Singapore had and has elements of proprietorship, rather than socialism.
Of course, this distinction depends on what is meant by “socialism.” The word has been quite elastic since it was invented. Marx defined it as government ownership of the means of production. Toward the end of the 20th Century, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, socialism came to mean extensive government regulation of the private sector combined with extensive redistribution of the wealth. Now, people like Bernie Sanders say the Nordic countries are socialist, when according to the people who have been trying to measure the degree to which an economy is centrally-planned versus market-oriented, the Nordic countries are as or more market-oriented than the U.S. (Sanders, by the way, honeymooned in the Soviet Union, not in a Nordic country.)
Turning to Singapore, it is reckoned to be the most free economy in the world (by this measure, 83.9; notice, even though the freest in the world, the score is well below 100).
https://www.heritage.org/index/country/singapore
As to what I describe as “proprietary” elements, the founding and long-time dominant party of the country was and is highly-invested in the economy, and therefore highly interested in its success. For an island-country totally dependent on trade and international investment, this means keeping industry competitive and not regulated.
Add to the orientation of the country to success, the tendency of the government to censor dissent, including anything it deems injurious to the peace of the island-country, and it’s not exactly comparable to western democratic capitalist countries.
But I want to raise questions about the the Heritage Foundation report, The 2023 Index of Economic Freedom, which ranks countries on the basis of "economic freedom".
One trouble with such sweeping global analyses is that international data sets are spotty at best. Plus judgement calls need to be made, but the study's analysts don't fully reveal the assumptions of their research. Plus the experts chosen to oversee such studies may come from "elite" academic institutions like Harvard.
And 27 years ago, this Report was originally produced by the Wall Street Journal, the bastion of America's big business interests, before the Heritage Foundation continued its annual publication.
To me, these are warning signs that there's room for a secret elite- and big-business-approved agenda in such a report.
To cite one example, the 2023 report says the quality of Labor Freedom in the United States has gone up since the last report.
And the report's methodology says the level of Labor Freedom is determined by nine factors (equally weighted) such as: Minimum Wage, Labor Participation, and Labor Productivity.
But the analysis of Labor Freedom absolutely fails to mention the crisis on the Mexican border. Millions of low income illegals are crossing the border and competing for jobs against American citizens.
Indeed, the word "immigration" appears nowhere in the Methodology? Why? I suspect because the authors are hiding its impact on America's "Economic Freedom" because big business wants illegals coming in to lower their labor losses.
But who can set the record straight? We know that Fox news, despite a few MAGA supporters among its commentators, is RINO country and worse.
So this is why independent voices like FR and commentators like Tucker Carlson and Richard Baris of the People's Pundit are so valuable to America's future.
NOTE: To understand the damage big business has wrought on American labor and local taxpayers over the decades, I suggest the book, The Great American Jobs Scam.
The full contents of each chapter in the book can be downloaded at the link provided above. For a quick view of the book, read the Foreword or the book's first chapter.