Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore
palladiummag.com
Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore
1–10 of 262 posts
Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore
#2Capitalism’s version of North Korea
Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore
#3Disagree on calling Suzhou Industrial Park a failure. I grew up there and can say that while it may not have attracted the desired profit levels it certainly did have miraculous effect on the people of Suzhou. Wages have sky rocketed (as has property price). It may not have been profitable within 5 years, more than 400 fortune 500 companies had their factories located there in 2014. Suzhou went from a city with two big super markets and one KFC to a city with a mall around every block (and yes people could afford to spend in these malls).
Also Lee's success in Singapore is not only due to his authoritarianism as most western scholars put out, but also due to the sheer pragmatism of Singapore's policy making elite. They respect no ideology but the one that is suitable. If they need to have free markets they will have free markets. If they need to regulate pricing they will regulate it.
Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore
#4Disagree on calling Suzhou Industrial Park a failure. I grew up there and can say that while it may not have attracted the desired profit levels it certainly did have miraculous effect on the people of Suzhou. Wages have sky rocketed (as has property price). It may not have been profitable within 5 years, more than 400 fortune 500 companies had their factories located there in 2014. Suzhou went from a city with two b…
>Wages have sky rocketed (as has property price). It may not have been profitable within 5 years, more than 400 fortune 500 companies had their factories located there in 2014. Suzhou went from a city with two big super markets and one KFC to a city with a mall around every block (and yes people could afford to spend in these malls).
I interpreted from the article that it was nothing special. That is, it followed more or less the same trends as Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou and Wuxi rather than trailblazing its own path.
Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore
#5Disagree on calling Suzhou Industrial Park a failure. I grew up there and can say that while it may not have attracted the desired profit levels it certainly did have miraculous effect on the people of Suzhou. Wages have sky rocketed (as has property price). It may not have been profitable within 5 years, more than 400 fortune 500 companies had their factories located there in 2014. Suzhou went from a city with two b…
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.
Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore
#6I lived 2 years in Singapore as an exchange student.
The economic success of Singapore is a relatively new phenomenon, and it was largely a doing of Lee jr., not Lee sr.
LKY was not well versed in matters of economics, and industry, and his forceful early industrialisation pushes failed miserably. For the bigger half of its history, Singapore was not that successful economically.
The money came to Singapore when it liberalised financially, and became a tax heaven.
LKY severely lacked vision, and ambition, and was very content with Sing remaining a "Lee family villa." What has really brought the change was LKY's extremely timid kid, who conceded much of authority to technocrats.
Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore
#7There are a few key things to bear in mind about Singapore's growth model and success:
* The proximity of power to population because it is a tiny city state. Singaporean governance is under extreme pressure to be effective because if it fails it cannot hide. This is a systemic issue that can be seen all around the world and is probably why some countries moved their capitals AWAY from population centres (e.g. brazil, myanmar): https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/8830780/Campante...
* The reaction to the communists. Lee Kuan Yew didn't just annihilate the communists with coldstore, he tried to replicate their policies to maintain his stranglehold on power (note the resemblance of HDBs to soviet style housing, for instance). In a way, his lack of any real conviction and ruthless pragmatism helped here. This was echoed later when an opposition party set up on a platform of smaller class sizes. PAP effectively strangled the party (largely through unethical means) but then recognized the power of the protests that led to this party's popularity and took their policy (ceding no credit of course!).
* Lee's economic policies were, while good, largely not his idea. He had the good sense to follow this guy's proscriptions though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Winsemius
I lived in Singapore for 3 years. While I acknowledge its success at industrializing, I hated working there. The authoritarianism and rigid class structure permeates every aspect of life. This also made it a really bad environment for tech to flourish IMHO, even though they threw money at it. Creativity is massively stifled. Cargo cultism of silicon valley was rife. Most tech startups and founder I encountered were fast followers and largely treated developers like cogs.
Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore
#8Disagree on calling Suzhou Industrial Park a failure. I grew up there and can say that while it may not have attracted the desired profit levels it certainly did have miraculous effect on the people of Suzhou. Wages have sky rocketed (as has property price). It may not have been profitable within 5 years, more than 400 fortune 500 companies had their factories located there in 2014. Suzhou went from a city with two b…
>Wages have sky rocketed (as has property price). It may not have been profitable within 5 years, more than 400 fortune 500 companies had their factories located there in 2014. Suzhou went from a city with two big super markets and one KFC to a city with a mall around every block (and yes people could afford to spend in these malls). I interpreted from the article that it was nothing special. That is, it followed mor…
To be honest WuXi (which is next to Suzhou), was significantly lagging behind it around 2014. I believe that has changed now but I left China more than 6 years ago. SIP definitely had its perks. It was incredibly important for China to attract foreign talent and many foreigners would live in SIP but work in some other city or place. So arguably the growth of cities like WuXi also depended on SIP.
Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore
#9Disagree on calling Suzhou Industrial Park a failure. I grew up there and can say that while it may not have attracted the desired profit levels it certainly did have miraculous effect on the people of Suzhou. Wages have sky rocketed (as has property price). It may not have been profitable within 5 years, more than 400 fortune 500 companies had their factories located there in 2014. Suzhou went from a city with two b…
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.
Re: Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore
#10There are a few key things to bear in mind about Singapore's growth model and success: * The proximity of power to population because it is a tiny city state. Singaporean governance is under extreme pressure to be effective because if it fails it cannot hide. This is a systemic issue that can be seen all around the world and is probably why some countries moved their capitals AWAY from population centres (e.g. brazil…
> Lee's economic policies were, while good, largely not his idea. He had the good sense to follow this guy's proscriptions though
On Winsemius, in its early history, Singapore was indeed using a cargo cult mass industrialisation, and it of course was only half successful.
A much less "genius" idea of turning the country into an offshore finance centre was what made it, and it was not his idea.
It was Lee junior, who spent his youth in London, who brought it.