Tough question to answer. Need to give a historical narrative, bits and pieces assembled here and there for an interpretation.
The Old Days
As the story goes, LKY and his team invested heavily in infrastructure, attracted sophisticated (albeit fair-weathered) MNCs to set up industries in town with tax breaks, and created national industries where there are none. This was the Golden Age of Singapore, an Age of Industrialization and Prosperity forever etched in the minds of old timers. "A chicken in every pot, a roof over every family" was the order of the day.
The formula worked well until it didn't. Old Man Lee hurriedly passed the baton to the US-trained (as in University of Singapore) economist GCT, who shall be remembered for overseeing ministerial/civil service pay rise, privatizations and bestowing royal honour to *lowborn* MPs from RI. "Animal spirits and the invisible hand shall save us all", says he.
But alas it wasn't quite enough.
