This is the first time I came across an article where the author attempts to link provision of social security to eroding filial piety. Not only is the link tenuous but ridiculous. Not that I am surprised as it came from the brothel but even this is stretching it. He seems to think that people will neglect or abandon their parents if there is social security in place. Why? Many of the elderly would have contributed to the country in their early days and the CPF failing miserably in its original mission, there will be some that no longer can support themselves. And among these, some would have children who are struggling to make a life for their own families and may not be able to support their elderly parents sufficiently.
This notion of social service where people get what they want is erroneous. There surely must be the appropriate means test or equivalent to determine who needs it.
In fact the law which Walter Woon introduced when he was an NMP to make it an obligatory for children to support their elderly parents backfired when a murder took place within the Ministry premises arising from this very law.
The only reason I suspect that this article surfaced is because Chee has been beating the drums in recent days about more support for the needy on his daily rounds in Bukit Batok. SDP has also provided food packages for rental flats 2 day ago highlighting that this is an area of concern.
Social security needs not be excessive and no one is asking for anything in excess and that includes Chee. No is asking that every child has to have a playstation or that every elderly couple be given free tickets to the Jack Neo movie ( they will probably turn it down). A reasonable safety net which Paul Thamyah help architect and articulated is all that is asked for.
And the author has clearly passed his use-by date when he ends the article with the glass half-full half-empty nonsense which does not even make sense. Lim Swee Say's up the down turn makes more sense sadly.
Excessive social security may erode filial piety
PUBLISHEDMAR 29, 2016, 5:00 AM SGT
FACEBOOK1,366TWITTEREMAIL
There has been much debate on how much more Singapore should spend on providing greater social security for the poor, and on the pitfalls of excessive welfare ("Pitfalls of excessive welfare in Nordic model" by Mr Olli Muurainen; last Saturday).
There is mounting electoral pressure on the Government to increase spending on welfare - and the ruling party is responding.
Helping those who have fallen through the cracks is laudable, as long as the country can afford it.
But will the electorate know where to draw the line and not keep using the ballot box to demand more and more spending?
This is what worries me and, I suspect, many others who have watched with great trepidation how countries elsewhere are being pushed to insolvency by their excessive welfare spending.
Yet, affordability is just one aspect of this complex issue.
What an inordinate emphasis on providing more social security will do to Singapore's values system is another important, though often overlooked, consideration.
Let me draw attention to a recent lecture by eminent but controversial Chinese economist Zhang Wuchang.
Among other things, he argued against what he called the mindless adoption by China of the essentially Western practice of government-funded social security.
The 80-year-old is no xenophobe. He had studied and worked in the United States for many years before he returned to China, and was close to some of the top economists of the day.
His assertion: Excessive social security will destroy the concept and practice of filial piety.
Peril awaits the Chinese civilisation once the duty of caring for one's old and helpless parents is shifted to the state, he added.
What he said jolted me, as did a recent survey by a government agency in Japan, which found that less than a third of young people agreed that it was their duty to look after their parents. The rest said it was the government's job.
Surveys throughout China also registered a distinct downward trend.
Will this happen in Singapore too? If the present trend continues unabated, then we may well be heading that way.
A national survey conducted a few years ago found that most people under 50 and earning $1,000 or more still regarded looking after parents as their duty.
But more of those above 50 and earning less than $1,000 said the Government should bear more of the burden.
Glass half-full? Or half-empty?
Leslie Fong
This notion of social service where people get what they want is erroneous. There surely must be the appropriate means test or equivalent to determine who needs it.
In fact the law which Walter Woon introduced when he was an NMP to make it an obligatory for children to support their elderly parents backfired when a murder took place within the Ministry premises arising from this very law.
The only reason I suspect that this article surfaced is because Chee has been beating the drums in recent days about more support for the needy on his daily rounds in Bukit Batok. SDP has also provided food packages for rental flats 2 day ago highlighting that this is an area of concern.
Social security needs not be excessive and no one is asking for anything in excess and that includes Chee. No is asking that every child has to have a playstation or that every elderly couple be given free tickets to the Jack Neo movie ( they will probably turn it down). A reasonable safety net which Paul Thamyah help architect and articulated is all that is asked for.
And the author has clearly passed his use-by date when he ends the article with the glass half-full half-empty nonsense which does not even make sense. Lim Swee Say's up the down turn makes more sense sadly.
Excessive social security may erode filial piety
PUBLISHEDMAR 29, 2016, 5:00 AM SGT
FACEBOOK1,366TWITTEREMAIL
There has been much debate on how much more Singapore should spend on providing greater social security for the poor, and on the pitfalls of excessive welfare ("Pitfalls of excessive welfare in Nordic model" by Mr Olli Muurainen; last Saturday).
There is mounting electoral pressure on the Government to increase spending on welfare - and the ruling party is responding.
Helping those who have fallen through the cracks is laudable, as long as the country can afford it.
But will the electorate know where to draw the line and not keep using the ballot box to demand more and more spending?
This is what worries me and, I suspect, many others who have watched with great trepidation how countries elsewhere are being pushed to insolvency by their excessive welfare spending.
Yet, affordability is just one aspect of this complex issue.
What an inordinate emphasis on providing more social security will do to Singapore's values system is another important, though often overlooked, consideration.
Let me draw attention to a recent lecture by eminent but controversial Chinese economist Zhang Wuchang.
Among other things, he argued against what he called the mindless adoption by China of the essentially Western practice of government-funded social security.
The 80-year-old is no xenophobe. He had studied and worked in the United States for many years before he returned to China, and was close to some of the top economists of the day.
His assertion: Excessive social security will destroy the concept and practice of filial piety.
Peril awaits the Chinese civilisation once the duty of caring for one's old and helpless parents is shifted to the state, he added.
What he said jolted me, as did a recent survey by a government agency in Japan, which found that less than a third of young people agreed that it was their duty to look after their parents. The rest said it was the government's job.
Surveys throughout China also registered a distinct downward trend.
Will this happen in Singapore too? If the present trend continues unabated, then we may well be heading that way.
A national survey conducted a few years ago found that most people under 50 and earning $1,000 or more still regarded looking after parents as their duty.
But more of those above 50 and earning less than $1,000 said the Government should bear more of the burden.
Glass half-full? Or half-empty?
Leslie Fong
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