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Comment by thesumofall | Hacker News Reader

Singapore is an incredible state and I enjoy every stay there, but the principle where "the good of society [takes] precedence over individual rights" has its scary downsides: http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/07/29/the-social-laboratory/

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The Singapore he created is a testament to his philosophy of pragmatism over idealism. No doubt there are serious downsides to this approach, but as a citizen of the bureaucratic and populist EU I can't help but admire what it has achieved in just a few decades.

Lee did good and bad: he successfully set up a stable productive state, but to get there economized certain liberties that seem fundamental. The problem is that Singapore remains stable and successful, becoming the role model for developing autocratic countries like China.

Why is that a problem?

It is scary; the model creates welfare but does restrict freedom somewhat more than many people like.

Go to Singapore and see how the immigrant laborers from South Asia live, how the native Malays live, and then how the ethnic Chinese and Western expats live. It's a highly stratified society where money makes the rules.

You could say the same thing for the UK.

Yes, i do realize there are vast differences between immigration in the UK (or the west overall) and Singapore, but find that blaming class differences and/or the mistreatment of poor immigrants to policies is to simplify the issue.

I don't think they use arbitrarily strict libel laws in the UK to shut down opposition parties. Also, political leadership in the UK is not dynastic.

No, Singapore's approach is fundamentally different. Singapore does not tolerate "poor immigrants": instead, it imports a vast menial labor class, who are tied to their employers on fixed-length contracts that amount to somewhere between indentured servitude and slavery.

Some all-too-typical stories: http://twc2.org.sg/

>You could say the same thing for the UK.

You really can't. There's no comparison to be made between the way Singapore treats Bangladeshis and the UK treats Poles.

Or the way the UK treats Bangladeshis for that matter.

Have you seen how the poor 'native Malays', poor 'ethnic Chinese', poor 'ethnic Indians' and 'lower class Western expats' live... side-by-side, in rather bad neighbourhoods (which would seem spectacular in most Western countries)?

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