Comment by jollybean | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jollybean | Hacker News Reader

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" Singapore's society seems to work phenomenally better than most other countries for most of its citizens, "

Singapore is a safe banking haven in a sea of legal risk and chaos.

Singapore was effectively an (almost) empty plot of land when it was established, and it was designed to be an 'banking/commercial haven'.

What makes Singpore 'rich' is the foundation established by the UK as having 'rule of law' and 'peace and order'.

As long as Singpore remains peaceful and orderly, where the commercial law is respected and foreign entities trust that their money is safe and they will get a fair deal, and that ability is not available in surrounding nations (which it isn't, even today), they they will do well.

If you're a Western company looking for a 'gateway to Asia', then Singapore is a good choice. It was literally built to be that.

It's a little bit how Swiss standard of living is supplemented by the fact that 1/3 of the world's offshore money is parked there, and that surplus benefits the locals.

Like a more complicated version of having 'Oil Wealth'.

It is what it is, and we have to be careful about criticism from afar, but that doesn't mean we can't be critical.

> it was designed to be an 'banking/commercial haven'

Singapore was a trading port from it's first conception when the Sultan of Johor sold the basically uninhabited swamp island to the British. When they were amicably booted out of Malaysia the country was one of the poorest on Earth, they had no natural resources, rampant poverty and unemployment, no military and infrastructure was in a terrible state. They somehow managed to completely turn that around in half a century, if you look at other new nations formed since then not a single one has managed to even come close to their success despite having vastly superior natural advantages. The Balkan states in particular come to mind, they also had a chance to start anew with a clean slate in the 90's and 30 years on they are a collective basketcase of nations whose younger population is abandoning in droves.

40% of all shipping traffic on Earth passes through their waters, the Port of Singapore is the worlds 2nd busiest by tonnage handled. People associate the country with finance while ignoring the sheer volume of cargo that moves through there.

> Like a more complicated version of having 'Oil Wealth'.

Find this comparison very hard to grok. Any country on Earth could copypaste Singaporean banking and corporate laws today if they wanted to, there's nothing stopping them. Now those same countries can't magically have the oil reserves of the Saudis or Venezuela.

> What makes Singpore 'rich' is the foundation established by the UK as having 'rule of law' and 'peace and order'.

By that metric all former colonies should be thriving?

Just because a nation 'has laws' does not mean they are implemented well, or effective.

Singapore had Colonial 'laws' 'order' and 'policy' and what amounted to national strategy that worked well within their context as I pointed out in my first sentence: good commercial law in a sea of chaos.

Also, they were a 'fresh slate' without historical ethnic groups, political causes, large swaths of poor, under-performing industries to be subsidized. They can focus on the 'high surplus' activities and leave everyone else to worry about the other things.

Much like if Manhattan were to 'separate' from the US, kick out the poor people, and still control 65% of US banking activity - Manhattan would be much richer and the US somewhat poorer. They could bring in poor worker / non-citizens from upstate NY etc. and keep social costs externalized.

'Any state' cold 'copy' the Singapore model, yes, and the results would be they would probably be 'much better' (if they came from a bad starting point) but not as good as Singapore because of their strategic placement.

If India were to be as efficiently run as Singapore, they would all be 25x wealthier just as a matter of efficient organization.

But it'd be impossible to 'copy' the model because of historical, legacy political forces, every group and party wanting their supposed piece of the pie. And of course, 'efficient organization' is one thing, but without some kind of strategic industrial advantage, it's a bit harder. Of course, India could focus on being the 'IT / Software' power house of the world, and if they did that, then backed by efficient organization, they would be a 'rich' country.

Canada, Australia and New Zealand are 'clean slate' (mostly) colonies with an effective colonial bureaucracy, and at least some advantage of natural resources, and they are rich.

And FYI if every nation surrounding Singapore did adopt their model of governance, Singapore would be much less important in the equation, much like if the 'Rest of China' became as trustworthy, consistent and fair minded as Hong Kong ... then Hong Kong would lose much of it's advantage.

> The Balkan states in particular come to mind, they also had a chance to start anew with a clean slate in the 90's

This is an ignorant thing to say and it borders on orientalism and ignores all the facts that led to them being "basket cases".

I would say it's unfair but it's mostly lazy.

Similar takes could be had for Hong Kong (pre British handover to China), Vancouver and London as well.

Hong Kong yes, but not Vancouver.

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