UK History: New System Evolution in Old Framework
Nov 21-2013
Professor Qian Chengdan, a top Chinese researcher on UK history from History Department of Peking University recently gave BiMBA MBA students a lecture on “The UK in the 20th Century”. Attracted by the knowledgeable Professor Qian with his personal charm, many alumni came all the way for this feast of historical knowledge.
National Habit – New Wine in Old Wineskins
Professor Qian came straight to the point that even though without a written constitution, the UK was the first constitutional state in the world, and its constitutional system has distinctive features, which feature a high integration of history and reality. “The UK is a country established on the solid base of history, with the integration of past and present being its most remarkable feature.”
According to Professor Qian, many take it for granted that the UK constitution is all written on a voluminous tome, but in fact it is a collection of a series of constitutional documents, some of which may date back to hundreds of years ago. The UK constitution consists of three parts: first, unwritten customs, conventions and precedents; second, programmatic documents formed in hundreds of years of history; and third, court judgments accumulated over the long run.
It was specially stressed by Professor Qian that a fully modernized country as it is, the UK has shown great respects to its history in terms of a constitutional system, rather than overturning the legacy by revolutions one after another. All important new systems were completed in the old framework, which had special inspirations for China in the current situation.
Destroying the old and establishing the new is an inherent habit of Chinese people. As a result, a great number of historical and cultural legacies failed to be passed down and disastrous results prevailed.Professor Qian held that it was better to look back at our traditions rather than to explore the new values and concepts that seem to be totally vague, “Respecting the old, caring the brothers, maintaining a harmonious spousal relationship, fostering family cohesion and keeping friendly with neighbors, these are all clearly stated in our traditions."
Slow but solid system evolution
Professor Qian pointed out that, in view of political system, the UK was a country governed by the parliament.
The UK parliament consists of the House of Lords, an Upper House and a Lower House, which is extremely different from that of the Congress of the United States. “The essence of a regime lies in the center of power, instead of the external structures.”
According to Professor Qian, the center of power by the UK parliament was rotated from the House of Lords to the Upper House, and then to the Lower House. The power was gradually decentralized from the Lords to the Lower House, which took a long time and was actually completed in the first half of 20th century on essence. “The popular opinion that the UK had realized true democracy since the ‘Glorious Revolution’ is obviously a misunderstanding.”
In fact, the “Glorious Revolution” started the golden age for the Upper House, during which the parliament and election was totally controlled by the nobles. “In this period, the politics of the UK was actually controlled by ‘the second generation of the powerful’,‘the third generation’, or even ‘the fourth’ and ‘the fifth generation’ ”, Professor Qian commented humorously.
The UK solved the phenomenon of power controlled by the “the second or third generation of the power” also in the pattern of “new wine in old wineskins, “the original system is retained, but the essential power is gradually tunneled.”
He also gave a specific example. In the 1950s, when acts were passed by the parliament so that life peerage could be conferred, which actually eliminated the possibility for hereditary peer turned by new peers; subsequently, in respect of the power by the Upper House to veto the resolution passed by the Lower House, one restraint was made that the Upper House still retain the power of veto, but if the same proposal is passed by the Lower House three times in succession with intervals less than a year, then the Upper House has no power to veto such a proposal; in 2000, Blair managed to pass the act that only 91 hereditary peers have the power to vote in the Upper House.
“Paradox” of majority rule in British democracy
Professor Qian also analyzed the “Paradox” of majority rule in British democracy in particular for the students and alumni, i.e. the party and government which represented the benefits of the majority nominally,was the choice of the minority.
According to Profession Qian, the party with more seats in the parliament was to form the government, which totally reflected the majority rule. But what we need to know is that the members of parliament for the ruling party are not necessarily selected by the majority. Because when selecting the Member of Parliament, the candidate who gets the most votes becomes the Member of Parliament; that is to say, if there are five candidates for one seat, and A gets 20% votes, B 20%, C 19%, D 20% and E 21%, then E becomes the Member of Parliament for he got the most votes; however, the truth is that E is not supported by the majority, the rest 79%. “From this point of view, parliamentary system is nothing but a game.”
In order to take up the majority of the seats, the party's main work is election. Members of Parliament come into power due to support by the party, and therefore is tightly restricted by the party discipline, the so-called whips.
Judging from the current situation, the motions voted by the parliament are all proposed by the government, who controls the majority of Members of Parliament; therefore, the motions will be definitely passed. “The truth of the UK in the 20th century is that legislation is subject to administration. Since the 20th century,the power of Prime Minister of the UK has grown bigger and bigger.” Those famous Prime Ministers of the UK, including Churchill, Thatcher and Blair, all mean what they say.
The change of economical theory is due to different definitions of government role
Later, Professor Qian also explained the economy of the UK in the 20th century, especially the mainstream theories leading the economic developments.
There were several significant economic theories in the UK of 20th century: Economic Liberalism by Adam Smith, Neo-liberalism by Marshall, Welfarism by Keynes, Thatcherism, Monetarism and Supply-side School.
He further explained that: in the end of 19th century and the beginning of 20th century, the laisser-faire capitalism by Adam Smith was dominant in the UK, which supported the UK to obtain great achievements in the Industrial Revolution.
With the rise of emerging economies represented by U.S., Germany, France and Japan, the UK lost its leading position in economy. In this circumstance, the UK had to quit the liberalism and turn to “imperial preference”, that is to realize free trade inside the British Emprise. Consequently, theory by Adam Smith was abandoned, while Marshall’s theory of Partial equilibrium began to gain popularity.
WWI and the global economic crisis in the 1930s were a massive blow to the UK, which forced the abandonment of the gold standard and the establishment of import duty law. Liberalism advocated by the UK for over one hundred years finally came to demise, and the Keynesianism became the basic state policy, which held that the government intervention in the economy is necessary for solving the employment issue.
The recovery brought by the Keynesianism was stopped by the WWII, after which something new occurred in the UK. In order to cope with post-war reconstruction, the Beveridge Report was published under the leadership of Beveridge, the Dean of London School of Economics, in which a commitment was made to help all British get rid of poverty and suffering of disease, hunger and unemployment after the World War II. Beveridge Report laid the theoretical foundation for the welfare society of the UK.
The post-war construction of welfare state pushed by the Labor Party actually guaranteed the UK a golden age lasting for as long as 20 years. But at the same time, the state's burden was massive, and over one third of the government expenditure was used for welfare, which resulted in stalled economy, inflation,continuous economic crisis, climbing unemployment rate, which is also known as the famous “British disease”.
In the 1970s, the UK was at the bottom and became the western country with worst economic situation. In this case, Thatcher came into power and took measures to control currency, stimulate capital, lower cost, coerce the labor union, reduce tax, etc. by which the “British disease” was cured. What Thatcher adopted were theories of monetarism and Supply-side School.
As is particularly pointed out by Professor Qian, one core question remains unchanged despite these changing economic development theories, and that is the role of government in the economic development. This is practically the core problem for all economic development theories. For the lecture was held in Langrun Garden, he indicated that the essence of New Structural Economics newly proposed by Justin Yifu Lin, founder of the school and the MBA program, was also about the role definition of the state in the economic development, and he valued this theory very much.
Profession Qian said, many tragedies of China came from the ignorance of the history by the decision makers and the people, especially when a little knowledge was taken as the truth. He encouraged students to study hard and research practically no matter they are studying economics or business administration.
Professor Qian’s profound history knowledge and vivid and in-depth explanation, especially the scholar style of learning from history not only pictured a dynamic United Kingdom for the audiences, but also subverted many stereotypes towards United Kingdom, and from time to time, the lecture was accompanied by laughter of understanding coming from the classroom.
