A.SK Mission Statement

The A.SK Social Science Award, named after their sponsors Angela and Shu Kai Chan, honors academic work and achievements in the social sciences on economic and government reform.

Our mission is to encourage social system reform, to facilitate and broaden people’s productive activities with fair wealth distribution, as well as to competently address current social issues. Society is rapidly changing, and old systems have become incompatible with new realities. New problems can only be solved with new solutions.

Today, the economy forms the basis of society more than the political system itself. The political structure provides security for society, while the economy creates wealth and quality of life for the people. The problem with capitalism is not free enterprise and free markets, which
lead to highest efficiency in production, but rather that capital and profits are concentrated in small groups. In contrast, socialism favors workers with increased wages and social benefits, but without increasing productivity, resulting only in higher production costs and inflation.

While the nature of society has changed dramatically, dominant government structures have remained largely the same. These structures seem to reward politicians who care mainly about re-election and power, regardless of the long-term consequences of this behavior. It is necessary to reform democratic political systems so that they are better capable of handling problems which reach beyond the time-horizon of elected politicians. We need political structures
which allow the rational management of a wide range of critical issues and divide some power. We also need a new checks and balances system of power.