No country was ever better off in the long run with a strong knuckle. Study your history. Countries with strong knuckles like Nazi Germany, Mussolini Italy, staim russia, etc, do not end well. In modern times, countries with strong knuckle leaders such as Suharto in Indonesia, Mao in China, MArcos in Phillippines, etc have all turned their countries into shit holes. Countries that everyone wants to migrate to, and want to live in, such as UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, etc. have not had a strong knuckle in their history for several hundred years.
And Old Fart did not make Singapore great. If Old Fart was so great, what would have happened if he had been parachuted in to run lets say a Uganda, or a Malaysia, or a Phillippines, or a India? Those countries would by and large still be shit holes. He was lucky he had a hard working and honest citizenship, a well educated people (thanks to the Brit education system), and fantastic ports, dockyards, and infrastructure left by the Brits. The Brits literally left singapore with billions of dollars worth of infrastructure that we did not have to pay for. We are the ones that made singapore great. Our parents made singapore great. All he did was not try to steal everything in the beginning, and listened to Albert Winsemius.
You are right. no country is better off in the long run. that's why I said sometimes. Nazi Germany for the 1st few years can be argued that it was the strong knuckle that brought them out of the basketcase economy under the Weimar Republic. As for sinkieland, it's also under the same category. I am aware of all the countries that you exhibit as case studies for not having a strong knuckle. But do you know exactly why they didn't need it?
Well old fart was not infallible nor was he always right. He just did a better job of bringing order to an inherently disorderly nation. But I beg to differ to your 2nd paragraph. Singapore does not have a hard working nor honest citizenry. well qualified for sure, education hmm.... As for the port, dockyards and infrastructure, i would agree with what you say about the british if you're talking about india, but infrastructure development in singapore is impressive compared to anyplace else in the world. especially post-independence. The british didn't give the MRT (sorry,bad example), Changi, the current world class port we have now, the durian, the roads of today. Heck, the most impressive thing they gave us that's still standing is the fullerton or raffles hotel. If you say the British got the ball rolling or provided a template, then yes, but all you have to do is walk around london and see how woefully inadequate their infrastructure is today post ww2. As some of the chinese chauvinists in this forum like to point out, their impressive infrastructure pre-ww2 is because of funds from opium. Hardly a proud moment, wouldn't you say?
I've met a lot of different people in the world. Singaporeans strike me as some of the least hard working for the amount of success that they enjoy. Witness the number of jobs that locals will not do that only foreigners will do. Here, let me give you a good example. Everybody has run into a malaysian mechanic or cook living in johore and commuting to work. They have to endure that hellish daily commute for a job that no Singaporean is even willing to walk across the street for. pay too low conditions too harsh. How about the Bangla construction workers for what a few hundred bucks a month?
Singapore's wealth has largely been the product of foreign direct investment. Our economic wellbeing can be easily correlated to which foreign company directly invested in Singapore thereby creating instant wealth. These companies injected funds into the economy upon startup and continued to do so while operating. We just provided them with a domicile to produce with cheap labour. The 1st great wave of wealth creation for Singapore came with the computer boom and manufacturing for that industry. HP, Compaq, Seagate. Singapore was the largest producer of hard drives in the world. Those companies plonked tons of money into here. Provided direct payroll for thousands of staff and indirect cash receipts for many more thousands which spent in the local economy. They captured a good portion of the revenue stream of the PC era.
What happened when they withdrew? Our first big slump. So next up was biotech which fizzled. and then we were in deep doo doo. So hating gambling and auto racing, singapore was then turned into an island casino with a regular F1 race and suddenly our economy is alive again.
So in short, Singapore's wealth is the creation of policy. not hard work nor honesty. we imported the hard workers and we allowed the companies with stricter labour laws at home to exploit them here at a reduced rate. We were a clearinghouse for labour exploitation for a too short summary. Now we are also a depositary for the wealthy of crime-ridden neighbouring states. So again, policy is what has kept us afloat. But I can also say that policy is going to kill us, but that's going to take a lot more writing. Now to be fair, if you say parents generation were hard working, I will accede. But not after 1980.
And I don't know who he listened to, but it was by and large the most successful act of policy resulting in wealth creation post ww2.
