Singapore: Sovereign City
devonzuegel.com
devonzuegel.com
This is kind of comparing apple and oranges. First off, almost all of the housing in Singapore is public housing (HDP). If you own one, you cannot own a second one. For private property, there is huge fees for buying a second home, and the market for private property is very small and therefore, tend to be very expensive. There is also a lot more rules (like Minimum Occupancy Period) and taxes to seriously desensitised buying a second home, especially if it is for investment.
This make housing, for most cases, a poor investment in Singapore. You buy a home to live in it. This also mean that the market for rental, especially the one for foreigner, is very small compared to other country.
On the other end, the U.S, at least right now, see housing as a "safe" investment and has a population that is way more mobile than Singapore. People are less likely to invest in a home if they don't expect to stay in the same place for a significant amount of time.
/s
It could even be a good filter for immigration - only people who can afford to buy a house could be able to migrate there. And surprise, you end up with a population of fairly successful people.
There are some bastards out there doing something even worse. Try this, google: "hotel". They won't even let people "live" rather they charge them a steep fee for each 24 hour period spent in this sort of "shelter". It's straight back to the paleolithic era brutality.
I think the general idea of trying to push (single) home-ownership my making it increasingly harder and costlier to own more than one property is definitely something that should inspire some politician in country where housing as become a speculative bubble. But this should be done really carefully and with consideration of their own specificities. Done too hastily, it could very well cause a housing crisis, and a housing crisis don't mean just loss of money, it means family on the street.
HDBs are public housing but there are a ton of rules - can’t own one until you are 35 unless married. Need to meet incomes limits. There is a 4-5 year backlog for BTO (build to order - a new HDB).
HDBs prices have skyrocketed, despite the heavy government subsidy. People game the system all the time and because of demand, you enter a lottery for new HDBs and in prime locations, they can be 8-10x oversubscribed. If you win a unit? You won the lottery. You can sell it in 5 years (minimum occupancy period - MOP) on the resale market and pocket a few hundred thousand. Then upgrade or buy a private condo.
The government’s intention was to make it a good investment and now they are backed into a corner like most countries. How to make housing affordable but also a good investment.
They just instituted new rules that restrict who can buy “prime area” HDBs, increased MOP to 10 years and claw back some of the subsidy.
I would consider it a good feature and not a bug.
That was kind of fun haha :) it wasnt until I hit this sentence that it suddenly dawned on me you were writing everything in the Singlish language!
How is this a downside? That's the only way a subsidizied public housing system could work.
It's ludicrous you are describing the negatives from the perspective of a investor instead of a resident, that was precisely the point of the whole scheme, to make it easier for a regular resident to live, who pays tax and contributes to the local economy.
Oh and a tiny bit of pot will get you a lengthy sentence, up to life in prison.
No thanks.
As the PAP party has been ruling the place since its sovereignty and demonstrations are forbidden, it is quite authoritarian. Every time a other political party grows in strength they find some dirt on the main guy and put him in prison.
The migrant worker thing is disgustingly Dubai-esque.
Personal freedom does not stand in contrast to, but is embedded in social order, and that's why Singaporean's aren't giving anything up. Ask a woman whether she's more free to walk through town in Singapore at 1 am or a bad part of any typically 'free' city. It's not without irony that people in China basically faced barely any covid restrictions over a year while here in Europe everyone was locked into their apartments for months by government mandate, complaining about the lack of freedoms in other parts of the world.
Singapore and China gain something but they're also giving something up. People can disagree over whether that trade if justified but not over whether there's a trade.
Freedom or liberty in a more authentic, humanistic sense, also in the same way religious people understand it (no coincidence that Islam literally translates to 'submission' (to god)) grounds you in reason, reality and requires that understanding what legitimate authority is like. Only from that point can you actually start to make genuinely free decisions, you need to be set free from(!) a whole bunch of things first.
It's also btw why so many young people today, less coerced than ever before, don't feel free at all, just disoriented, and why they flock to political authoritarianism. The sort of relativism invited in by not properly understanding the relationship between authority and freedom has the ironical result of creating demand for some of the very worst forms of oppression.
Libertarian freedom was hard won, it works, and it would be a damn shame to give it up due to the anxiety experienced by 20-somethings. Relativism is in no way the certain outcome of liberal societies. To the extent that there is a problem, it's non-judgmentalism, the trendy idea that it is suspect to render judgements and live by them.
In fact, one of the primary responsibilities of the government is to prevent tragedy of the commons. Everything else can be driven privately.
I'm aware that most places in the world are not liberal. Fine with me. There's no need for every country or culture to share the same values. But in countries where libertarian freedom is a value, e.g. the US and UK, it should be defended.
Moreover, if libertarianism has value, it should be defensible without appeal to the support or lack of support in popular culture.
People, especially the ones who have never travelled to Singapore, need to stop rehashing this story of old.
Chewing gum can be freely purchased in Singapore from a pharmacy. No, one won't be searched at the airport and/or canned for bringing their own chewing gum into the city.
You won’t go to jail for a pack of gum in your luggage but you will be punished if caught bribing in large quantities (likely a fine or if a foreigner, banned from coming to SG).
Singapore was like that before cheap mass digital surveillance was possible. Even before VHS taped security cameras were affordable. And back in the VHS era, there was way less CCTV.
William Gibson labelled it Disneyland with the death penalty which is not entirely accurate but it's close.
And it should go without saying that Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have not been overrun with addiction epidemic or withered and burned to the ground as a result of not having death penalty for drug offences. The cruelty of death penalty is unnecessary. It makes politicians look good to a certain audience, but beyond that, it doesn't do much.
The Wikipedia page doesn’t even mention how much they earn from it and some gangs even outright ban it. That already tells you it ain’t mainstream.
I am not advocating for death penalty. I am simply pointing out your arguments are incorrect.
> In no case, no matter what information we get from Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, would you be convinced that death penalty is cruel and pointless.
I personally have no opinion on death penalty. I would prefer it did not exists (not that it is any of your business).
It seems like you are trying to win the argument simply based on your beliefs rather than on reasoning. You assumed I was pro death penalty and did a quick google search to justify your opinion. This says enough about your reasoning, don't you think? Making this a very boring argument.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/meth-syn...
"The wholesale price of a kilo of crystal meth produced in northeastern Myanmar is as little as $1,800, according to a UNODC report citing the China National Narcotics Control Commission. Average retail prices for crystal meth, according to the UN agency, are equivalent to $70,500 per kilo in Thailand, $298,000 per kilo in Australia and $588,000 in Japan. For the Japanese market, that’s more than a three-hundred-fold mark-up."
Is that an indictment of Singapore's justice system, or of America's health care system?
Picking a few anecdotes about any city invariably paints it in a reductive way. I'm not sure what the solution for this is other than actually visiting or living in a place.
It's run by an apparently corrupt government [0]
The NHS falls over every Winter, even without the help of a pandemic [1]
Backlogs on the NHS are now getting so severe that doctors are institutionally negligent - I know of two personal cancer cases missed for no good reason and GPs I know are confess to giving poor care due to being understaffed [2]
Knife crime is so much of a problem it gets its own page for statistics [3]. (Spoilers: there were over 3000+ knife related injuries in London in the last year)
And so, only when an MP gets stabbed to death is it newsworthy [4][5]
Police can barely keep street violence from breaking out, and for the rest of the country it's just bants [6]
They can't even keep their force from kidnapping innocent women off the streets at 9pm [7] and so now you their own advice is to not trust them [8]
For all the talk about democracy and freedom, it really seems like freedom is about the freedom for the strong to harm and extort others.
No thanks.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/11/boris-johns...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jun/27/an-nhs-winte...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/sep/27/nhs-backlog-...
[3] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04...
[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58930593
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Jo_Cox
[6] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9800015/Thug-smashe...
You're right about the surveillance and tough stance on drugs. This results in crime being virtually non-existent.
This is the official PAP line, but Singapore was actually among the wealthiest cities in Asia before WW2. Admittedly there was a gaping chasm between rich and poor, but that remains the case today.
It's 75% Chinese, 15% Malay, then Indian. That makes it more homogeneous than Malaysia.
IMHO, that's a reason why they split from Malaysia: they are a Chinese city, ethnically speaking.
The former does not imply the latter unless you consider Chinese and Indians to be less diverse than Malaysians. Which is dubious, considering Chinese and Indian Singaporeans come from all kinds of different places across two regions much larger than Malaysia.
Of course the Singaporean government has been hard at work to homogenize their population, e.g. the Speak Mandarin Campaign to get all Chinese Singaporean to speak the same language, but that wouldn't have been necessary if they'd been homogeneous from the beginning.
It was a British port for a long time (one of many parts of the Straits settlements). When Malaysia won independence, it included Singapore.
Lots of friction between Malay Chinese and Malay. The British colonizers left but the wealthy Chinese remained (similar trend seen in many SE Asia countries).
Singapore was kicked out of the Malay Federation not long after independence. Most simplified it was a power struggle in who would run Malaysia. Easier to cleave Singapore off as the heavily Chinese population wielded a lot a power.
But don’t get me wrong. Singapore has accomplished a lot. A tiny population be forced to go out on its own is not an easy hand to be dealt. To me, Singapore’s approach has been mostly just practical. They don’t care if public housing is “socialist” or if a single government approved union is authoritarian. They do what feel will yield the outcome they need.
But I get the sense they still have a very “survival” mentality - what they have is fragile and without close management will fall apart. Likely very true 50 years ago, but not so much today. But the governing party is the same and the mentality remains - one bad decision and as LYK says “Singapore dies”.
They similarly reduced their class sizes in the 90s under democratic pressure from an opposition party that was later torn apart.
Despite being a one party state run by thugs, Singapore experiences stronger democratic/anticorruption pressures than a lot of places because of the close proximity of people to leaders (there are studies on this - Brazil/Myanmar are at the other end of the spectrum with very remote capitals).
So yes, a massive public housing system is socialist in nature, but I’d agree it was entirely a politically practical initiative for Singapore.
And that’s what is so interesting. LYK mentioned his admiration for Deng Xiaopeng - an eminently practical leader. Capitalist, socialist, whatever, if it works it works and Singapore is willing to leverage it.
But it makes for an odd political scene. PAP will admit failure, as long as it’s not politically damaging. Otherwise they quietly take the pulse of the electorate and try to stay ahead of any issues.
It’s a very reactive semi-authoritarian system. They are concerned about losing legitimacy so work hard to stay popular.
Wouldn’t that be proactive rather than reactive?
So proactive in the “re-election” sense, but reactive in the political strategy sense.
#2 is another way of saying "those fucking commies".
It would be equally politically practical to have a similar program in most countries but we don't. Indeed many (especially younger people) are screaming for a program like this. Yet public housing programs tend to be watered down and dismantled instead.
LKY lacking in ideology (other than fervent anticommunism) isnt especially interesting. It's very normal for people to chase power without much in the way of ideology. Boris Johnson is similarly lacking in ideology but the last thing he'd do is build some council houses.
What IS interesting is how the material circumstances of Singapore managed to keep him on a tight leash.
Like it or not (evidently you do not), most politics is practiced within an ideological framework. Calling out ~80% of the world as fanatics for acting as such seems a little... extreme?
In any case, the interesting part of this story is how two leaders (Boris and LKY) can lack overriding ideology and only seek power and yet one builds housing for people to live in while the other doesn't.
Doesn't seem to be the case [0].
[0]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325669726_The_Recon...
This is a bit glib anti-history. There was almost nothing there when the English purchased/leased the territory and setup a trading post with strong rule of law and competent commercial practices, and developed a key port which allowed it to exist and flourish.
There was no 'Singapore' until UK Colonialists and local migrants made it.
Singapore, along with Hong Kong, have benefited greatly from rigorous and stable commercial foundations, which allow them to flourish in an region of otherwise political, legal and economic uncertainty. If you have money in Asia over the last 200 years, you preferably want it in Hong Kong or Singapore.
The 'secret' to Singapore's success might be a bit tantamount to if someone were to cleave off Manhattan from the rest of the USA, it's GDP per capita would be 2x that of 'The Mainland', but would we wonder how it was successful? They'd own the financial and distributor/merchant economic sectors of the region while externalizing less profitable ventures to the mainland.
As Asia as grown significantly, Western countries need 'bases' to work from and Singapore / HK were ideal choices, not HK is almost off the radar a process which has been ongoing for a couple of decades.
"Singapore modernized without imposing "Western political models on Asian realities".
Singapore is a Western entity in terms of core governance, judicial, commercial law etc.. Singaporean legal system still refers to English law, and even Commonwealth aka Canadian/Australian legal precedent to this day.
Singapore is a Western commercial and colonialist construct with mostly Western institutions, an Easter population, and an Eastern political elite who have their flavour of governance.
Actually, Lee Kwan Yew spoke in favor of gay law reform in Singapore from 2007. (Which is longer ago than it sounds: Lawrence v Texas was decided in 2003.) It's about the only policy debate he lost: his successors didn't believe that the people would stand for it. And it's easy to forget how bad everywhere else was. Until 2000 or so, I doubt gay life in Singapore was much harder than in Australia.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-singapore-homosexuality-i...
Other neighbouring countries, Indonesia by comparision (aside from Aceh) has no law against it, nor does Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, East Timor (that's not to say LGBT people don't suffer obstacles and discrimination in those states, but all are more progressed legally).
Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Myanmar are the holdouts in SE Asia.
Reality probably means that LGBT is more acceptable in Singapore than in some of those countries, but the law really should catch up.
Of course it should! My point is that LKY ended up supporting that, so it's a bit unfair to blame him for it not happening. In the context of the article, it matters that the dictator was in favor of gay law reform, and it was fears of electoral consequences that stopped it, or at least provided the excuse for not doing it.
Here's what Australia was doing in the 1990s. Singapore really didn't have much scope to be worse.
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/the-ni...
> Austrailia decriminalised gay sexual activity in 1973
That is false, or at least highly misleading.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-24/timeline:-australian-...
I think Don Dunstan did something in 1973, but I've forgotten exactly what. (It's interesting how many authors still omit to mention that Dunstan was bisexual.) The murder of George Duncan, by persons unknown but widely suspected to be wearing blue uniforms, was 1972. That gave Dunstan his excuse.
The job wasn't finished until 1997, by the conventional account. Personally, I'd argue for 2016, when Queensland[1] made it legal to be a gay teenager.
https://www.queerradio.org/AgeOfConsent.htm
[1] "named for her gracious majesty Victoria Regina, has been inhabited by many who sought to wear her crown" - Clive Moore, Sunshine and Rainbows
The provided link is dead. I find this hard to believe. Singapore imports almost all of its food and all of its energy (mostly not sustainable) and much of its water. Practically speaking, the land is fully developed with relatively little in the shape of parks and reserves.
I'm currently living in SG, I love SG. But (and I had to look this up), sustainable, in this context means: "involving methods that do not completely use up or destroy natural resources." I don't see how Singapore is #1 (If you told me Singapore was literally the least sustainable country in the world, I'd more likely believe that)
Incentives matter.
Yes, that's what 'sustainable' means: It can be sustained indefinitely over time.
To have to import food, energy, water, etc. means that they are not self-sufficient, which is different and quite obvious since they are a city.
Now, to be accurate, a claim of sustainability should take into account whether these imports are from sustainable sources. However, cunningly, the claim is not that they are sustainable, it's that they are the most sustainable city in the region, which is a relative metric and may mean no more than "they are the least bad".
Sources need to be more than sustainable, they need to be sustainable for everyone.
At least according to 1 source, my original guess as right: Singapore is the _least_ sustainable country in the world [1]
There’s not much many other countries can learn from Singapore because they all either don’t have enough money or have a greater variety of people to convince.
But my example was just one example of this inequality. It can really weigh you down to live in it for some time if you are from a country with much more general freedom and attempts at social equality (i.e. much of europe or even the U.S.).
They even said "look we understand why locals get paid more for the same job but why Malays? This is unfair"
For their troubles they were arrested, imprisoned, had the shit kicked out of them before being deported.
That's still better than how Bangladeshi migrant workers are treated.
The racism is not as bad as it is in, say, Saudi Arabia or Israel but it's still pretty bad.
Singapore needs constant immigration to stop its population from dropping like a rock. This is good for their economy since they've effectively outsourced many of the costs of raising children to other nations. But I don't know if I'd want to live in a place where raising kids is that difficult.
Shanghai is estimated to have had a 2010 fertility rate of 0.6, according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Shanghai
I assume this happens less in Singapore because it's a city state, you can't just leave the city without actually emigrating.
It's not commonly known, but yeah, anything about a Chinese city should be compared to stats about a US Metro Area to make any sense.
Even in the US, comparing by counties is dangerous, because counties are not standardized between states. Sometimes cities are contiguous with counties (San Francisco), sometimes they are smaller (Chicago), sometimes they are bigger (New York's 5 boroughs are each a county.)
Migrant workers generally don’t bring their kids/families to these cities however, as they have no right to local public schooling and medical resources, it can be a really difficult life unless you are rich. Likewise, very few people with Shanghai hukou will go somewhere else (it does happen though people), mobility in China is really complicated by the hukou system.
If I'm not allowed to have 2, was it less coercive because there was a way around it or something?
> It certainly did work though, it's very unusual to meet Singaporeans with more than 2 kids today.
I'd guess the lack of space and longer working hours would be more of a contributor.
> I'd guess the lack of space and longer working hours would be more of a contributor.
Yup.
Also, Singaporeans of Indian and Malay descent have more children than Singaporeans of Chinese descent. Over time this would lead to the ethnic composition of Singapore changing. However, the government has decided the ethnic balance as it was upon independence is sacrosanct, so they hand out permanent residence status to anyone of ethnic Chinese descent that wants it - people from mainland China, mostly.
Well it would appear in Singapore, you were effectively fined anyways, just in a roundabout way, so I'm not sure how then that translates into less coercive.
> To help convince parents that fewer were better, the government legalized abortion and encouraged voluntary sterilization. Hospital fees went up as a woman had more babies, working mothers were allowed only two paid maternity leaves and a family’s third, fourth and subsequent children were given a lower priority in the choice of and admission to schools. [1]
[1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-06-21-mn-8983-s...
Your quote is correct. But today, since they want more kids, you actually get more with the 3rd, 4th, etc kid - bigger bonus, school priority, savings account, tax rebate. There are half a dozen programs to help. It apparently adds up to over S$100,000 in benefits per kid over their childhood.
https://www.msf.gov.sg/policies/Strong-and-Stable-Families/S...
Friend's mum was spayed or whatever as punishment for giving birth to twins.
Mind you in the 80s they were straight up executing couples who did swinging.
Usually you wouldn’t be punished for having twins (at least in the cities that is). My wife has friends that are twins, their parents struggled to have even one kid so used fertility drugs (where twins is a more common result).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_planning_in_Singapo...
China is finding similar success that transcends when the policy has officially been ended.
The worst effect of one child policy was imo skewed sex ratio.
https://www.reuters.com/article/china-society-census-fertili...
A large swath of China is still very low income and rural. The fact that the birth rate is already comparable with developed countries with 5x per capital income is worrying if the trend continues.
It is in no way close to the first world country.
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/rural-population-percent-...
I hope that the anglosphere governments behave like this and I don't know about it. Good or bad, there is a lot to learn by going out and looking at how things work elsewhere.
The most obvious advantage I have seen in the Chinese model vs the Western model is they try things and pick up what works. Using Singapore as a petri dish then importing the ideas that seem to generate wealth is a step beyond any policy I've seen out of a western government in the last few decades. I doubt that is an inherently Chinese thing to do though and I'm sure they'll get lazy in the future - but this is a much better way of running policy than the usual guess-retry-guess-pivot approach that normal people seem to prefer.
The Communist Party ruling over China has been a giant footgun on the Chinese national interest and development. China could've put itself back together after WW2 like Germany, France, Japan did. Good to see and hear US center for learning Chinese language/culture/history has relocated from Beijing to Taiwan.
As another measure of size Singapore’s population was 5.45 million as of June 2021. [1]
[1]: https://www.singstat.gov.sg/modules/infographics/population
When relations go South, Malaysia has in a few instance threaten to “cut off water to Singapore”. And when Malaysia violates Singaporean airspace Singapore fire up the jet fighters (they have one of the largest air forces in SE Asia?)
So not hostile in the sense of East and West Germany, but hostile none the less (at least Malaysia and Indonesia).
Malaysia also knows that turning off the taps = invasion. Singapore isnt shy about expressing its displeasure.
"Malaysia knows turn off the tap means invasion." I mean, that's exactly the reason why we went over the top with the military thing isn't it?
Of course it also provides a highly obedient and compliant workforce which keeps the foreign investors happy.
That being mainly what Singapore is all about these days (foreign capital even dictated that chewing gum be legalized and thus it was so).
https://www.guidemesingapore.com/business-guides/taxation-an....
Then this big chunk of money is used to buy public housing, pay for public healthcare, fund retirement, etc.
So if you’re making $120k+ SGD, you’re in the 11.5% tax bracket, but 20% of your salary (starting at $0) is also withheld.
The lack of capital gains tax is pretty great though.
It’s like social security in the US but imagine if it was a bank account instead that you could access for retirement.
Anglosphere nations should treat cities as autonomous entities with clear boundaries, and exceptional rules systems that meet their needs, but there is an urge in the overall polis that treats any limitation on their dominion as something to be militated against. The main objection to this diverse autonomy comes from human rights concerns. The city-state question is very close to the the so-called "states rights" issue in the US, where many people interpret it as just being free to oppress others, etc.
However, it's also worth looking at the history of human rights and what they mean before appealing to them as a neutral universal value, as unlike a base state of freedom, rights must be granted by a sovereign or a law, which means universal human rights also mean a universal governor of them, and this necessarily subjugates all people under the regime that grants them. Appeals to human rights are appeals to the creation of a global human granting authority without limit, and while we tolerate this view as a diverse perspective, and adopt some of its better working principles, when you think it through and read the history of it, it's an appeal to subjugate the species under a single rights granting regime. When people talk about progress it is progress toward this end. It's a popular sentiment, but one not without criticism.
Most of what we get from human rights and often conflate them with is human dignity and freedom, but unfortunately, the rights language necessarily means some are more equal than others, and requires a paternalism that is not as universally appealing. Singapore is a really intresting 1.0 or beta regime, but advocates for it who do not advocate the autonomy of city states and the freedom of people are really more into finding an acceptable face of authoritarianism for their agendas, imo.
Where can they go? Singapore Citizens have a right of abode in Singapore, and they have one of the most useful passports in the world for visiting countries, but they don't generally have the right to live anywhere other than Singapore.
1.Moving to another location could make you leave friends and family
2.There is a cost associated with moving to another country i.e moving company, new home
3. You may not be able to keep your job
Leaving Mexico(mentioned in the article) might be more difficult but the extra cost of airfare is the least of the issues.
I don't think the counter to arguments about a authoritarian government should be "you can leave" (paraphrasing)
Singapore should not be looked at as a leading example, but rather a leading warning indicator of what can happen if the Deng Xiaoping / LKY model of authoritarian prosperity ever gains the upper hand on the future.
1) benefited from Indonesia (refining their oil etc) like HK did for china back in the day and cheap labour
2) Now benefit from HK Chaos with China as a kind of Switzerland of Asia
3) Are hard to compare with a large country
It's an example of brutality and rigid rules wielded effectively to manage a population. Their social ills can't be criticized - Hanging people for drug use or possession, indefinite detention and torture for political speech, and the money, corruption, and sex trafficking amongst the elite for starters.
If they evolve to a more free, liberty and democracy focused society, they'll likely lose much of their wealth generating advantage. A non trivial portion of the money flowing through Singapore depends on groups and individuals involved in global cartels, and anti corruption laws effectively enforced would unveil a lot of shady dealings.
As for "indefinite detention and torture for political speech", Singapore stopped resorting to this in the 1980s, bankrupting people with defamation suits is much more effective.
Of course we can debate what role the authoritarian nature of their system played in that, if any.
We may tend to see things through a "1st world problems" prism, but when the people start with nothing, starving in a shack (which is still the life of many people on this planet) the metrics I mentioned are infinitely more important than the death penalty for drug trafficking (which is hardly a massive issue in any case).
Singapore, on the surface of things, almost has things right. The problems arise when you look past to the superficial goods into the overall social functioning - there's some really dark evil with deep ties to Singapore.
Also, to make things clear, the US has its fair share of problems like this. Notably, the war on drugs and the cartels enabled by our failed policies are an absolute travesty.
The advantage of liberalizing speech is the ability of a society to continually evolve toward the improvement of human wellbeing. When societies suppress speech, that's a telltale signal that those in power are engaged in shady business they don't want the peasants to squawk about.
All that said, Singapore is a remarkably civilized and pleasant place to visit - I just wouldn't want to live there. If it gets held to account through revolution or civil breakdown, its failure mode will be spectacular.
Corruption is rampant in Europe. It's only layman's money will be AML'd. Real crime will easily find a way around it.
At least Singapore and Dubai allow money to be laundered officially.
Singaporeans were fortunate their country was ruled by a bunch of technocrats. But the government has almost complete control of the narrative and the story they tell is often the only one you’ll hear.
[1] https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n06/thomas-meaney/the-ba...
[2] Archived: https://archive.ph/RfIDP
I am opposed to many of these features of Singaporean society. I am unconvinced that these human rights violations were ever important building blocks for Singapore's social cohesion, and it at least seems clear that the city-state has now reached a level of stability where the government can safely loosen its iron grip on social life.
This is a common refrain from foreigners cursorily involved in Singapore (whether a passing tourist or expat living there). Lee Kuan Yew had the following retort (starting at 50 minute mark):
https://youtu.be/3ofjSBGmOcY?t=2999
The whole speech is worth watching, and also the other speeches available on either Youtube or the archives: https://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/NationalDayRally/
Fact is LKY and the government he founded is exceptionally brutal and petty (to this day foreign journalists who dare criticize the PAP government will find themselves sued for libel) but there is very little to suggest that specific aspect of theirs actually does Singapore any good.
A much more likely explanation for their success is that they’re famously incorruptible. Unlike other SE Asian strongmen LKY never diverted his CIA bribe money to a Swiss bank account but instead spent it on beautifying his fief.
(Of course government officials do pay themselves exorbitant salaries so you could argue it’s just corruption by another name, but at least that happens out in the open and comes with a veneer of respectability)
Journalists should be sued for libel if they are libelous - wrapping oneself in the cloak of "journalism" is not free license to slander and spread untruths. Much of the American / western media has this sickness, which is why there is so much anguish over "fake news".
I don't know why you think it's fear-mongering about heroin - you think heroin/drug abuse in a society has no detrimental effects?
This is a fucked up sentence. It tries to make it sound like the Communists were the dangerous ones, not the Americans and Europeans who were busy killing millions of people in that part of the world then. The people fighting colonialism were mostly communist and the people killing the communists were almost entirely colonialists.
1965 was the year that the CIA helped launched a coup against Sukarno in Indonesia. It led to some of the worst mass murder in the 20th century. The CIA, MI6 assisted the new leader, Suharto in killing between 1-3 million Indonesians. We still don't know how many people were killed, but it was definitely at least 1 million. Many not killed were put in concentration and work camps where many died. Many ethnic Chinese were targetted because it was believed their ethnicity made them more likely to be Communist.
1965 also saw an escalation in America's war in Vietnam. The Americans would eventually kill about 3.5 million Vietnamese and a couple million people in Laos and Cambodia.
Malaysia wasn't hostile to an anti-colonial Singapore, as this sentence suggests. Not that Singapore in 1965 was necessarily anti-colonial. Malaysians had fought the British for independence and there was a cease fire by 1965. The British left Malaysia, but the new government was mostly still friendly with the Brits.
Not to take away from the weight of 1-3 million people, but you do realise Stalin and mao killed 60-100m people each right? 1-3m million unfortunately isn’t the Worst mass murder in the 20th century
Seems like a basic knowledge of history would show this fear of communism was completely founded?
And I don’t think LYK needed much encouragement to imprison the communists in Singapore (Operation Coldstore). He saw the threat for what it was.
1963: The Brits left Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak under the agreement that they would form Malaysia, which I believe, among other things, was that this merger would help with the fight against communism in the region.
1965: Misunderstandings between the local Singapore government and the federal Malaysian government resulted in Singapore leaving the Malaysian federation (or Malaysia kicking out Singapore, depending on which version of history you believe.) Hostilities between the governments definitely existed, though not to the degree of full on war.
Cease-fire: I wasn't aware of armed violence during this time in the 'anti-colonisation' of Malaysia, apart from perhaps the MCP (Malaysian Communist Party) in Malaysia, and riots happening in Singapore.