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Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

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Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#111

Post by pdonis »

danielheath wrote: post #9
lordnacho wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's right, we tend to label every successful economy "capitalism", but actually if you look at Singapore there's some things that are not so obviously free market. Housing, for instance.

Gotta say, housing is one good that the free market seems to not really be amazing at. Here in Australia, it has become an investment vehicle; a huge amount of housing stock is empty while a third of the population are living in very poor accommodation.

> housing is one good that the free market seems to not really be amazing at

Housing isn't a free market if the government's central bank puts its thumb on the scale by printing money for mortgage loans. The Fed does that in the US.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#112

Post by leafboi »

ergocoder wrote: post #100
wenc wrote: post #93

Wow. This article is one of the most compelling I've read in a while. There's even a bit in there about models and reality with respect to (authoritarian) governance and size, and why simplistic schemata suffer from large errors in larger states: "Decision-makers must rely on simplified models to make their decisions. All schemata are by nature imperfect representations of reality. Indeed, a scheme that reflected rea…

Yes. It's one flaw of democracy. In a dictatorship, if the leader is great, it will grow like crazy... It's like a startup with great founders. On the other hand, the problem will come when a hand-off needs to happen. Singapore is clever enough to keep the democratic process, so it has some decent hand-off process.

Don't think that the democratic process guarantees a good hand off... it's still a crap shoot and a lucky draw. See current President Camacho of the United States.

Unlike a dictator, the aggregate will of the people never serves the self interest of a single individual. The issue with majority rule is that the aggregate intelligence/judgement of the people is likely not matched with what is required to select a good leader.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#113

Post by sam_lynx »

ergocoder wrote: post #100
wenc wrote: post #93

Wow. This article is one of the most compelling I've read in a while. There's even a bit in there about models and reality with respect to (authoritarian) governance and size, and why simplistic schemata suffer from large errors in larger states: "Decision-makers must rely on simplified models to make their decisions. All schemata are by nature imperfect representations of reality. Indeed, a scheme that reflected rea…

Yes. It's one flaw of democracy. In a dictatorship, if the leader is great, it will grow like crazy... It's like a startup with great founders. On the other hand, the problem will come when a hand-off needs to happen. Singapore is clever enough to keep the democratic process, so it has some decent hand-off process.

Eh, as they said in the article: "Part of the mythos of Lee Kuan Yew is that he succeeded as an authoritarian where so many others have failed." Singapore is the exception; authoritarian governments are almost always bad for the people otherwise.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#114

Post by sam_lynx »

leafboi wrote: post #108
jackcosgrove wrote: post #103

> Yet history is littered with the failures of authoritarian modernist regimes. Indeed, the record of utopian schemes to improve the human condition is dismal in the 20th century. In the Soviet Union, Stalin’s plan to transform “small, backward and scattered peasant farms to amalgamated, large scale socialized farms” led to brutality and starvation for millions. In China, Mao’s Great Leap Forward propelled the nation…

Obviously the world is a super simple place with super simple answers to seemingly complex questions. When I asked my friend which is better authoritarianism or democracy he told me the answer is complicated. I told him to look at the evidence: Almost Every civilization in history: egyptians, romans, greeks, China was more or less some form of authoritarian government. They all failed. Basically every single civiliza…

I think "failed" is subjective, what we should really be looking at is whether they provide for their citizens the best -- which democracy does.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#115

Post by beefman »

MrPowers wrote: post #70
frank2 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of that is from population growth. We can control for population growth by using GDP per capita: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SGP/singapore/gdp-per-... --which gives a rate of growth of 10.7%, and some of that will be inflation: the data is denominated in USD, which famously inflated rapidly in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Here is my math: solve for rate where e ^ (31 times rate ) = 11828 / 428. (I a…

The macrotrends website says "Data are in current U.S. dollars", so the number I presented should be the real GDP growth rate. I think correcting for population growth is OK, but don't think your inflation calculation is correct.

"Current dollars" means nominal dollars. Inflation-adjusted data are called "constant dollars". The desired series are here

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD

Over the 29 years 1960-1989, Botswana experienced the greatest growth at 11.6%/year, followed by South Korea at 9.6% and Singapore at 8.6%. World growth was 4.1%, and U.S. growth was 3.6%. The worst performer was Guyana at 0.6%. (This among only those countries with available data at the start and end years.)

The same comparison for the period 1990-2019 shows top performer Equatorial Guinea at 15.0%/year, followed by China at 9.5%. Singapore weighed in at 5.6%, the World at 2.8%, and the U.S. at 2.5%. Bottom performer was Ukraine at -1.4%, and second-worst was Georgia at 0.2%. Former bottom performer Guyana faired much better at 3.8%.

Population does not cause GDP. Adjusting for population will give a better idea of changes in living standards but won't explain the differences in economic growth.

Population density may be related to economic growth, and for this reason it may be misleading to compare Singapore, which is essentially a city-state, to nation-states.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#116

Post by leafboi »

wenc wrote: post #93

Wow. This article is one of the most compelling I've read in a while. There's even a bit in there about models and reality with respect to (authoritarian) governance and size, and why simplistic schemata suffer from large errors in larger states: "Decision-makers must rely on simplified models to make their decisions. All schemata are by nature imperfect representations of reality. Indeed, a scheme that reflected rea…

I think because HN's audience is mostly US based there's a high level of bias towards democratic governments.

I think if we all take a look at it from a unbiased angle it's all really apples and oranges. A bad dictator is not so different from a democracy electing bad leaders and a good dictator is not so different from a democracy electing good leaders.

The thing with a democracy is that you have a lot of checks and balances so an elected bad leader can't do much damage... but then again an elected good leader can't do much good either.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#117

Post by leafboi »

sam_lynx wrote: post #114
leafboi wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously the world is a super simple place with super simple answers to seemingly complex questions. When I asked my friend which is better authoritarianism or democracy he told me the answer is complicated. I told him to look at the evidence: Almost Every civilization in history: egyptians, romans, greeks, China was more or less some form of authoritarian government. They all failed. Basically every single civiliza…

I think "failed" is subjective, what we should really be looking at is whether they provide for their citizens the best -- which democracy does.

All the civilizations I mentioned were authoritarian. Egyptian Pharaohs, Roman Caesars, Chinese Emperors. The history of all great civilizations is by a huge majority created and maintained through authoritative rule.

In fact, modern anthropological theory states that the first step in the formation of a big civilization requires central authorities to form first.

>what we should really be looking at is whether they provide for their citizens the best -- which democracy does

America didn't have the capability to provide room for the influx of covid-19 patients. China built a hospital in a week. There's no question that for this specific instance, authoritarianism provided better for its' citizens than democracy.

Like I said. Complicated. Multifaceted.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#118

Post by supernova87a »

not_a_moth wrote: post #17

Singapore's population is very conservative, e.g. live with parents until marry, homosexuality is illegal, a lot of pressure against interracial couples (my experience), and essentially a single, dominant media voice. There is a militant approach to education which produces nice test results, but it doesn't produce young entrepreneurs, just conservative careers, helped by statutory hiring quotas. I don't think the Si…

You might find this interesting: https://youtu.be/LvBlzDz9ttM?t=846 Lee Kuan Yew's entertaining response on this exact question

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#119

Post by blocked_again »

leafboi wrote: post #116
wenc wrote: post #93

Wow. This article is one of the most compelling I've read in a while. There's even a bit in there about models and reality with respect to (authoritarian) governance and size, and why simplistic schemata suffer from large errors in larger states: "Decision-makers must rely on simplified models to make their decisions. All schemata are by nature imperfect representations of reality. Indeed, a scheme that reflected rea…

I think because HN's audience is mostly US based there's a high level of bias towards democratic governments. I think if we all take a look at it from a unbiased angle it's all really apples and oranges. A bad dictator is not so different from a democracy electing bad leaders and a good dictator is not so different from a democracy electing good leaders. The thing with a democracy is that you have a lot of checks and…

It's better to have a leader that do some good and some bad things than having a leader that do a lot of good and lot of bad things.

Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore

#120

Post by supernova87a »

Well, a leader can only do so much with what he/she is given. (or conversely, for all the success, only attribute some of it to a leader)

One of the most important contributing success factors was that Singapore had a population and people dying (literally dying) to have effective government, material improvements in their lives, and a willingness to be compliant with leaders who delivered.

It really makes a big difference when your people are cooperating with government. It costs less. It produces more.

When your people contribute their own time and work, when people keep things clean and disapprove of crime, when they don't tolerate disorder or corruption, gangs, etc., when they don't sue each other left and right, you achieve a lot more with the same resources.

It's a cultural thing, so it's hard to reproduce except over decades of changing a people's mindset.

You could put all these structures in place somewhere else, but if people don't want it, or don't support it, it could simply produce every run-of-the-mill banana republic that we know all too well, with elite institutions and guarantees of competence on paper and nothing in reality.

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