How the “Soft” Dictatorship of Lee Kuan Yew Became a Template for the American Right

Mother Jones ^ | September+October 2022 Issue | Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein

[Zhang Fei]

In a 2021 interview with the Stanford Review, Blake Masters was asked for a historical figure he admired. He chose two. The first was George Washington, possibly the best-known military general, slave owner, and president in American history. “I don’t think people realize how much of a boss this guy was,” Masters explained. The second was Lee Kuan Yew.

LKY, as he’s often called, was Singapore’s prime minister from 1959 to 1990 and oversaw its economic miracle. He turned the former British colony into a go-go free market paradise. As it grew, Singapore instituted a far-ranging welfare state. The government built extensive public housing; it heavily subsidized health care and education. Today, municipal order is apparent: The streets in Singapore are relentlessly clean, almost everyone has internet access, and modern buildings are ringed by ample green space.

During his reign, LKY successfully fused pro-corporate libertarian economics and state socialism, creating a distinctly conservative mishmash of social and political control. Singapore has banned all kinds of free speech; intervened in marriages and family planning; encouraged eugenics; caned people for minor crimes; created an ethnically homogeneous ruling class; treated the migrant worker population as second-class citizens; and, famously, banned chewing gum.

This is LKY’s model: economic development above all else—even human rights. A “soft” authoritarianism, as Fareed Zakaria has called it. “The exuberance of democracy,” LKY explained, “leads to indiscipline and disorderly conduct, which are inimical to development.”

For a new breed of right-wing thinkers, politicians, and activists, LKY’s approach to government is appealing. Curtis Yarvin, Silicon Valley’s resident neo-monarchist, compares LKY to FDR—both good examples, he says, of a unilateral leader. And Nick Land, an accelerationist philosopher, calls LKY an “autocratic enabler of freedom.” To them, LKY is the paradigm of an illiberal ruler who created a paradise for his subjects

[Zhang Fei]

This is one of those opinion pieces that makes me wonder what the weather is like on the author's planet. But I've gotten that a lot when reading Mother Jones articles, over a period spanning many decades. Anyhow, it's a slam against Blake Masters, who's running for the GOP Senate nomination in Arizona, the winner of which will probably face off against Mark Kelly.

[InsidiousMongo]

Consider the audience. People without a functioning cerebral cortex buy stock in that magazine at Whole Foods checkout stands.

[BenLurkin]

“For a new breed of right-wing thinkers, politicians, and activists, LKY’s approach to government is appealing.”

http://www.lerctr.org/~transit/healy/saywhat.wav

[dfwgator]

and, famously, banned chewing gum.

"Boy is he strict!"

[DesertRhino]

That is American progressives to a T. Every detail of life addressed by an all powerful government.

[DoughtyOne]

Perhaps others will see it differently, and this isn’t to
imply as lack of respect for Washington, but I’m not in
the camp that thinks he was a brilliant military leader.

Look, folks are welcome to correct me if they see it
differently.

My appreciation for him was his willingness to serve as
our first president, but his unwillingness to continue
as our leader.

He wasn’t enticed by power, and he did the best he could
with the revolutionary war in a climate that wasn’t all
that much in his favor.

I am revolted by people who simply look at him as a slave
owner and aren’t at all interested in learning about the
state of things in the day.

The fact that the Nation was formed, and we did begin the
process of becoming the nation we’ve became, is an amazing
story.

It became that nation in no small part for what Washington
did on behalf of the nation.

[lightman]

[hanamizu]

George Washington, possibly the best-known military general, slave owner, and president in American historyGeorge Washington, possibly the best-known military general, slave owner, and president in American history

---

Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein had to add the ‘slave owner’ to Washington’s attributes. When Washington was the most powerful man in North America, the beloved general of a very disgruntled, unpaid army, what did he do? He resigned and went home to his plantation. When George III, who had no reason to admire him, heard of this he said, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”

I’m sorry, but I’m not ready to have our nation’s greatest disparaged.

[lightman]

Seems like LKY became a template for the American Left.

[lightman]

His farewell address warned against foreign alliances.

We have failed to heed; and we continue to pay dearly.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

When the essayist says "American Right" he is not talking about neocons, libertarians, boomercons, Reaganites, or even the Buchanan Brigades.

He is talking about Neoreactionaries like Curtis Yarvin (AKA Mencius Moldbug) and dozens of likeminded people who mostly exist as YouTubers, Bitchuters, etc.

The neoreactionaries (NRx) are not fans of libertarianism as they support a role for government in limiting the excesses that we now see with the rampant social individualism and anarchism in the West.

They are also skeptical of unfettered capitalism which they believe is at least part of the reason for the breakdown of society, e.g. the gutting of our industrial base and replacement with a rent seeking finance-based economy.

[PGR88]

Mother Jones has their very strict and pre-formed ideological algorithm of how the world works, and nearly every article they publish is an attempt to fit the subject into that algorithm

[DoughtyOne]

There is a problem with trying to apply adages from those days
to the current situation.

Technology being what it is, any problem on the other side
of the Earth can be on our doorstep in 45 minutes. In
Washington’s day, it would take months if not years.

If we do not form alliances with other nations, someone else
will. Pretty soon you find yourself with no global friends
in a pinch.

Do we want to wake up one day with Russia owning everything
up to the Atlantic, and China owning everything up to
Mexico?

I know there is an effort to see us withdraw from being
the world’s policeman. Who do we propose take on that
role when the vacuum is created? Russia? China? Some
European Union military body? A body made up by the
UN to police the planet?

We have to remain engaged. We have to remain at the top
of our game. If we don’t, we won’t last three decades,
perhaps two.

I know it sucks. It could be suckier.

[lightman]

Aye, the Lord said “to those to whom much has been given much shall be required”.

Now how to execute that responsibility without undue foreign alliances.....

[DoughtyOne]

I think we need to be careful what we sign onto to form those
alliances.

If we expect to project our power around the world, as is
needed to stop nations like Russia and China, we must have
places that will serve as our bases, and base of operations.

This old world is evil. Our own people are evil. We have
to do the best we can despite the circumstances.

Who stands up to evil if we don’t?

The U. N. and the E. U. would be the natural response, but
they aren’t capable of it. And frankly we wouldn’t want
Europe to be able to.

We fought two world wars last century against a European
based army. I don’t want the U. N. or the E. U. to have
forces we might have to face. It just raises the stakes.

So we wind up being the fall-guy. It would be worse.

[DoodleBob]

The problem is, you don't know which entanglement will "work" or not.

Most people agree WWII was a legitimate entanglement. And we were attacked and Germany declared war on us. Check.

What about Korea? Well, on some level it worked because South Korea remains free, and NK and China (and the allies) realized there ARE limits to how far you can go. Do the parent's of the dead soldiers think it "worked"? I dunno.

Vietnam is generally regarded as having NOT "worked."

Gulf War? Hmmm...now it gets murky. We weren't attacked, no declaration of war, I guess Saddam was halted but did it SOLVE anything?

Then, during the Clinton years, terrorist acts flared up, i.e. WTC, Cole. Nothing was done. At the time, i don't recall a great clamoring to bomb Afghanistan. That was probably the smart move.

9/11 and Afghanistan. Absolutely, that was a legitimate entanglement.

But Iraq? I wasn't posting then, but as a lurker I saw anti-Iraq war people getting trashed and probably zotted. Nowadays, I'd say most FReepers believe the war in Iraq was a mistaken entanglement, and that it solved nothing.

Ukraine...we have no horse in this race. The attack of a sovereign nation is always a bad thing. But if America stepped in on all Bad Things, we'd have piles of dead soldiers. Let them fight...

...or will Ukraine become the new Sudatenland?

Based on Aquinas, only Afghanistan was just. He's smarter than me.

[lightman]

By Augustine (who predates T.A. by a millenia) and Aquinas WWII and Afghanistan aka GW II were legitimate aka “just” when initiated.

It is questionable whether WWII remained so.

(In all humility as the son of a WWII veteran)

[DoodleBob]

I believe Augustine AND Aquinas would consider WWII "just" if we focus solely on the Pacific theater. America was attacked.

Germany declared war on America. Is self-defense achieved via joining the Allies in the European theater?

[unclebankster]

“The problem is, you don’t know which entanglement will “work” or not.”

One of the best ways for a great power nation to become 2nd rate, is for it lose blood & treasure on periphery issues to their empire.

However, to become a great power you usually have to “mix it” up with other powers, so a certain amount of aggression is part of the “empire game.”

I still laugh at some of the British newspapers, as the American Revolution kicked off but prior to the Declaration of Independence. Saying:

“The Americans want to set up an Independent Empire in North America.”

It was kind of an “early call” but eventually they were proven right.

[lightman]

VERY good question!

The European “allies” turned into a literal deal with the Devil at Yalta.

Stalin martyred more Christians than ALL of the pre-Constantinian Roman Emperors COMBINED!

All this to keep the almighty, all-powerful “economy” on a “war footing” to avoid a “post-war crash”.

How can there be a post-war if the war has simply switched from “hot” to “cold” and to a different “adversary”?

Ronaldus Magnus was genius for simultaneously ending the forty years war and preventing an economic crash.