Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/lee-kuan-yews-singapore-story

by pepys • 2 months ago

174 167 2 months ago

"I could not ask their sons to fight and die for the properties of the wealthy: Lee Kuan Yew"

"I resolved to enable every household to own its own home. If we were going to get the people to take National Service seriously, I could not ask their sons to fight and die for the properties of the wealthy. We worked out a personal savings scheme that allowed them to own an apartment painlessly through instalments over 20 years. We sold the apartments to them at below cost to enhance their assets. Today, 95 per cent of Singaporean households are homeowners. It has immeasurably increased their wealth and our social stability. Without home ownership, we would have become like Tokyo, Seoul or Hong Kong, where the voters in the cities are disaffected because they pay a large proportion of their salaries in rents.”

https://sgmatters.sg/i-could-not-ask-their-sons-to-fight-and...

arjie2• 2 months ago

It’s a pretty good policy: Singapore owns most land and therefore you lose the rent-seeking ability on land. So all homes are leasehold apartments and the government can develop places either by right or by using repurchase agreements with substitution. A unique setup that works given their constraints. In the worst case, you get to hold your apartment 99 years and then the government can take it all back to redevelop it. You don’t get nail houses like in China or California.

Ownership is closer to 90% now or something and the 30% of non resident foreigners will have much lower ownership obviously.

BirdieNZ• 2 months ago

It's basically one way to implement Georgism, and is a standout real world example of why land ownership policies are very important.

ggm7• 2 months ago

Weaponised the court system to repress union backed opposition, despite having been engaged with the union movement in his early years (as I understand it)

It is a kind of workers paradise. If you're well behaved and don't shout you get a good education, health system and housing. 95% owner occupied is pretty damn good.

Huge dependence on south Malaysia migrant workers shuttling over the bridge every day, so it's "homes for us but not for thee" however he did cry when the greater Malaysian dream fell apart.

The arguments over his house and garden post death sum up the legacy well: he did not seek ulogising or mythologised shrine status, the apparatchiks can't resist the temptation.

I see parallels to Britain's Enoch Powell. Super smart, highly educated, disinterested in what others think, Not afraid to be contrarian and not particularly interested in performative democracy but also a bit one eyed on his hobby horse. If Powell hadn't been a racist shit, he could have been as effective as Lee Kwan Yew was.

Trivialising Singapore-for-foreigners as "no long hair, gays, gum or spitting" misses the point. Singapore welcomes all kinds of people if they have money, contribute to society and are useful or rich. Modern Singapore has gays and lesbians and tattoos and long hair a-plenty. They're just in a "don't ask don't tell" demi-monde netherworld.

Many people would feel safer in Lee Kwan Yew's Singapore than in the USA. Better housing and health policy, less graffiti and street violence.

mc32• 2 months ago

Singapore, like other ex-Colonies in SEAsia prove that having been a colony is not an excuse for not doing well. HK, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea were heavily colonized yet after emerging as independent states were able to overcome difficulties, educate their people, take what they learned from their colonizers and have become leading economies of the world.

Governance is more important than one’s history when it come to success of a country.

ggm7• 2 months ago

Absolutely agree. There's a lot of "yes, but.." in this for me, but the simple economics are pretty clear: post colonial asian states like this do fantastically well.

Cost of housing in HK is going to be an embuggerance if they don't fix that, it may bifurcate into a more strong over/underclass imbalance. Taiwan is amazing but has thinner underpinnings now the US has demanded chip manufacturing moves to continental USA and the water supply issue is huge.

But your central point I agree with strongly: fix education, health, housing and provide at least some representation and you can do so much better than being a colonial outpost of somewhere else sucking value out.

forthworld• 2 months ago

avg western history expert ,colonialism isn't an excuse bro, look at singapore and south Korea. Just govern better. skill issue. HK and singapore weren't traditional colonies, they were literally just offshore vaults the british built to process the wealth they looted from the rest of asia. they inherited global trade infrastructure on day one. and taiwan and korea? japan actually built factories and forced mass literacy / primary education

meanwhile the british spent 200 years intentionally destroying pre-existing industries just to kill competition, and then dipped leaving 90% of the population illiterate , zero human capital. also US allowed Taiwan and South Korea access to market , and allow protect their own domestic markets.

mytailorisrich• 2 months ago

The issue has never been previous status as colony but society and culture (East Asian countries and Sinpgapore are all part of the sinosphere culturally).

boelboel2• 2 months ago

Most these countries had decent literacy and industry/proto-industrial base before WW2 or before becoming independent states. Singapore itself was richer than Spain in 1960 and one of the richest cities in its region despite the slums. This is why it makes no sense for example to compare China or India, they were just in a fundamentally different spot.

Regardless many of the strategies these countries used are increasingly difficult for low income countries to do as these countries (China is the biggest example) themselves are protective of these industries, there's no push for globalizing and as factories got increasingly automated.

That's not to say that I believe governance isn't important but the one's history is important for governance itself.

rrvsh8• 2 months ago

This is a false dichotomy - the nature of the colony matters a LOT more than you allude to here. Singapore got a heck of a lot better deal as a colony than e.g. African colonies because we didn't get ruthlessly exploited and instead just used for our seaport primarily

JadeNB4• 2 months ago

Many people would feel safer in Lee Kwan Yew's Singapore than in the USA. Better housing and health policy, less graffiti and street violence.

Of all the things wrong with the USA, when picking just two, it seems strange for one of them to be graffiti. I have lived in the USA all my life, in some more and some less urban areas, and even from the people most afraid of cities I have never heard graffiti mentioned as a serious worry or complaint.

ggm7• 2 months ago

Eh, you're right. It's just a bugbear for me, tagging and social cohesion decline feels like a parallel, but it may be my projection. I'm in Crete right now and it's decaying beauty, no money for streetscape fixes, bad pavements and unending dissatisfaction written all over the marble walls.

I may be displaying my age. Feeling safe equates to being on the street, and unafraid. The tagging isn't the problem the social conditions which ignore it, maybe are.

watwut3• 2 months ago

You was never attacked by a wild graffiti jumping out of the wall to beat you up? weird /s

linksnapzz• 2 months ago

Did you know anyone who owned a building that had been tagged?

tim3332• 2 months ago

Graffiti tends to be a visual indicator of lawlessness and petty crime.

vablings• 2 months ago

I think the last part really is why LKYs legacy is eulogized so heavily especially with more left leaning counterparts. In the USA there is no legacy matter for politicians, and they often scupper with one foot in the door and the other halfway out.

None of the things that LKY did that made Singapore great are unique to a dictatorship but him being the spiritual head and huge focus on education is critical. Interesting the USA has a good appetite for spending lots of money on students, but the education outcomes are really bad compared to places with half the spending

jabedude2• 2 months ago

If Powell hadn't been a racist shit, he could have been as effective as Lee Kwan Yew was

How do you compare Powell's "racism" and LKY's views on race and intelligence? By nearly all definitions of racism, Yew was a racist as well

ggm7• 2 months ago

Interesting. I assumed he wasn't. Bad assumption. I don't think he gave a "rivers of blood" speech but that doesn't let him off the hook. Maybe the difference was LKY got to be in control and Powell just got to watch from the sideline.

rayiner9• 2 months ago

By what definition was LKY “racist?” He presided over growing prosperity for a multi-ethnic country of Chinese, Malays, and Indians. I’d submit that, if LKY fits within your “definitions of racism,” that’s not a useful definition.

rrvsh8• 2 months ago

+1, it is absolutely safe but just not that free, which is touted as a requirement for safety

seanlinmt• 2 months ago

Singapore is a strange outlier among successful democratic countries. There's always stories that are untold. For example,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lim_Chin_Siong?wprov=sfla1

Operation Spectrum untracing the conspiracy' https://share.google/2mRpZk3RGaYUKCRXS

zorked• 2 months ago

"He was one of the founders of the governing People's Action Party (PAP), which has governed the country continuously since independence"

Very democratic country.

roenxi2• 2 months ago

I have no idea and probably not, but it is a bit more complex than that. There isn't any particular rule saying that the only functional democratic model is multi-party democracy. One could imagine a successful democratic model with one party allowing diverse internal factions, for example. It is really hard to get a read on China, but their success raises some interesting questions of how exactly their internal party decision making is set up.

That being said, I would assume that a one party state isn't very democratic. It'd be an unstable democracy.

thisislife2• 2 months ago

As the article points out, Lee Kuan Yew did not believe that democracy meant that his (or any other party in power) should also help opposition parties politically thrive. While such political philosophies can be abused by authoritarians (and Lee was an authoritarian) in a democracy, I do see the wisdom in it. For example, Nehru - India's first Prime Minister - invited even some opposition leaders into his Cabinet as his party got an absolute majority in the first election post-independence. That was a rare departure from the convention of a Parliamentary Democracy, where only members from the ruling party or coalition form the Cabinet. Nehru however wanted to promote democratic values in India and since his party didn't really have an opposition, he invited some into the Cabinet to ensure their voice would have prominence in the media and the public. But he later abandoned this practise because the political ideological differences made this untenable in practise.

hirako20004• 2 months ago

Competitively authoritarian, so, democratic.

If Singapore isn't a democracy then the U.S is a dictature.

zuzululu7• 2 months ago

Did you know Philippines adopted American style democracy and were much more wealthier than Singapore and other Asian countries?

How do you think Philiippines compare now to Singapore as a result of its "democracy" ?

epolanski2• 2 months ago

It's not really a proper democracy, the same party has ruled since the founding of the country.

There are severe restrictions on speech, assembly, press and important legal and political barriers for the opposition parties. It is very easy to land in front of a tribunal for defamation or similar for expressing dissent or accusing the government of corruption.

The truth is that Singapore has been lucky that Lee Kuan Yew and most of his successors have been good bureaucrats and politicians. That makes the ruling party also somewhat popular.

Lee Kuan Yew has been an astonishing nation builder and an extremely brilliant man with a huge sensibility for politics and understanding the world.

But it's still a system that's waiting for the wrong people to be put in charge and test the limits of their "democracy".

itsthecourier4• 2 months ago

Trump is testing the limits of USA democracy every day, just from the top of my mind: top lieutenants worth 5%+ ownership in Thether holding company, Ivanka's husband with the Saudis, Ivanka herself in the ONU, shameless plugs of crypto tokens and cards in the podium after elections, pardons for criminals

democracy failed America

notahacker• 2 months ago

But it's still a system that's waiting for the wrong people to be put in charge and test the limits of their "democracy".

tbf that applies to all democracies, including genuinely competitive multiparty democracies. Would PAP accept defeat and cede power if they handled a crisis so badly an effective opposition party emerged? That's unclear, as is how many of their appointees would support them in that goal, though it is considerably more likely than nations which do not attempt to hold representative elections. But we've also seen the answer to questions of how much success will someone have in explicitly overriding democratic norms and revelling in open corruption be plenty in the United States with all its storied separation of powers and tradition of political freedoms, and perhaps more surprisingly he gave up quietly to wait for the next election was the answer to what would happen when a narrow majority rejected a guy who'd spent years turning Hungary into his personal fiefdom....

The other quirk about the PAP's paternalism is how many of their authoritarian type policies have been primarily driven by a culture of trying to avoid upsetting people, hence years of doublethink on homosexuality and newspapers being told that publishing aerial before and after photographs of Singapore's coastline might be a touch too provocative towards their neighbours.

claw-el3• 2 months ago

The truth is that Singapore has been lucky that Lee Kuan Yew and most of his successors have been good bureaucrats and politicians. That makes the ruling party also somewhat popular.

I don’t think this is only by luck. Singapore made the decision to ‘pay the bureaucrats well’ so that they can build a career on it. This attracts more people to be a bureaucrat. The alternative is that only already rich people become politicians and bureaucrats or bureaucrats only getting their bag by joining lobbying firm after their time in government.

IMO, the hard part about implementing this ‘pay the bureaucrats well’ system is that it is often hard to determine the market rate as there are often no equivalent roles in the private market.

killingtime74• 2 months ago

It's not a democratic country. If it was then so is China and North Korea. They hold elections too

decimalenough4• 2 months ago

Singapore has been described as a "managed democracy". There are genuinely free elections, and there's an actual opposition, but the government/ruling party (they're largely inseparable at this point) exerts a heavy hand to ensure they keep their supermajority.

One of the big questions of Singaporean politics is what would happen if there ever was a "freak result" (in LKY's words) and the opposition won a majority, since thanks to the first past the post voting system further exacerbated by mandatory "group representative constituencies" the winner always wins big and coalitions or minority governments are not an option.

shellfishgene• 2 months ago

"Over the following decades, Lee built a strong government that was backed by a competent and virtually corruption-free civil service..."

This part of the history, only mentioned in this one sentence, is the most interesting and relevant for other countries, and is really what sets Singapore apart from other countries in the region.

Der_Einzige2• 2 months ago

The idea that Singapore isn't corrupt is one of the biggest lies of all time.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62m7xrd2z0o

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/10/spanish-couple...

rrvsh8• 2 months ago

The corruption is not as blatant as you will see in other nations, and it works to make people believe the lie that its not corrupt, as you can see in the other thread in the replies to your comment.

The way corruption manifests in Singapore is legally and baked into the system - we are a city smaller than NYC but have _five_ mayors, none of which an average citizen can name or even have heard of having a mayor. Party politicians sit on the boards or occupy high C-suite positions of major companies and collect salary from all of them. Government politicians and high-ranking civil servants enjoy the best quality of life possible in Singapore, funded by taxpayer dollars, and barely have to do any work for it once they are in the position due to the single party system and only having to vote along party lines to keep it.

teleforce11• 2 months ago

Stamford Raffles stands – according to the plaque attached to the plinth – on the ‘historic site’ where he first landed as an agent of the British East India Company on 28 January 1819 and, thereafter, ‘with genius and perception changed the destiny of Singapore from an obscure fishing village to a great seaport and modern metropolis’.

This is one of the greatest lies ever told, that Singapore was an obscure fishing village when the colonial powers came to "modernise" Singapore.

Read the history books, Singapore is bang in the middle of ancient super powers of India and China. It's has been and always has been for most of its history a successful entreport for several thousand years before the colonials first visited, and the later Chinese immigrants settled in Singapore.

The founder of Malacca, where the Strait of Malacca name originated from, was himself a prince from Singapore and at the time better known as Temasek.

The people who originally settled in the Malay Archipelago several thousands years ago were successful maritime explorers. Their descendents discovered and migrated to wider Austronesia including Madagascar to the west, and New Zealand and Hawaii to the east several thousand years before the colonial powers "re-discover" these places. They also who speak their ancestors derivatives languages until now, that at one time US government tried to ban.

wahern2• 2 months ago

By the time the Europeans arrived Singapore had long since declined:

However, by the time the Portuguese arrived in the early 16th century, Singapura had already become "great ruins" according to Alfonso de Albuquerque.

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

How far back and how much context is required for a simple narrative to not constitute lying? And for a narrative about national origin, is it not also misleading to insinuate that successive settlements and polities constitute a singular, shared history?

And Europeans were not the first colonial powers to land on and assert control over the peninsula. In fact, the incumbent Muslim powers the Europeans encountered had colonized the peninsula only a couple of centuries beforehand. Aboriginal peoples (pre-history "colonizers") still live in Malaysia, and they're still as isolated and impoverished by the state as they were before Europeans arrived. Malaysia even has its own Plymouth Rock-like monument (on the coast somewhere near Malacca, IIRC), and it's not where Europeans first stepped ashore. And it seems a little odd to presume Singaporeans would identify with the political and social history of their Malay and aboriginal predecessors when Singapore, a majority Chinese community, was kicked out of Malaysia precisely because of racist and xenophobic sentiments of many Malays.

The racial politics of Malaysia and Singapore are at least as complicated as in the US if not more so. I count South Africa and Malaysia as the two countries where racial politics are not only as complicated, but open and explicit as in the US, and like the US the relationship between European colonizers and the "native" groups constitutes only a portion of that complexity. Many other countries have similarly diverse groups, but usually one group is unchallenged in its power and there's very little open discourse about the subject. But contemporary anti-colonial rhetoric whitewashes (figuratively and literally) all of this.

hirako20004• 2 months ago

Not sure about Singapore but Malaysia's racism is not complicated. It is discrimination into law. It makes things rather clear. About discourse of course there is not discussion to have.

teleforce11• 2 months ago

Aboriginal peoples (pre-history "colonizers")

What nonsense, colonizers do not live and settle there for thousand of years. Would you called majority Japanese now a colonizers since the originally come from Korea/China and before them they were people there?

Singapura had already become "great ruins" according to Alfonso de Albuquerque.

Albuquerque was the first European colonial who conquered Malacca in the early 16th CE, later Dutch and then British. They all came because they wanted to bypass what they considered "trading bottleneck" created by Ottoman, the most powerful maritime empire in the Mediterranean and Europe for many centuries.

The local authorities most probably very well deployed a typical scorched-earth strategy to prevent the Albuquerque to fully utilize Singapore infrastructure. The British did exactly this to most part of Singapore including totally damaging the very important causeway when the were defeated by Japanese in the mid 20th CE. Fun facts, the world busiest causeway still not return to the its original sophisticated design with elegant pass-thru water design until today, thus pollution side effect are still happening and not being solved [2].

[1] Scorched earth:

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

[2] Why Singaporeans Are Fleeing to Malaysia Every Weekend | AB Explained [video]:

https://youtu.be/vUWOhAs5rTs

freewestpapua3• 2 months ago

The people who originally settled in the Malay Archipelago several thousands years ago were successful maritime explorers.

That comment upset me as a Melanesian. I'm sorry, but I need to challenge the above statement as it is factually incorrect. What you are claiming is widely spread in a politicized way in Malaysia and Indonesia, and in a similar but different context in Thailand and Phillipines. Firstly, I'm sure you know that the actual original first peoples (called as "orang asli negrito" or "sakai" (derogatory) by "Malay" settlers) are Melanesian/Negrito/Aboriginal tribes. Again, Malay settlers are not the the 'people who originally settled' as you claimed, they took the land from Melanesians. To be precise, the original people are MT Haplogroup P, MT Haplogroup M/sub-R, Y Haplogroup K/F. They have predominantly jet black skin and curly hair or straight hair in the case of some Aboriginal tribes in Australia. These are the genuine first peoples. They were in South and South East Asia, Papua and Australia first prior to the Toba eruption 70ka ago. Today, they have been mostly genocided by 'Malay' (sometimes used to cloud the term Austronesian term) settler populations. You can see this process happening even today in West Papua where 'Malay' soldiers and settlers brought over from Java, Indonesia are genociding Melanesian men in West Papua and taking over their land. The indigenous Melanesians are now a minority in their own land. There's brutal horific videos you can find online of Javanese settlers attacking and skinning a Melanesian man alive inside an oil drum. Truly barbaric stuff. It is a slow genocide but you don't hear much about it, probably because the mines of Freeport McMoran and Grassburg supply a huge chunk of the copper/gold that's key for EV and other modern technologies. That's as much time as I can spend on communicating this right now. I hope this information will help you and others correct your misunderstanding and stop spreading such disingenous claims intended to enable land grab by settlers. Thank you.

teleforce11• 2 months ago

Naturally they inter-married, the first wave from out of Africa people (e.g Perak man) and the second wave from the Taiwan diaspora [1]. This as you probably know happened over many thousands of years.

The word one to ten in most Austronesian countries from Madagascar to Hawaii, spanning more than 17,000 km or 10,000 miles (about half of earth's perimeter of 40,000 km). These countries main languages including Malagasy, Malay, Indonesian, Javanese, Tagalog, Sulu, Palau (Micronesia), NZ Maori, Hawaii (Polynesia), etc are very similar. In particular, "Lima" meaning five/hand is the common and signature Malay/Austronesian world, even in Hawaii.

Based on your throw away name, most probably you're from Papua Island, you probably know that one of its original main languages, apart from the recent colonial based Tok Pisin, is the Malay Austronesian based Hiri Motu [2].

Today, they have been mostly genocided by 'Malay' (sometimes used to cloud the term Austronesian term) settler populations.

What nonsense, as they said the proof is in the pudding. If genocide happened as you claimed most of these people are gone but they're everywhere. Please check Borneo Island for example, ruled by the Malay Brunei Kingdom for several centuries until the colonial Brooke the White Rajah came. This third largest Island in the world probably has the most diverse demographic population of indigenous peoples in the world [3].

Fun facts, as comparison the Champa Malay people were genocided by the Vietnamese warlords mainly by the Nguyen lords. They controlled majority of Vietnam for about two thousands years but now you hardly find this Champa Malay people, similar to what happened in muslim in Spain. The highly contested South Chinese Sea original name was Champa Sea [4].

I hope this information will help you and others correct your misunderstanding and stop spreading such disingenous claims intended to enable land grab by settlers.

Since we are in the Singapore topic, by your own definition of land grab by settlers, the Chinese immigrants where the first PM LKY are from, that constitute majority of Singaporean were performing land grab by settlers because just 200 years ago majority were Malay?

[1] Asia’s secret World Heritage site:

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20160518-malaysias-11000-...

[2] Hiri Motu:

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

[3] Borneo:Demographics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borneo#Demographics

[4] The Cham: Descendants of Ancient Rulers of South China Sea Watch Maritime Dispute From Sidelines:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/140616-so...

rayiner9• 2 months ago

That’s a different kind of misleading narrative, the “$PLACE was rich in pre-modern times” narrative. Places decline. Heck, by the middle ages, Rome’s population had dropped to just 30,000.

teleforce11• 2 months ago

Ptolemy’s maps of the world

I can assure you Ptolemy never been to India let alone Singapore.

But hey you just deleted your Ptolemy narrative, are you misleading a narrative?

Ironically although Ptolemy never been to Singapore it's apparently recorded in his book as Sabana [1]. Perhaps that the reason you deleted your Ptolemy entry.

It's also recorded in ancient Chinese record in the 3rd CE Chinese traveller's record describing an island at the same location called Pú Luó Zhōng a transcription of Singapore's early Malay name Pulau Ujong, literally meaning Tip End Island because it's located at the southern most tip of Malaysian Peninsular.

The famous Indian Emperor Chola also said to briefly conquer Singapore/Temasek in the 11th CE [1].

Singapore by any definition for the past two thousands years was not an obscure fishing village. It's always has been a bustling metropolitan with international entreport status. Anyone who said otherwise is lying through their teeth and pushing their own wicked narrative.

[1] Early history of Singapore:

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

PearlRiver• 2 months ago

European powers had taken over shipping in that region since the 17th century because their sailing ships were superior to anything the locals built.

jdw647• 2 months ago

Lee Kuan Yew is praised by Western academia because of 'benevolent authoritarianism' — in other words, the idea that a small elite should rule over the workers. In fact, his policies were authoritarian and dictatorial.

Despite Singapore's geographical advantages, Lee's achievement in transforming it into a great financial hub is certainly a testament to his capability. However, when you consider his track record 'Operation Clodstore;, the suppression of freedom through defamation laws, and Singapore's early streaming education system — it ultimately seems like he only nurtured people from his own faction, believing that parental background matters.

While criticizing Singapore like this, I suddenly looked up Singapore's statistics. To my surprise, its intergenerational social mobility ranks 20th in the world — higher than I thought. Moreover, I found data showing that South Korea's social mobility is even lower than Singapore's. That made me feel depressed. Of course, with a population of just 5 million, Singapore is easier to manage than larger countries. but stil it functions properly as a nation.

And since Singaporeans reportedly have high life satisfaction, it even makes me question whether authoritarianism is really that bad. But I still dislike authoritarianism based on my personal values.

Still, maybe this is just blind hatred — because I've never been at the center of any industry in my entire life; I've always been an outsider

decimalenough4• 2 months ago

And since Singaporeans reportedly have high life satisfaction

They do not; in fact, they're the least happy country in SE Asia.

https://www.hcamag.com/asia/specialisation/employee-engageme...

applfanboysbgon• 2 months ago

The link you cited has nothing to do with "life satisfaction", but rather "job satisfaction", which is a completely different measurement. Singapore has the highest life satisfaction of any Asian country other than Taiwan[1]. Being unhappy with your job obviously does not necessarily translate to being unhappy with your life.

[1]https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-life-satisfaction

kramadeshak• 2 months ago

I grew up in the former capital of a country that was colonized by the British and one thing that stood out to me while I was studying the history of my city was how much the colonial structure survived in terms of vested interest and avenues of power exercised, including corruption. I learned how the most of the agents of the crown that came to my town were largely Scottish and Irish in ethnicity, taking a post here just to earn enough money to go back and live a lavish lifestyle, hence heavily indulged in corruption, and that working culture still survives. The reason why it wasn't reformed was not only governance apathy but also the same vested interests greasing the hands that held power at any given time to protect their cash cow. And if that doesn't work using inflammatory accusation to rile up a popular protest by scaring the populace using their insecurities.

I am not a fan of "authoritarianism" but I do recognize that Singapore had a lot of the same issues and Lee Kuan Yew effectively used authoritarianism to drive it out. But one thing to keep in mind is that Singapore got very lucky in getting Lee Kuan Yew as their leader, someone who was very idealistic in his goals and had the pragmatism to execute it. Such a person is very rare and even rarer is for someone like that to rise to a position of power.

andrewflnr4• 2 months ago

Such a person is very rare and even rarer is for someone like that to rise to a position of power.

Even more dangerously, I think they're even rarer than people who can convincingly pretend to be one. So even if you go looking for such a person you're heading into the danger zone.

Der_Einzige2• 2 months ago

Please modify your AI writing prompt to avoid semicolons, and the EM dash.

jdw647• 2 months ago

I'm curious: why are people told not to use the em dash and the semicolon? I honestly don't know.

When I learned English writing, I was taught to use an em dash after words like 'by the way' or 'to add to that' — as a kind of aside. For hyphens, I was taught to use them in compound words. And for semicolons, I learned to use them when moving on to the next sentence within the same clause.

Actually, this is formal writing — techniques I learned in graduate school. Is this 'AI writing'?

It's hard because I'm not a native speaker.

zuzululu7• 2 months ago

He's not a native English speaker so I suspect he is heavily using AI to generate his comments and seems oblivious to how em dash is viewed in the anglosphere post-chatgpt

tim3332• 2 months ago

Don't you think the EM dashes might be a useful indicator of AI slop to avoid, if that way inclined?

zuzululu7• 2 months ago

Lee Kuan Yew is heavily praised in Korea especially and the rest of Asia so I do not know how you came to generating your reply that he is a Western academic orientalist object comes from, that is certainly far from reality.

jdw647• 2 months ago

In Korea, Lee Kuan Yew is actually more often cited as a target of criticism. Of course, a small number of people praise him, but he is usually mentioned in the context of nostalgia for dictatorship (like Park Chung-hee in Korea), and more often than not, he is talked about as a kind of idealized image of dictatorship created by the West.

[1] https://www.ytn.co.kr/_ln/0104_201503231558059503

jdw647• 2 months ago

Rather, Korean academia and Korean media are generally more critical of Lee Kuan Yew compared to other countries, precisely because of the issue of dictatorship. The reason is simple: we experienced Park Chung-hee. Park Chung-hee receives overwhelming support in some parts of Korea. But fundamentally, academia does not glorify Park Chung-hee. This is because Korean political history emphasizes the flow of democracy. Korean conservatives tend to favor Park Chung-hee, while Korean progressives favor Kim Dae-jung. And since the debates between Kim Dae-jung and Lee Kuan Yew are often brought up, this leads to a more critical view of Lee Kuan Yew compared to other countries.

[1]https://news.kbs.co.kr/news/pc/view/view.do?ncd=5590151

[2]https://www.khan.co.kr/article/201503251135171

jnaina• 2 months ago

My father landed in Singapore in the 1950s on the steamship SS Rajula, eighteen years old with 10 dollars to his name, to seek his fortune, stepping into a crime-ridden, filthy slum.

As he described it, people crammed into shophouses, kampongs (villages) and squatter settlements with no proper toilets (human faeces and urine were carted away by "night soil" men carrying them in open containers in the streets), no clean water, no drainage, no fire safety.

In 1959 barely 9% had public housing. The streets boiled over with riots, strikes and communist agitation, one bloody flashpoint after another.

Work was casual and wages were thin. The British still ruled but had lost all moral authority after the Japanese rolled over across the northern causeway with not much of a resistance from the brits (the idiots were stationed in the southern island of sentosa with their guns pointing south thinking the japanese will invade from the sea) and buggered them in the war.

Singapore was a poor, overcrowded, combustible place with no business surviving, let alone becoming a nation. The hard truth the world forgets: Singapore is an improbable nation. By all logic, it had no right to exist. No natural resources. No hinterland. No oil, no land, no army, no water of its own. Thrown out of Malaysia in 1965, a tiny island of immigrants with three races, four languages and nothing in the bank. By every textbook measure, it should have failed.

It didn't, because of one man's sheer will.

My father now is 90 years old, worked his way up as a menial laborer, put himself through night school, became a successful businessman, and built a family. To my father and his generation, LKY will always be their hero.

From a shit-hole to the first world. In one generation.

execat• 2 months ago

thinking the japs will invade from the sea

Be mindful of using terms that are widely recognized as racial slurs.

decimalenough4• 2 months ago

Some 50,000 of OP's father's compatriots were killed by the Japanese, the survivors can call the invaders what they wish.

mortenjorck• 2 months ago

The OP is using it in a figurative quote attributed to the British armed forces, not in their own voice.

decimalenough4• 2 months ago

The story of Singapore’s ascent from ‘Third World’ to ‘First’, following its forced separation from Malaysia in August 1965, happened under the watch of another visionary, Lee Kuan Yew.

Ah, yet another uncritical narration of the People Action Party's literal party line.

Singapore was the second richest city in Asia (behind Shanghai) before WW2. While the PAP obviously deserves credit for their economic management from the 1960s onward, their starting point was far from the opium-riddled fishing village backwater they like to paint it as.

lmz• 2 months ago

Yes. All the fancy buildings in the historic city center (the cathedral, the national gallery buildings) were all pre war buildings. No small fishing village would have such grand buildings.

nsoonhui• 2 months ago

In this kind of discussion, you cannot disentangle the fate Singapore from Malaysia. The comparison between the two is interesting.

When Singapore was squirted out from Malaysia in 1965, it had no natural resources, surrounded by hostile Muslim nations ( though not as bad as Israel, but still), and no one to depend on, except themselves.

The Malaysian Ringgit vs Singapore dollars was 1 to 1 back then in 1970s. And now it's 3.1 to 1. This alone is a testament how far Singapore has come.

One important factors separating Singapore and Malaysia is Malaysia's affirmative action (or quota system) that favors the majority, the Malay Muslims, which gives preference to Malay and Islam in all things including tertiary education, GLC opportunities. If you want to get listed in Malaysia stock market you need to have certain quota reserved for the Malays. It was supposed to ensure social justice and diversity, equality and inclusivity for everyone; why should Chinese monopolize all the opportunity to make money and leave Malays poor? This was so unfair.

This affirmative action was started in 1970, after the famous May 1969 racial riot incident. The argument was the riot happened because that the Malays were badly left behind by circumstances; they suffered so much injustice that they had to release it out on others, and the government must do everything to improve their socioeconomic status, lest the same thing happened again. It originally lasted only 30 years but in 2000, the government deemed that the Malays need more help still, and so it's still in effect today.

The affirmative action initiative by Malaysia government would have made any DEI adherents proud for it's thoroughness. Yet when you look at the results you must have wondered whether we did anything wrong. For if it was done right then why, by the affirmative action supporters own admission, the gap didn't close? And why Malaysia lagged so much behind Singapore? And how much minorities were driven away-- and many of them went to Singapore, to contribute to the economy there-- precisely because of affirmative action?

cholantesh2• 2 months ago

surrounded by hostile Muslim nations ( though not as bad as Israel, but still)

What a bizarre non-sequitur.

isatty• 2 months ago

How so?

nlitened• 2 months ago

I think "non-sequitur" is an incorrect phrasing here, it means "does not follow logically from the conversation that preceded it".

nexle• 2 months ago

TBH if the government didn't implements these racial policies, I think Malaysia will be worst off - it will stuck in a civil war between the races like many other countries.

But I do think many of those policies are no longer needed - many of the Malays are more educated and smarter compared to 50 years ago. Right now those policies likely doing more harm than good - driving brain-drain and limiting economy growth, but any government try to remove those policies is just suicidal.

zuzululu7• 2 months ago

I love Lee Kuan Yew and his story. He's revered not just in the West but East as well. Obviously people can't see past his style but they'll never tell you it wasn't effective.

There is a lot to learn from his philosophy and there used to be countries that were on a similar track that also saw similar transformation from a backwater agrarian society deciding from marxism to market economy.

His legacy speaks for itself and I love how he can make Western journalists completely shut up, a true Cambridge law student, he could speak English effectively out of all non-Western leaders.

The only problem is that he lost the war on the hot scorching weather, something that really takes a way from enjoying the country. If Singapore had cooler weather, it would've been completely flooded with all the disillusioned Westerners from democratic countries.

logicchains• 2 months ago

His legacy speaks for itself

His legacy as a statesman is unparalleled, but his legacy as a parent falls short, given how poorly his son did at maintaining the country his father built. His father surrounded himself with smart people and welcomed criticism, while his son surrounded himself with yes-men and prosecuted critics. And now Singapore is becoming increasingly unappealing to MNCs due to recent discriminatory visa policies, and the rising cost of living is making life harder and harder for young people, with the fertility rate now under 0.9 as people can't afford to start a family.

zuzululu7• 2 months ago

I disagree LHY inherited a major challenge, one with completely different variables such as a larger aging population along with all the typical balancing act to prevent it being a hollow shell for internationalists and easing burden on the middle class that keeps the whole order intact.

None of the problems you listed are unique to Singapore. Chinese buyers who often serve as effective money mules for capital out of China have inflated real estate prices globally and the enablers at home profited from the transaction, fully aware of the demographic impact it can have.

Singapore acted the best for its citizens in protecting them from outsider speculation compared to Canada for example.

RivieraKid• 2 months ago

I've recently went into a rabbit hole of learning about Singapore. It's fascinating that you can transform a developing country into a country that's almost on the level of Switzerland in 60 years. I wonder what's the responsibility of various factors behind their success. Is it mainly the people? Strategic location? Great governance and policies?

dyauspitr• 2 months ago

I would say one of the biggest things is it’s basically the size of a city. But then again, China is basically doing the same thing with a massive country right now.

dunkvg• 2 months ago

the prioritization on education has alot to do with it

rayiner9• 2 months ago

The location is good, but there are many strategically well located places that are poor today. The people aren’t meaningfully different than the countries around Singapore. A 75% Chinese supermajority, maintained for decades through selective immigration controls. But China itself was as poor as India into the 1990s, while Singapore was rapidly developing long before then.

LKY chalked it up to good, pragmatic policies implemented in a culturally sensitive way: https://paulbacon.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/z.... (Read the whole thing. The first part is about culture, while the second part starting on p. 114 is about how he implemented western economic policies without trying to import western style social policies.) Singapore focused on neoliberalism within a social and cultural framework that accommodates the Chinese, Malay, and Indian communities that compose the country. It focused on anti-corruption and government efficiency, a major weak spot of nearly all developing countries. But it didn’t try to go straight from fishing village to liberal democracy. Like other countries that developed rapidly in Asia (Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and now China) development of state capacity and civil institutions happened under soft-authoritarian, one-party rule.

To put it in one sentence: LKY was a bog standard neoliberal who didn’t suffer from the neoconservative delusion that American-style individual rights and populist democracy can be transplanted into any country hand-in-hand with neoliberal economic policies.

IncreasePosts• 2 months ago

It also strangely helps that Singapore has almost no natural resources to exploit. So, their only resource is what the humans provide. That lead them to invest heavily in professional training instead of using their humans to pull metal out of the ground and ship it off somewhere else.

swyx• 2 months ago

as a singaporean its actually kinda funny to hear everyone here describe him as a neoliberal. not quite our lived experience

boelboel2• 2 months ago

China wasn't as poor as India, especially not until 1990s.

atlasunshrugged2• 2 months ago

Shameless plug but you might also be interested in Estonia's story if you want to hear about how a formerly Communist country also became quite developed in a single generation (and churned out startups like Pipedrive, Veriff, Bolt, Wise and partially Skype). I wrote a book about it which of course I hope you check out, but I also went pretty in depth in this interview: https://www.statecraft.pub/p/how-to-digitize-the-government

kardianos• 2 months ago

Lee had a dedication to results, not ideology. Survival is not right; survival must be earned. They explicitly avoid multi-culturalsim and groom technically competent, detail oriented bureaucrats and politicians. In other words, they view reality as real and consequential, and they do what works and take the next step.

nerdsniper2• 2 months ago

Did I misread your thesis? It seemed like your strongest argument is “survival must be earned” and your most immediate claim to this is that “Singapore avoids multiculturalism.”

And then you kind of go on to imply that because they avoid being multicultural they instead are detail oriented and technically competent.

A lack of multiculturalism seems…like a very very nonsensical claim to make about Singapore. Its one of the most celebrated intersectional cities merging the identities of three different major regions.

gmerc• 2 months ago

Bullshit - Singapore is managed multicultural like no other nation. We integrate faith - halal options in every food center, the public holidays of 4 major faiths, 4 languages, culture associations and centers, festivals, multi racial neighborhoods and forced tolerance

teleforce11• 2 months ago

I wonder what's the responsibility of various factors behind their success. Is it mainly the people? Strategic location? Great governance and policies?

It's mainly its strategic location and it's always been the the busiest maritime route chokepoint since recorded history between east and west, specifically between India and China two of the most populous nations in the world.

It sit right at the tip of the Strait of Malacca, the busiest and the longest strait in the world. This one famous quote by a 16th CE Portuguese explorer Tomé Pires, who declared: "Whoever is lord of Malacca has his hand on the throat of Venice".

Secondly is the people, and the third is the governance policy. Essentially, you must have be a bone-headed to screw up Singapore, like the one who can bankrupt a central bank.

My original top most comment on the great lie of Singapore was just an obscure fishing village during the early colonial time but it's has already downvoted to oblivion, you can check them out if you want.

rrvsh8• 2 months ago

The reason for your last point is that Singaporeans are taught in school that we were nothing but a fishing village until first colonialism (and Chinese immigrants) arrived and turned us into a major port, then the PAP (Lee Kuan Yew's party) turned us into a first world nation. It's really propaganda, and of course you wouldn't bother looking up information that you were taught to see as truth when you were a young child

rayiner9• 2 months ago

Essentially, you must have be a bone-headed to screw up Singapore

The place that is now Singapore had less than 1,000 people when Raffles got there. So what happened?

There’s lots of places with strategic locations or natural resources or such advantages. The U.S. has the largest contiguous stretch of fertile land connected to one of the largest navigable river systems in the world. But the north american indians did essentially nothing with it. It’s not easy to make a modern civilization out of even a favorable geographical situation.

itsthecourier4• 2 months ago

after being flagged and down voted for mentioning Lee Kuan Yew views on Multiculturalism, I reiterate my comment with a direct quote to keep ynews truthful and not polarized towards the left:

"They are implacable in wanting to put down all who do not agree with them."

"What role does Islam itself play in fueling Islamic extremism? Muslims want to assimilate us. It is one-way traffic…They have no confidence in allowing choice.12 Samuel Huntington sent me a piece he was writing in Foreign Affairs called the “Clash of Civilizations.” When I saw him, I said, look, I agree with you only where the Muslims are concerned, only there…Hinduism, Chinese Confucianism or Communism, Japanese Shintoism, they are secular really. They know that to progress, you must master science and technology…But the Muslims believe that if they master the Qu’ran and they are prepared to do all that Muhammad has prescribed, they will succeed. So, we can expect trouble from them and so, it happened.13 Muslims socially do not cause any trouble, but they are distinct and separate Islam is exclusive."

itsthecourier4• 2 months ago

"but open immigration policies also carry risks. New waves of migrants will be ethnically different, less educated, and sometimes unskilled…It will gradually dawn on governments that immigration alone cannot solve their demographic troubles and that much more active government involvement in encouraging or discouraging procreation may be necessary."

fmajid• 2 months ago

Lee not only turned Singapore from a country poorer than India into one of the richest in the world, but he was also the one who convinced Deng Xiaoping to adopt market reforms, thereby pulling hundreds of millions of Chinese out of abject poverty. Truly one of the greatest statesmen of the last century.

khoirul• 2 months ago

On my Instagram wall, I am being bombarded with Lee Kuan Yew interviews as of the past few months. I see no other reason for him to be so 'hot' again except for there being a well-funded ongoing propaganda campaign.

Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Story (2023)

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