[Vnbiz] Future Leaders for Vietnam

[Tran Dinh Hoanh]

Dear CACC,

There is this thought about this leadership issue I would like to
share with everyone.  This is directly related to the issues of
organizational internal discipline, treatment toward citizens, and
democracy.

(Well, I've been thinking hard about this subject, and ideas keep
coming out.  My Gosh, every time you get a profound question, your
poor miserable brain won't stop working.  I need some Aspirin, for
God's sake!  In the period of a month, two ladies threw out two
incredible questions that make us (at least, me) think and think and
think non-stop.  The first one was from Le Thuy (How to teach
morality?) and this one is from Thu Huong (Where do future Vietnamese
leaders come from?). Incredible!

Anyway, each organization, for it to be strong, has to have strong
internal discipline.  So each organization usually has its own
hierarchy of authority; orders from the top have to be followed by
people below, otherwise the organization will weaken and collapse.
The point here is:  There is not much democracy in any organization.
This is true in a soccer team, a company or a political party.  The
NATURE of organization is ANTI-DEMOCRATIC.

In a free-market economy or a political democracy, there is
competition among many organizations (among companies in an economy,
or among political parties in a country).  The competition among these
anti-democratic organizations operates as a natural check against the
anti-democratic tendency of organizations, and forces these
organizations to act democratically to the public outside the
organization (i.e., acting nicely and politely to consumers/citizens).
 Thus, COMPETITION is really the essence of market economy (for
economics) and democracy (for political science).

What happens in a one-company or one-party system is that we have this
company/party which is anti-democratic as a natural matter (as
discussed above), but then there is no competition from other
companies/parties to operate as a check against its anti-democratic
organizational behavior.  So the internal anti-democratic behavior of
the company/party simply flows out into the public and becomes
anti-democratic behavior toward the public too.

So when we have a monopoly (i.e., no competition), the economic
monopolist bosses its consumers around (Consumers are beggars and no
kings), and political monopolist acts arrogantly and abusively toward
its citizens.

So the leaders' arrogance is the natural result of the system that
they build and maintain.  We will not be able to ask leaders to be
humble; and leaders, at least most of them, won't be able to act
humbly, unless we can reform the system to inject competition into it.

Have a great day!

Hoanh
____________

On 7/18/06, Tran Dinh Hoanh <tdhoanh at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear anh Shane & CACC,
>
> Thank you for the note from the heart, brother.  It's very good, anh Shane.
>
> Your message reminds me of the Mexican authority.  We in the US often
> tell each other: "Be careful when you get to Mexico.  Every government
> official down there is a little god.  Any police man can find any
> excuse to keep you in jail for a long time.  Once you get through the
> Mexican legal process and the US-Mexico diplomatic process to get out
> of jail, you would have spent many months in jail and tens of
> thousands of dollars already (and by that time, you wife may have
> married some other guy already :-)"
>
> The Mexican has a legal system that is so notorious of arrogancy,
> harrassment and corruption, that US citizens simply try to avoid it as
> much as they can.  American tourists usually tell each other to stay
> only in big Mexican tourism cities (that know who to take care of
> foreigners) and not to venture out.
>
> And of course, Mexico is relatively backward, even though it has a
> huge US market next door and quite a bit of investment from the US.
>
> So the question is:  Does underdevelopment creates arrogancy and
> corruption, or corruption and arrogancy create underdevelopment?
>
> Have a great day!
>
> Hoanh
> ____________
-- 
Tran Dinh Hoanh, LLB, JD
Attorney of Law
Washington DC