> That's a fair characterization of the workings of the state, which has never really lived up to any democratic norm to be honest, but if you actually walk through Singapore and see how people live, honestly it is a successful multiethnic society.
Well, this is the LKY argument: In terms of outcomes, people are unequal and there will always be persistent differences between ethnic groups. The ranking isn't necessarily fixed over thousands of years (Greece was once the world leader and now has fallen behind), but at any point in time, there is never equality of outcomes. There will always be some groups ahead and others behind, and these positions change very slowly, and not through any mechanisms that can be controlled by policy.
It shouldn't be government (or private sector) policy to try to pretend that they are equal or to try to make them equal, as that only leads to racial resentment, constant race wars and a Handicapper General to equalize everything. The SG approach is to suppress anyone trying to stir up this resentment or trying to advocate for racial equality. Once people learn to accept inequality, mind their own business, and just do the best they can for themselves, then you can have a successful heterogeneous society.
But that approach offends the West's moral sensibilities, which is to try to have incredibly heterogeneous societies while insisting on equal outcomes. So the West will destroy itself with a combination of constant lying about race ("we are all equal, differences must be due to some form of oppression") as well as the imposition of a series of ever more tyrannical Handicapper Generals as it vainly tries to make the human nature conform to a delusion.
So whereas you make it sound like an accident, that despite permanenent racial inequality SG looks like a nice place "on the ground", LKY would say that it is because of the acceptance of this inequality that people in SG can live in relative peace whereas in the West this is impossible.