The manner in which the government does this was set down by Singapore's domineering founding father, Lee Kuan Yew. He imposed top-down, rigorously-planned modernisation, with curbs on individual freedom - a government-knows-best strategy he later described as "Asian Values".
The best and brightest were attracted to the top ranks of the PAP and the government with generous salaries to carry this out. If this is a nanny state, he wrote later, then I am proud to have fostered one.
For decades Singaporeans accepted this arrangement, with only minor grumbling. Not any more.
