Posted on 11/28/2014 1:43:39 PM PST by Kaslin
I’ve written about the success of Hong Kong (particularly when compared to nations such as Cuba, France, and China), but haven’t paid as much attention to Singapore.
But it’s time to correct that oversight. I’m motivated to write about Singapore because of a story that reveals one of the unique features of that jurisdiction: The bureaucracy gets monetarily rewarded if the economy prospers.
Here are some passages from a Bloomberg report.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.townhall.com ...
Seems to work well for them. Saigon’s about as close as I’ve gotten. Though someday I’ll cross the Equator.
Singapore is economically free, but in terms of politics, its has always had strict, one-party rule. Part of that reason for that is for the security needs of Singapore - it is a majority Chinese island living in a sea of Muslim Malay hatred. At the same time, the PAP (Singapore’s ruling party) knows that for the tiny nation to prosper, it must have rule of law, enforcement of contracts, and a free trading system.
It is a fascist wet dream.
There is no freedom of assembly[speakers corner], guns are pretty much outlawed and heavy regulated, Government owned/operated companies, lack of freedom of the press, the two main newspapers are a arm of the State, landownership is regulated to only Singaporeans, military conscription[males], etc.
Singapore, out of reasonable survival instinct, makes sure that its Muslim population does not get out of control or increase its percentage of the total population. IMHO they have wise policies in this regard.
http://www.barenakedislam.com/2013/12/28/how-singapore-culls-its-muslim-population/
Not only is chewing gum illegal there.
Singapore has twice the population of Brooklyn, and from 1994 through 1999 executed by hanging, 14 per 100,000 of it’s population, for breaking the law.
Among the death penalty crimes: “Unlawful discharge of firearms, even if no one is injured”
How many moochers are there? Not many I bet. Gang bangers? Welfare “free stuff” crowd? Again, not many I bet.
America used to be great.
Singapore is not free market. Their stock market cap is like 20 % government owned enterprises (the US was 0% pre 2008) and there are massive subsidies for everything. Their airline is government owned and their ports are government owned.
I don’t really get the conservative love of Singapore, it’s like being controlled by strict parents who provide for you.
And the companies that are not government owned are dominated by cronies.
On my first visit,while waiting in the immigration line,I recall a large sign in several languages warning that the death penalty was mandatory for drug trafficking.I was tempted to toss my blood pressure meds in the amnesty bin...just in case.
Singapore is orderly, clean, polite and efficient. There are no gangs and no real crime. Forget about smuggling drugs in - foreigners have been executed for it and they have zero tolerance for rowdiness, rioting and looting. What happened in Ferguson would never happen in Singapore.
Conservatives love it in part because its how its how a big city should be run and how you would imagine living in one. It has its drawbacks but the Chinese know to make a go of making an island city state a very pleasant place to live. The lack of freedom - if by that you mean the decadent vices of the West is in fact no great loss at all. So if you’re the kind of person who likes living without good manners, rules or you want to be stoned, then Singapore is not on your list.
But for others, it could be a good fit for them.
I think you are totally ignoring the dark underbelly of Singapore. At a topical level, yes, it offers personal economic freedom and is indeed clean and orderly. It’s not so great, though, from a freedom perspective.
I founded and ran a company in SIN during the 2000s. I could tell you some scary stories but I certainly will not post them here.
Draconian laws can impose obedience.
I think Ted Kennedy’s answer to how he would get people to turn in their guns, was his recommendation for a mandatory 15 year sentence if found owning one.
Like I said, for a lot of Americans all those restrictions are probably intolerable.
But for people growing up in a Confucian culture, it seems appropriate. Harmony and social peace are valued more than diversity and personal freedom.
There are certainly trade-offs. If personal freedom matters a great deal to you, then you won’t be happy living in Singapore.
You are off-base with your diversity comment—Singapore is very diverse and the government has gone to a number of lengths to preserve that. Also, not sure that I agree with your social peace comment either. One can maintain peaceful society without a single political party crushing all opposition with an iron fist.
I presume you don’t live in Singapore...
Or China, which has the same Confucian roots, single party rule and appears to be copying Singapore far more than the West...
Its very diverse, too. But I wasn’t talking about that kind of diversity. American style pluralism is exceedingly rare in our world. It works for us but not necessarily for other cultures.
About 5 million in Singapore.
14 per 100,000 hanged.
14 X 50 equals about 700 executions a year - that’s a bunch!
Texas executes about 40 per year, has five times the population of Singapore, but gets 500 times more bad press.
Here is the Wiki description. They have a black Friday.
“Capital punishment is legal in Singapore. The city-state had the second highest per-capita execution rate in the world between 1994 and 1999, estimated by the United Nations to be 13.83 executions annually per hundred thousand of population during that period. The highest was Turkmenistan (now an abolitionist country) with 14.92. Each execution in Singapore is carried out by hanging in Changi Prison at dawn on Friday.”
Yes. Every highly successful society in Earth's history - from ancient Greece and Rome, up to modern Europe, North America, and the Pacific Rim - has at its core the fair and equal enforcement of its laws and the honoring of its contracts and agreements.
The actual form of government doesn't matter much. Why do you think Russia is such an economic basket case while Singapore is so successful? Both are essentially authoritarian dictatorships. The difference is that one is a kleptocracy that uses selective enforcement of punitive laws to attack political enemies, that tears up business contracts, while the other is a society that upholds the law and honors its contracts and agreements. For example, Russia forced Gazprom to stop delivering natural gas and oil to Europe as a political weapon, so now Europe is scrambling to find other sources.
The biggest requirement is predictability. Businesses will neither make plans nor take risks if the government is arbitrary and capricious. When a country starts to selectively enforce laws for political ends, when it cannot be trusted to honor agreements, it poisons everything. This is why the United States was so successful during its first two centuries and why it is now starting to flounder.
When the government routinely violates its own laws for political ends then everything begins to fail. People start hoarding wealth instead of trying to create it. If everything boils down to favoritism and which politicians you can bribe or buy, when the politicians buy votes by forcibly redistributing wealth from the makers to the takers, then the makers simply stop making. Or they give up and become takers themselves. Then you have just another banana republic.
Trust is everything. Lose that trust and it all falls apart. Society becomes a free-for-all of corruption and thievery, where everybody hides inside of walled compounds or lives in shantytowns and tin shacks.
And sadly most of the human race lives in this state.
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