Lee Kuan Yew on Malta | Hacker News Reader

Lee Kuan Yew on Malta

karlsnotes.com

96 pointsvalkrieco142 comments

Funny to see this on the first page of HN (I'm Maltese, although living in the US now).

Lots of truth in what he said... Malta has not done badly at all since independence but Singapore is a tough one to compare to. Currently Malta's GDP per capita stands at $33k or so which is certainly nothing to sneeze at, but still around half of Singapore's.

Interesting too that history repeats itself. Back then it was the Suez Canal crisis and now it's this:

https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/freeport-talks-client...

Then again, I don't think Malta has as many low paid temp workers as these ones Singapore imports from India, etc. Also the residences are likely not that tiny.

Yea, I'd prefer living in Malta to Singapore every day. Though I'd probably prefer today's Singapore to the one before Yew's times.

The one before Yew's times was still a British colony port overlooking a critical shipping route. I'm not sure how such arrangement may not result in significant economic development. Hong Kong didn't have Yew but it had significant quality of development.

Bangladesh is also on critical trade routes. The Port of Chittagong is one of the few things from Asia on Greek maps from the 2nd century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_Chittagong. Chalking up Singapore’s success to geography is probably missing the point.

Singaporean here. What would you say is the point?

My own tldr is that we severely lacked in a number of areas:land mass, natural resources, a defensible position, a meaningful economy.

Geography was pretty much the only thing we had going for us. That and amazing leadership.

I mean to say Singapore’s success isn’t some inevitability due to its geography (which is an idea that gets trotted around). Lots of countries have something going for it they could capitalize on—most of them fail to do so. I think Singapore could’ve stagnated without good leadership and also a populace that was ready to rise to the occasion.

I would say the opposite - most of countries are more or less on the development level that their culture and geographic location permits, few countries are significantly below this level and fewer still are significantly above this level.

Singapore is exactly where it should be, given its culture, legacy, location, and the fact that it is a city-state. It would still be Singapore under your average ruler (of Chinese culture, not African). It has awesome hand so it does not take much skill to play it.

I could not repeat enough the argument of city-states being different, and usually very rich, so that's what I'm going to do. You should never compare Singapore's GDP growth with any country which has, well, countryside. Still, Taiwan will give Singapore a run on its money while not even being a recognized country.

These are very broad generalizations you're claiming with no evidence.

> Most of countries are more or less on the development level that their culture and geographic location permits.

So, given this assertion, no developing country should ever hope to join the ranks of a developed nation? Unless they change cultural variables or conquer new lands. Yet we see this playing out in Europe and East Asia and now Africa and India.

> Taiwan will give Singapore a run on its money

Singapore's GDP per capita is $70,000 while Taiwan's capital city sits at $35,000.

Please cite your sources

Would Singapore be a genuinely worse place to live if its GDP per capita would be "just" $35,000 instead of $70,000?

It would probably have slighly smaller population, less economic regulation and more sustainability. So the difference between Yew and "number two" is the difference between "Excellent" and "Great".

Come on, is that so important? I'd rather read on about a leader who turned "mediocre" into "pretty good".

Because most countries are not Singapore, they don't have what it takes to be even Taiwan.

"When a Rhino looks at the moon, he wastes the flowers of his spleen", as neither Japanese nor Chinese say.

This is just moving the goalposts and sophistry at this point. Your initial statement was Taiwan was measurably better per capita than Singapore, though the GDP and economic statistics show otherwise. You can also look at various happiness indices, where Singapore is #1 in Asia, since happiness is correlated with GDP per capita.

and If you really believe $70,000 is no different from $35,000, I urge you to donate all your income excess of $35,000 to me. I take Venmo, Cashapp.

This is not moving the goalposts. The goalposts were the unsurpassed wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew. It is still a hipster bullshit if you ask me.

Taiwan was 1.5x worse GDP-wise in 1960 and now the difference is 2.0x. That's not that much. Especially as I have said about city states and whatnot.

I donate significant amount of my income, just not to you obviously.

your first two paragraphs, taken together seem like upside down logic to me, or totally illogical. cart before horse kind of thing.

and that "probably" ... :)

You have to be careful looking at GDP per capita. That money doesn't always stay within the country, especially with tax havens.

Look at Ireland's GDP per capita - it's on par with Singapore! But a lot of that is due to the tax strategies of companies like Google that park their IP in Ireland, then "sell" it to countries in Europe. That's all GDP for Ireland. But what happens to the money? It gets pumped back to the US.

It's similar with Singapore. There are huge refineries, and pharmaceutical manufacturing on the island. The country makes these product (often of high value), which contributes to the GDP. But that money exits the country (save for the workers in Singapore) back to the HQ country.

If you look at median wages in Singapore, you'll get a much better sense of the wealth. But do note that the number the Singaporean government quotes doesn't include the 40% of the population that is migrant workers - it's only Singaporean citizens and PRs. So it ignores the bottom ~40% of workers (save for the highly skill people on work passes).

Depending on how you define "city states", it might just be Singapore and a couple of petrostates. Slightly broader definitions give you Malta (average Mediterranean country) as discussed and some middle income Caribbean islands relying on tourists and tax avoiders. That isn't because being a city state is so amazing every city just wished it could shed its hinterland, it's because operating as an independent country with limited domestic food production capacity is hard (even without neighbours wanting to assimilate you)

Sure, cities have higher per capita GDP than their associated agricultural regions, but Singapore's GDP in 1963 was low relative to the agricultural regions of many countries it's since overtaken, its institutions were the colonial power's and much of its population consisted of uneducated coolies performing manual labour and living in squalid conditions. And it initially chose not to be a city state!

The only thing inevitable about Singapore's growth path is that if its first government had bankrupted the country and begged to be British or Malaysian subjects again by 1970, people would have said this wasn't at all surprising given its Asian culture (not so highly rated for business acumen in the 1960s!) and geographical disadvantages...

I'm sorry, but Singapore came pretty close to collapsing in the 1960s, especially just after its expulsion from Malaysia. Just about only thing it had going for it was its geography. The UMNO in Malaysia was banking on Singapore asking to rejoin the federation on significantly more unfavourable terms than the latter got in 1963, after teetering on the verge of complete state failure.

Make no mistake—Singapore's prosperity today is no accident.

Your claim is essentially that cities, and therefore city-states, will naturally fall into wealth and prosperity. I wonder what happened to Athens, Venice, Genoa, and all the other merchant city-states, the equivalents of Singapore on the ancient, mediaeval, and early-modern world.

The hard part about a city-state is retaining its independence. Venice and Genoa got claimed by Italy, Athens became a capital.

And they have fallen into relative obscurity, barring Venice. They're all not big, financial hubs pulling in hundreds of billions to trillions, like New York, or London, or Singapore.

The point is that cities don't accumulate wealth 'just because'. Wealth comes and goes. And this goes all the more for city-states with no hinterland nor strategic depth.

Cities do not, but city states do.

Compare Venice with Monaco in that respect. Or Hong Kong, which is waning because of that lost sovereignity but is still very rich. Or Luxembourg. Or Qatar. It's just great to be a small self-contained free port.

And Venice is not the worst place to be.

Now, we actually do not know what will be of Singapore in 50 years. May be many things.

SIngapore could've stagnated without good leadership?

Singapore did stagnate without good leadership for a couple of 100 years there, didn't it? Until it suddenly (over the course of a couple of decades) didn't.

No, it did not. What makes you think it did?

> Its contemporary era began in 1819, when Stamford Raffles established Singapore as an entrepôt trading post of the British Empire. In 1867, the colonies in Southeast Asia were reorganised, and Singapore came under the direct control of Britain as part of the Straits Settlements.

> Later, in the 1890s, when the rubber industry became established in Malaya and Singapore, the island became a global centre for rubber sorting and export.

It was very new and fared very well all along, world wars excluded. Maybe it was mismanaged 1945 to 1960, that I cannot confirm.

Well I suppose it depends on your definition of a country stagnating.

I guess by your definition Indonesia and The Philippines where doing great as Dutch and Spanish colonies as well?

Sure, Singapore was doing great during that time (for the British), but if you look at measures such as % of the population living in extreme poverty, education, housing, healthcare, GDP, slavery, serfdom, etc it must be quite hard to deny that Singapore hasn't stagnated for centuries only to explode (positively) within decades.

>Geography was pretty much the only thing we had going for us. That and amazing leadership.

The biggest asset, aside from being a port on a great location, was the right alliances, and foreign countries being the island being let mostly alone, and you not having valuable resources, plus the desire of the rich in countries around the area to use the island as a tax haven of sorts (and later, as their comfy home away from home).

Yew would have been thrown out of office in a week and some "coup" would have been organized if some big foreign power has special interests in the area and wanted him gone.

And if the island had resources like oil or such, it would have been invaded, occupied, "liberated" by some new traiting politician friendly to the outside, every second year.

> Yew would have been thrown out of office in a week and some "coup" would have been organized if some big foreign power has special interests in the area and wanted him gone.

There was significant interest from foreign powers doing just that, look up Operation Coldstore and the history of communist insurgency in Singapore.

Operation Coldstore was kind of the opposite to the above: Yew and foreign "allies" taking out pesky left-wingers and pro-worker representation.

but there was heavy foreign influence and support on the left-wingers and pro-worker representation, from the communist bloc

There was also heavy support for them from the local population and workers.

And of course the right wingers not only had "heavy foreign influence and support" on their side too (the whole country was established under heavy western influence and at its "benevolence"), but they also crushed them, undemocratically with the help of that foreign influence and support.

the forming of those relationships, vision to form a tax haven and ability to stay in power by managing relationships between foreign powers to not experience a 'coup' is precisely leadership

It's leadership depending on the benevolence of outside factors, which is based on their strategic interests and what they want from you.

Doesn't work if you're just a land with resources to plunder and they have no interests in seeing you thrive, but the contrary.

Works even less if you have other ideas about your governance, trade, and allies that suit you, to what powerful countries taking an interest in your area want you to have because it suits them.

But if you don't have resources for them to covet, your existence fits a purpose in their plans, and you don't get too independent but always keep their preferences in mind, yeah, you can then apply leadership to make things better.

It's just leadership in much easier circumstances than elsewhere.

That and amazing leadership.

Amazing leadership according to the leadership that controls the news media and holds sham elections where other parties get no media coverage until a few weeks before the election.

It's a thinly veiled dictatorship, but OTOH it's stable, not particularly oppressive about non-political topics, takes good care of its citizens, and has done a hell of a lot to improve its citizens' lives while defusing, as much as possible, the various ethnic issues that have plagued other countries in the region.

Don't forget, it was a poor country at independence. Malaysia and Indonesia also face the Strait of Malacca, and I'd rather live under Singapore's government than either of those.

Don't get me wrong. Democracy is a total joke in Singapore. That's why I left. My dad has never voted in his life because there aren't enough opposition candidates. The police actively harrasses members of the opposition (I had a friend who's husband was an opposition MP).

But given all that could have happened, I do stand by that assessment.

Singapore is also a great place for corrupt leaders and crime cartels to invest money. Especially now that Hong Kong has been returned to China.

> Geography was pretty much the only thing we had going for us.

Geography is important but so was singapore's chinese connections. Singapore's rise is tied to china's opening and economic rise. Singapore and Hong kong's ability to leverage their chinese ties and serve as imtermediaries between china and their colonial masters allowed them to get wealthy. The singaporean leadership was able to win the trust of the chinese and their 'former' colonial masters. Given the animus between China and the US, it was quite the achievement.

Animus between China and US is a recent thing, like post 2015.

> Animus between China and US is a recent thing, like post 2015.

Are people this dumb and ignorant? Animus between China and the US dates back centuries to the opium wars of the early 1800s. And animus between China and the US has been the norm ever since. Your comment was flat earther level stupid. Crack open a history before commenting.

Learn how to read context before sperging out lol. Nixon visited China just a few years after Singapore became independent. And US companies then invested tons of money in China, built factories, trade relations, etc etc. Post 2015 is when animosity starts and now US is encouraging divestment from China.

> Learn how to read context before sperging out lol.

I did. That's why I quoted your entire comment in my response : "Animus between China and US is a recent thing, like post 2015."

> Nixon visited China just a few years after Singapore became independent.

You mean the anti-china warhawk nixon who made his name railing against china in the 50s and 60s? Are you talking about that nixon?

> Post 2015 is when animosity starts and now US is encouraging divestment from China.

Except US investment in china INCREASED under trump... Also how stupid do you have to be to bring nixon into this and claim the animus started post 2015?

You are still ignoring context (which includes the comment thread and topic being discussed, not simply my own comment in isolation; that's what context means) and sperging out. Singapore developed during a time where US-China relations were friendly. The current animosity is recent (post 2015) and previous animosities are pre-Singapore independence, so who cares.

Many countries have key shipping routes and other geographical advantages, but corruption and stupid leaders/populace prevent them from succeeding.

In Chinese names the surname goes first, so it's Lee's times.

Well, Lee Kuan Yew’s surname is indeed Lee, but Chinese names are sometimes written with the surname at the end in other languages: thus C.K. Tang, Wen Ho Lee, and so on. And, indeed, if one were also discussing the times of Lee Hsien Loong, it would be perfectly reasonable to write of ‘Kuan Yew’s times’. But people writing of ‘Yew’s times[sic]’ do betray how little they’ve read about Singapore.

> Chinese names are sometimes written with the surname at the end in other languages, thus C.K. Tang, Wen Ho Lee

This is an Anglicisation through and through. In Mandarin Chinese and most Chinese dialects (and Korean, for the record), the surname comes first.

XI Jinping

MAO Tse-tung

LEE Kuan Yew

TSAI Ying-Wen

HUANG Jen-Hsun

KIM Jong-un

BAN Ki-moon

If the person has a European first name, then it comes before the surname—Lisa Su, for instance. Lee Kuan Yew himself went by 'Harry Lee Kuan Yew' before he went into politics and he dropped the 'Harry'.

> sometimes…in other languages

Do we have these discussions about Victor Orban?

I haven't visited Malta but Singapore would be one of my top choices if I had to migrate somewhere (if not the top).

Big city but you can go anywhere at any time and feel extremely safe. Impressive public transport. Amazing food, probably the best among countries I've visited. Everyone speaks English but you can enjoy a mix of Chinese, Malay, Indian cultures. The people tend to be quite nice. Good economy. Feeling of growth, rather than decadence like in much of the West, every time I go there seem to be several new MRT lines. Sane politics (see public housing, etc.) Plenty of places to visit, activities and things to do.

It's not perfect, maybe a bit too hot and I don't like their long working hours and exploiting of maids, but in my view it's top notch. On March I'll go to Malta, let's see how I compares, but I doubt I'll like it more (no offense to Malta, as I said, the think is that I really have a good concept of Singapore).

Having to be completely obedient to the state wears on the soul. All migrants experience this to a certain extent in any country but in Singapore it’s turned up to 11. The fruits of capitalistic success might be enjoyable for a while, but it’s a shallow existence. I think that Singapore is enjoyable in small doses.

> Having to be completely obedient to the state wears on the soul

I think this is very overstated, people break laws and talk shit all the time. Just don't do drugs and be an asshole and you should be fine, many laws are not enforced

While this is true - that many laws are broken, with the government looking the other way, or citizens just keeping their mouths shut - the statements made by Singapore's leadership sends a chill down my spine.

Just recently they made unilateral (clearly, because PAP controls Parliament and has since the country's founding) changes to the law that police don't need a warrant to search someone if there is a "reasonable suspicion the person may destroy evidence prior to a warrant". Not to mention there is no "right to remain silent" or "right to lawyer" (before making a statement), etc, etc.

But what really caught my notice was the quote from the Minister of Justice - “There is no downside to this amendment because if they search and they find the evidence, or if they do not find the evidence, no one is worse off."

To me that is wild. Invasion of privacy of an innocent individual and "no one is worse off". There isn't even an attempt to talk about trade offs - "yes, this is in invasion of privacy, but we're carefully balancing it against the need for an effective police force". Just straight up "searching the private space of an innocent individual is insignificant".

That said, there is overwhelming support for this kind of law in Singapore. There was a recent poll that asked something like "Do you agree with this statement: It is better that there is stability than democratic rights." and 70-80% of Singaporeans said "yes".

So "meh?". I may recoil at the very premise of the system, but Singaporeans seem to like it.

> It is better that there is stability than democratic rights." and 70-80% of Singaporeans said "yes".

I think you'll find similar opinions in all of the east asian countries like south korea, taiwan, japan, china. Lived in singapore for a few years, I think it's great to visit but don't know if I'd want to live there; one party state, strict laws etc. Taxes are low though, so that's pretty nice.

Singapore has pretty insane politics (e.g. being a dissident blogger is practically a capital crime) but excellent city planning.

The working culture is also toxic af and there is a strict racial hierarchy (enforced by violence when challenged) that made me deeply uncomfortable living there.

Great weather, housing, food, city planning and public transport though.

I wish my government tried to clone their fantastic commieblocks and not their oppressive, oligarchic style of government but alas they do the opposite.

> being a dissident blogger is practically a capital crime

Oh, for f*ck's sake.

Hacker News and unbridled exaggeration, name a better combination.

Look, I get that Singapore's leaders are especially litigious, and they are rightly criticised for it by a plurality of the population.

However, a defamation lawsuit is a far cry from a death sentence.

Somehow I get the feeling most commenters who criticise Singapore for its 'draconian authoritarian totalitarian xyz-itarian oligarchic police state laws' have never set foot in the place.

Sure "capital crime" is hyperbole, but the authoritarian nature of the government is well known.

I mean a guy was arrested for holding up a piece of cardboard with a smiley face drawn on it for a few seconds while someone took a picture of it. This was deemed "unlawful assembly without a permit". He had already spent time in prison for prior protests in support of Hong Kong.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/24/singapore-smil...

> "unlawful assembly without a permit"

Dunno why you put it in quotes: it's in Singapore law[1].

[1]: Public Order Act 2009: https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/POA2009

> Somehow I get the feeling most commenters who criticise Singapore for its 'draconian authoritarian totalitarian xyz-itarian oligarchic police state laws' have never set foot in the place.

Rather ironically, if the original comment about "dissident blogger is a capital crime" is literally true, your observation basically confirms it due to survival bias, because nobody could criticize Singapore's government while being physically there. :)

That said, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle.

>However, a defamation lawsuit is a far cry from a death sentence.

Defamation lawsuits in Singapore are far worse than in the west. They are both rigged and designed to bankrupt you. Being a target wont mean you get killed but it will ruin your life.

>Somehow I get the feeling most commenters who criticise Singapore for its 'draconian authoritarian totalitarian xyz-itarian oligarchic police state laws' have never set foot in the place.

I lived there. I was there for the riots and I was there for the bus drivers strike where the police violently brutalized the foreign strikers for having the temerity to object to racial pay scales.

Hacker news opinion mostly comes from people who went to Singapore on holiday once and now thinks theyre an expert on it or white people who lived there liked being near the top of the racial hierarchy.

> They are both rigged and designed to bankrupt you

They're not much worse than in what goes on in England[1], it would appear. Anyway, I said as much myself, but I was pointing out your ridiculous hyperbole. I'll say it again—a defamation lawsuit, however heavy the penalty, is nowhere close to a death sentence.

This is all the more confusing, since Singapore actually has the capital penalty for certain crimes. Funny you choose to call out defamation lawsuits, of all things.

> I lived there. I was there for the riots and I was there for the bus drivers strike where the police violently brutalized the foreign strikers for having the temerity to object to racial pay scales

There is so much wrong with this statement I don't even know where to start. Firstly, I'm guessing you did not 'live there': you lived in an expat bubble taking home six-plus digits with your family taken care of, chauffeured between work and your Holland Village/Bukit Timah/River Valley condo in a taxi or car that your expat package paid for.

Next, the bus riots started because of drunk and disorderly behaviour. The police never brutalised anyone, and there was widespread commentary amongst locals about just how many policemen were needed to control the situation, and how meek they were (which makes sense, given the civil defence and the police in Singapore are largely conscripts aged 19 – 22).

Finally, nothing 'brutal' happened even in the bus strikes the year before. They were arrested, and deported. Full stop.

It exasperates me to no end when foreigners nitpick on some so-called affront to freedom in Singapore (that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things), when there are more serious and insidious issues that deeply affect the local (and even migrant populace) like male-only conscription, the skyrocketing cost of living, the car-first urban planning despite Singapore's government supposedly despising cars, and the classism and racism going on. Notice both you and someone else who pointed this out in this thread, which I upvoted—because it is fact, and not rage-baiting hyperbole.

I am inclined to take anyone less seriously if they complain about 'police brutality' in Singapore. The Singapore police are amongst the meekest and friendliest lot I've ever seen.

[1]: https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/12/01/britains-scariest-...

>They're not much worse than in what goes on in England[1], it would appear.

I've never heard of anybody ever having their life ruined because they wrote something in a blog about the UK prime minister. People write a lot of band things about him, some of it lies even. The UK's libel laws are definitely broken but Singapore's libel laws are just a weapon of the autocracy to crush dissent.

>This is all the more confusing, since Singapore actually has the capital penalty for certain crimes.

Yes, that's why it's called Disneyland with the Death Penalty. An article so accurate that the prime minister decided to ban Wired magazine in a fit of pique.

>There is so much wrong with this statement I don't even know where to start. Firstly, I'm guessing you did not 'live there': you lived in an expat bubble taking home six-plus digits with your family taken care of, chauffeured between work and your Holland Village/Bukit Timah

False. I shared a room in an HDB. I took the bus to work. I ate at food courts.

>Next, the bus riots started because of drunk and disorderly behaviour.

The riots in little india started because it took an ambulance an hour to arrive when somebody low on the racial totem pole got hit by a vehicle. I think they might have died.

>The police never brutalised anyone

There was an excellent article written in the WSJ that detailed exactly what happened to the imprisoned bus drivers during the bus strike. Yes, they were beaten in jail. Singapore does not tolerate labour power. Capital rules supreme. NTUC is an arm of the government.

>It exasperates me to no end when foreigners nitpick on some so-called affront to freedom in Singapore (that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things), when there are more serious and insidious issues that deeply affect the local (and even migrant populace) like male-only conscription, the skyrocketing cost of living, the car-first urban planning despite Singapore's government supposedly despising cars, and the classism and racism going on.

Freedom of speech and labour power is necessary in order to fix these things.

>I am inclined to take anyone less seriously if they complain about 'police brutality' in Singapore. The Singapore police are amongst the meekest and friendliest

Oh they're fine provided you're not a migrant worker, which you clearly aren't. I'm guessing you're probably local Chinese.

>enjoy a mix of Chinese, Malay, Indian cultures

Apart from the food, what specifically about these cultures is enjoyable?

Their language, literature, music, history, and art.

They could import them from north Africa if they wanted.

Or even without wanting to.

~100k foreign temp workers in Malta to support the labour, about 20% of the population.

The culture surrounding temp work couldn't be more different, however. Singapore is an extremely classist and racist place. Malta is probably the least racist country in the EU/Europe. I have toured the whole of Europe for work and it amazes me how accommodating we are to temp workers over here. Many of them speak neither of our two main languages (Maltese and English) and we employ them anyway. You can even get people in customer facing positions who can only communicate with hand gestures due to their lack of language skills and that's fine by us. That would be unthinkable in any other country that I have ever lived in.

It's probably because we Maltese have a history of being temp workers ourselves all over the Anglo sphere. Moreover we are a very entrepreneurial people who value substance over trivialities.

Also worth noting that despite having a huge proportion of foreigners we have not experienced any significant criminal elements stemming from these demographics. Probably because unlike in places like Germany and Sweden, we give our foreign residents hope in the form of jobs, instead of keeping them jailed in beurocracy limbo. And you won't find any Maltese bitching about foreigners not integrating, as you will find in all classes of society in places like Sweden and Germany. It's immaterial to us, and we are smart enough to realize that that is not the source of the trouble that those countries are facing.

For all its problem this is one aspect where I believe my country shines in comparison to others.

His book on developing Singapore is one of the most interesting books I've ever read. https://www.amazon.com/Third-World-First-Singapore-1965-2000...

It's part (auto)biography, part business book (his country was a startup, and he had to do tremendous business deals, place winning bets on numerous trends, allocate scarce capital effectively, manage and lead and recruit and inspire a team, etc) part dictator/war/adventure book (he jumps from a page of business dealings to suddenly buying fighter jets and preparing for invasion, making alliances etc, then suddenly back to business), part travel/culture/life. You'd be hard pressed to find a man with a more eventful or interesting life. I highly recommend it. There's 3 books in total, but the one I linked takes you from the founding of the nation state to the modern era, and is the same book the linked excerpt is taken from.

>His book on developing Singapore is one of the most interesting books I've ever read.

Seconded, if we read the same book. Was it a really thick one, say a few inches thick?

I remember taking it home from the company library, and reading it over several days.

It was only ~8 mm thick, but I read it on my iphone. The book is a few inches thick for sure. It's an amazing read.

Yea, I loved the book as well (without commenting on where I agreed or disagreed with him; agreeing or not, great read and full of insight.)

And yes it is huge. It is a few inches thick. Maybe 2 or 3 inches thick.

Then sibling post saying it is 8mm thick is misguided or confusing his units. He did say he read it on his phone so maybe that's the thickness of his phone ;)

Coincidentally, I just bought two copies to gift to friends who are in serious leadership positions.

Tangentially, I think Malta is a fascinating place. It’s the only country in the EU, AFAIK, with a Semitic language. it’s unique culture, the history with Hospitaller knights, ancient buildings, the fact that it’s and island … all are very interesting. I’d love to visit in this lifetime.

HN’ers of Maltese origin: what are some interesting aspects of your country?

Also interesting that English is one of their official languages, the other being Maltese, making Ireland and Malta the only EU countries with that status now. There's a big scene of English schools and young Europeans going there to learn English in summer, which translates to a lot of partying.

I definitely recommend visiting if you get a chance. It packs so much in for a small country.

For a long time we were pretty sure that we had the oldest free-standing structures (i.e. buildings) in the world:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalithic_Temples_of_Malta

Apparently there's an even older contender in Turkey now, but, anyway you slice it, this stuff is old. The most recent of them (2500 BC) roughly equate in age to the oldest pyramids of Egypt.

Any Americans here retired to Malta? It came up on some lists of best places in the world to retire. Would love to hear your experience.

You might want to check on /r/malta or Facebook groups. There's honestly probably thousands of American citizens in Malta. Especially if you count Maltese ex-diaspora who returned back for retirement or their children or grandchildren.

I am not of Maltese origin but I am a resident now.

How much Malta fucked up transit and transportation is really interesting. It's as bad as the United States despite unlike the US the distances are short and the population density is high (the whole thing is 17 mi x 9 mi, the density of the entire country compares to Bellevue, WA and the towns themselves are ten times more dense). Malta is #10 country in the world in cars owned per people leading to constant congestion https://i.redd.it/fnrrri2k1n8b1.png, some sections of the roads are impossible to walk, some transit connections are near impossible to make because of the lack of crossings and sidewalks. Buses are infrequent and notoriously unreliable. And buses are all there are, not even a trolley bus much less a tram or something.

And they are not fixing this, I tried to do public transit to the nearest Lidl and the road was freshly rebuilt (not even fully complete yet) and they didn't add a sidewalk. The public transit mobile app is useless. This is not just me grumbling check https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/people-use-bus-reliab... for more.

Bahamas is like that too ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdz6FeQLuHQ

Hi, Maltese here, always lived here since birth, my family is Maltese going back generations.

Off the top of my head: 1. The country is constantly polarised. Politics and football especially. Voting based on your family's political legacy is very common. 2. The idea of being constantly ruled by someone else used to be s convenient excuse to steal from the colonists. The downside is that this attitude never left with the british, so tax evasion is rampant as if you're sticking it to the man by doing so... But in reality you're stealing from yourself. 3. While similar to Ireland in the sense that the economy grew very fast very quickly, it has the opposite problem when it comes to housing: massive supply is not managing to sate the massive demand, so housing prices are persistently astronomically high.

Happy to answer more questions.

You are an EU citizen. Why do you stay? You could move to Germany or Netherlands and have a better life without all that nonsense.

1. Language: I'd be moving somewhere where the primary language is unknown to me (although I studied german for a while in school).

2. Convenience and support structure: I have young children and their grandparents live 5-15 minutes away.

3. I have a vote here and therefore a sliver of a say. If I go elsewhere, all I'll have is my voice, which will be the voice of a foreigner.

My wife and I have resolved to leave, but not before our parents pass away. Its our one and likely only major blocker. In fact I shifted to working fully remotely during the pandemic to make this eventuality smoother.

I know an older gentleman who moved out of Malta 40 years back. Is there any Maltese phrase I can tell him which will make him scratch his head wondering how do I know that.

"kif ahna xbin? Kollox sew?"

Its an informal greeting, usually to someone with whom you're already acquianted with. It translates loosely to: "how are you my friend? Is everything ok?"

The x is pronounced the same way you would pronounce "sh" in "shell" in english (so KOLLOSH not KOLLOKS).

Thank you so much. I am sure he will love it. He likes it when I say Bonswa.

I asked ChatGpt to help with the pronounciations. This is what it said.

So, the phrase "Kif aħna xbin? Kollox sew" would be pronounced as "keef ah-na shbin? kol-losh sew".

Yep that pronunciation would be spot on.

Bonswa is very much an older generation term so I'm not surprised they enjoy it

Ancient cart tracks. Nobody knows exactly why they are there. And they are everywhere. Sometimes going from cliff into the sea.

The Maltese equivalent of the pirate practice of walking the plank?

maybe in this case for entire families, hence a cart.

off with their heads!

oops, that was the guillotine, in the French revolution. or was it Alice in Wonderland?

Ouch this hits home. Its still the case to today: many Maltese just depend on the government to figure it out for them.

As a result: 1. The government is the biggest employer on the island.

2. There are mandatory cost of living allowance increases every year decided by the government. Its always too slow and slightly too low. For comparison, the last COLA increase had 5% of it shaved off within a few weeks because local milk prices rose as a result.

3. The government has been subsidising electricity since the start of the invasion of Ukraine to avoid rising bills (historically it was a political football). WTO, EC, and other institutions have repeatedly told the government to wind them down but its repeatedly ignored this because any government which does will likely collapse in a few months.

Its a super frustrating cycle to see year after year and its not surprising to see that its been historically accurate too.

Fwiw, I'm Maltese and in my early thirties.

I just want to address point 1. It's true that the government is a big employer, but most of those jobs have really low salaries and according few working hours. 99% of those people have a second or third job. I find it an interesting system. The government job is their safety net, and acts almost like a basic income, which allows people to be more entrepreneurial. It would be interesting to study the effect of such a system on economic growth.

And I categorically disagree with you regarding your claim that the Maltese depend on the government to figure it out for them. The Maltese are in comparison to pretty much everyone in Europe, one of the most entrepreneurial and go-getter cultures who love to "do it themselves" and "figure it out". If you want to see governments babysitting their citizens, go visit pretty much any N.W.E country.

What's true about the Maltese is that many have no qualms about bad mouthing their country in front of foreigners, which is also an almost unique trait compared to the rest of Europe. But I notice, it's mostly people who never left home who are the loudest bad mouthers.

Let me just say one more thing. We have one of the most amazing healthcare systems in the whole world. I have lived in all the most modern countries and have in my more than a decade abroad never experienced anything better. I don't know why people don't talk about it more. Probably because it exposes health insurance for the scam industry that it is. For the curious: we have an NHS style system which is amazing by itself because healthcare is one of the things that Maltese people are well trained in and care deeply about, and it's supported by a fully private industry of healthcare providers, which, because they are competing with "free" have comparatively low pricing. Compared to the absolute nightmare that is healthcare in Germany for example, it's an amazing system. I pretty much end up flying home for any treatment because waiting lists are way shorter than anywhere else and the staff much more professional.

Funny you say this. The Singaporean government owns huge chunks of the media, they run the pension system, almost all real estate is managed via the HDB, Temasek holdings owns large portions of Singapore's largest companies and makes up over 50% of their GDP.

Does it have a laissez-faire economic system? To a degree. But it also has a level of state intervention that would make France blush.

Recent governments in Malta have been moving in this direction so maybe there's a playbook :).

The issue we face is that given how tiny and few we are (approx 500k Maltese, excluding what are referred to ad TCNs or third country nationals), is that its hard for the government to do anything without looking like someone favoured their cousin's wife's uncle's nephew.

Lots of places have managed to get rich. Very few have managed to secure a good life its citizens through its riches.

Singapore's 99 year lease allows its people to be well housed. Conscription keeps them healthy and they have among the best trained special ops. Public transportation and expensive car registrations allow for convenient transportation for all. Crimes are unheard of and the base population is the most productive of any nation in the region. Education is the best in the world. All from a nation that was nothing more than Marshes a few decades ago.

Many city states/ small nations have had a top tier draw. Norway, Botswana, Emirates, Venezuela, Panama, Canada (erstwhile), Brunei....are all good examples.

None have capitalized on it as well as Singapore. Credit where it is due.

(they could have better work conditions and fertility rates)

> Conscription keeps them healthy and they have among the best trained special ops.

Singaporean here.

I don't know about conscription keeping people healthy. I got a slipped disc during full-time military service, and had a hard time continuing treatment or getting any sort of compensation for harm to my body developed in service of the country once I finished service. I know countless people who've developed injuries in their early 20s, only for their injuries to be written off if they weren't persistent in seeking medical help.

Most "uninjured" people in our reserves need to keep fit until they reach 40 (for enlisted) or 55 (for officers), but it's also not difficult to be unfit and still pass through.

And of course, there is zero regard for one's mental health, unless it's a major condition like severe depression or suicidal ideation.

Going through Singapore's military service changed me from respecting its government for its efficiency (likely aided with all the propaganda I've had to listen to during my early schooling years) to severely disliking it for treating the large majority of citizens like cogs in a machine, appeasing them only when elections come around.

Singapore's financial success is indisputable and truly impressive given the very short timeline going from developing to highly developed.

For me, life is not just about money and financial success; without freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of association, sexual liberty, etc. who cares about material riches?

The whole region was undergoing transition from developing to highly developed, Singapore just leads the way because it is a) very small and have nothing holding it back, and 2) has a great location and legacy.

South Korea is way more impressive transition than Singapore. First of all, it is a large country with a local nation whose culture had to be preserved. Second, it was really poor, and after Korean war it was poorer than most of Africa.

> The whole region was undergoing transition from developing to highly developed

From the said region. This is objectively no.

Singapore and Korea are the only twos. Korea is not even in the region.

Other countries are rampant with corruptions, political problems, and incompetence. Think of Trump and multiply it by 10. My prediction is that Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines , Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, and etc. will never become developed. These countries are too big to change and the legacy systems (that are insanely corrupted) are too powerful.

Take Thailand for example. It's objectively bad to have military run the country. Apart from corruption, they are just incompentent; it's well known and blatant. Yet almost half of the country supports a military government.

Singapore's population was mostly Chinese with some europeans, so it was way closer to South Korea culturally than to Cambodia.

Uh... No. Singapore's second largest native population are Malays then Indians, which IIRC are 13% and 7% of the population as of 2024.

I do not think this was much different historically. Europeans are not very present in Singaporean society.

I believe that you are super wrong and Europeans were always present in Singapore in large numbers, even if they do not show up in citizenship numbers.

They did before WWII and they certainly do now.

Whereas these 20% non-Chinese cannot turn a Chinese culture country to something else, hence the South Korean / Taiwanese / Hong Kong trajectory.

It's hard to say for sure, but imho LKY is one of the most impressive leaders and orators I've ever encountered.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM64SAoG7/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM64SycPu/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM64S6tBu/

Also South Korea was a Japanese colony. Colonies are double edged swords: they benefit from the injection of foreign expertise (technology, administration, standardization, ties, etc.,) but suffer from lopsided resource extraction. I think overall there is a long-term benefit from this forced infusion, but for lots of people it’s problematic.

It’s the age old complaint about the Romans by their conquered peoples as illustrated in the Life of Brian.

As someone who comes from a third-world country (Nigeria), I’ll trade some liberty for safety, a stable society, and prosperous economy at any time.

But I guess it’s different for Westerners that already have a lot of liberties and material success to begin with.

On the other hand, Singapore is the only developed dictatorship in the world so while this trade could work, it's much more likely to fail. Usually, dictatorships go in hand with poor prosperity.

Would you consider the Gulf Arab countries to exist along the same spectrum as Singapore, but "further down" in terms of oppressiveness?

I would not consider them developed and I honestly doubt they will ever be, they are not going in this direction that's for sure.

I was asking because they are other dictatorships with high prosperity; even more prosperous, I think, but worse places to live overall. Not to mention that their prosperity is not sustainable, but that's kind of ancillary.

> without freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of association, sexual liberty, etc. who cares about material riches?

Who cares about them? Everyone who doesn’t have material prosperity? You think the Chinese would trade their last two decades of growing material prosperity for greater speech and sexual freedom?

Wealthy societies are able to afford those vices. But when America was developing, for example, the scope of those freedoms were sharply narrower than the way you probably think of them today. The Americans who made the country wealthy and prosperous today are not the post-1960s libertines that now enjoy the fruits of those efforts.

But Singapore IS very wealthy, yet they have not gained any of those freedoms. That’s the issue.

For othes you may have a point, I'm not sure what you mean about sexual freedom in Singapore. Singapore is culturally not that sexually open, which is largely a choice of the people, but people who don't want to adhere to the cultural norms appear to have plenty of options to exercise their power/freedom without facing legal repercussions. Maybe you confused it with Dubai?

I would hardly classify sexual and speech freedoms as vices.

Sexual freedom is a very weird point to make because many people, more men than women, cannot afford sex without material wealth. Sexual freedom for women also improves with material wealth because fewer women feel the need to trade off their freedom for money.

It's definitely not a kind of "freedom" that is easier to exercise in the general absence of material riches.

Heirarchy of needs: baseline level of "Freedom from" poverty, conflict, instability comes before "freedom to" act liberally. I'd agree that making that transition in priorities is important, and that a government allow society to liberalize, but if you read his book, he lays out the reasons that he felt Singapore should be slow to socially liberalize (racial conflict being a major one, and deeper differences he sees between Asian and Western values, make of that what you will). IIRC, he also argued that their press is free, just not free to lie or embellish, so they would face consequences for exaggeration or libel. He thought that was necessary to prevent incitement to riot or political subversion.

Maslow's pyramid, as we were taught about it in school:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

>For me, life is not just about money and financial success; without freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of association, sexual liberty, etc. who cares about material riches?

Did you already have safety, career prospects, food to eat, and other niceties in life?

What Singapore did best is sit between China and US and try to benefit from both ends.

I'd say Japan (China followed Singapore in development).

Well, Singapore is a Chinese city at the tip of Malaysia. This is also why they split from Malaysia.

Singaporean here. This is a technicality but we didn't voluntarily split from Malaysia, we got thrown out.

U.S.-China trade volume was negligible until well into the 1990s: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/05/more-than-30-years-of.... By 1995, Singapore’s GDP per capita had already overtaken the UK’s.

Trade was obviously important to Singapore’s development. But the idea that it was just because Singapore happened to be Singapore’s location relative to China is anachronistic. Singapore’s annual GDP per capita growth was already over 15% by the time Nixon went to China in 1972. It actually started slowing down by the 1990s when China’s growth started picking up.

Look at a map. Singapore is not on China-US maritime shipping lane so US-China trade is not relevant to Singapore at all.

Weird article. Ends with a big quote from Yew, no concluding analysis. Is this AI generated?

Alternatively, Lee was smart enough to NOT make generalized conclusion and to just leave it at an observation.

ctrl + f "in conclusion"

Nah, probably not AI generated.

Everyone should try the national dish of Malta: pastizzi

Isn’t life for the average non-millionaire citizen generally better in the Asian actual democracies than in Singapore?

As per here:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Taiwan-leapfrogs-Japan-and-...

[and Hong Kong in the past]

I don’t understand why political leaders don’t look to LKY for insight the way business leaders look to Jeff Bezos or Steve Jobs. Singapore is the closest thing to a deliberate, systematic experiment in developing a third world country into a first world country.

Singapore as a British port city on a small island was never a third world country. Before WWII it was already known as a major leisure, high life spot (as evident by Verinsky's 1931 "Magnolia"). It was surrounded by 3rd world countries like an American base may be surrounded by middle eastern shacks, but it is very different from them. If that base was to gain independence it would retain the QoL.

How separate was British Singapore from British Malaya? My understanding is that Lee Kuan Yew wept when Singapore was thrown out of Malaysia. Neither he nor anyone else expected that Singapore would become a first-world economy and Malaysia would, well, not.

Not separate at all. You are right that he did weep.

Lots of former British colonies have posh enclaves surrounded by poverty. Singapore’s GDP per capita in 1960 was similar to Guatemala: https://cepr.net/documents/publications/econ_growth_2005_11_.... And as the article noted, 20% of that was British military spending which went away with independence in 1965. The UK’s per capita gdp was more than 5 times higher.

Even in this table, you see Taiwan and South Korea with same impressive growth as Singapore, and then you see Thailand and Malaysia that fare very well. And they all have the handicap of not consisting out of a metropolis entirely, since capitals are known to have high GDPs per person and countryside is known to be lagging.

All of those countries were poor too. I’m not saying Singapore was the only country to develop. But lots of countries that were similarly situated to Singapore and Korea in 1960 didn’t develop.

politics is more about ideology and appeasing the powerbase than developing the nation or reaching "targets".

I've reflected on this a lot over time. My conclusion is that it would be pointless. That would be akin to companies like Google and Walmart looking to a wildly successful mom and pop shop for business advice.

If you’re talking about North American political leaders, they really can’t. LKY had a lot more power than anyone can have in most countries political systems. If you’re talking about political leaders in growing countries, a lot do take inspiration from him. Singapore had a lot of qualities to benefit from at the time that other countries don’t, though.

Precisely.

There is no city government, state/province. Just the parliament. PAP has had an overwhelming majority for Singapore's entire existence (helped by some rather dubious methods). If a law needs to be passed - it's passed. There is no real debate.

You need a police permit to protest in Singapore (except for Speaker's corner). Today, there is little culture of protest in Singapore. They've pretty much completely passed their reins of power to the government.

Singaporeans like to call the country Singapore Inc. And it's true. It's about as close to a business structure as one could imagine.

Wasn't it an inspiration to China's development, in particular to Deng Xiaoping? If so, then it is a great example of developing a third world country following LKY's insights.

I think they do.

1. I think the establishment of Special Economic Zones by Deng Xiaoping was inspired in part by Singapore's success.

2. Rwanda, which now seems to be doing well in an economic sense, is led by Paul Kagame, who is frequently compared to (and may even be trying to model himself on?) LKY. (Personally though, with the genocide, and Kagame's military background, and Rwanda's continued involvement in Congo, I think the analogy may actually be strained.)

3. The Brexiteers (optimistically, or delusionally), spoke for a while of trying to create a "Singapore on Thames" (London). I suspect LKY would have been amused.

The general theme is that comparisons to LKY seem to be more aspirational than truly legitimate. But the aspiration does exist.

IIRC there was a rumor? Legend? that Kim Jong Un, when he first claimed the throne, sent a delegation to Singapore to study what a prosperous benevolent dictatorship might look like in North Korea.

Considering many years later North Korea has changed very little in behavior both internally nor externally, the second part of the rumor is that the conclusion of the studies was that the Singapore model couldn’t be applied to North Korea.

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