one has ever come to me and pitched me a stock and say you've got to buy this stock because this company has been losing money for 20 years, the technology sucks, people are leaving in droves, they have no customer, but the company is really governed with great procedures, the board meetings are conducted beautifully. I won't buy the stock, that doesn't happen. I think we ought to consider measuring outcomes, is the system delivering democratic outcomes？
I don't care what are the procedures.Are they liberal procedures or islamic procedures, Chinese procedures, is it delivering democratic outcomes？ Democracy's normative end must be delivering satisfaction to a vast majority of the people over long duration, otherwise what are we in it for？ What good is a set of procedures if it result in undemocratic outcomes？ What good isan election If elections keep producing incompetent leaders？What's goodabout judicial independence if it protects only the rich？ What's so great about freedom of press, freedom of speech, if it leads to division and dysfunction in societies？
I think we should explore, we should have at least dialogue, discourse around the world about how to measure democracy by outcomes. Are the people satisfied with how they're governed？ Are they optimistic about the future？ Is your society cohesive？ Are you better off than before？ When I was studying in the United States, it was President Reagan's second term, "Are you better off than four years ago？" Are you better off？ Is your country investing enough for future generations？ Or are they just spending future generations money？ There's a Chinese scholar in Peking University, who is suggesting that there should be a social mobility index. That sounds right to me. Is your society socially mobile, that should count as whether your systems generating democratic outcome.
So, I would like to use this opportunity to suggest a new discourse around the world. There was a great American leader (Woodrow Wilson) who said: Make the world “safe for democracy”. I think now we need to make democracy better for the world. We need to start a dialogue and a discourse. My suggestion is we need to develop new measurements.
