[linuxkerneldev]

> significantly racially charged

Could you cite some evidence for this? I don't see anything to that degree in wikipedia.

> class-entrenched society

What does that mean? Is it significantly different than the US? I can see people using the terms "racially charged, class-entrenched society" to increasingly describe us as well.

> It's disgusting that the US props it up.

I had never heard that the US props up Singapore before. Care to provide some evidence?

[contingencies]

significantly racially charged ... could you cite some evidence for this?

All the lowest rung jobs in Singapore are done by Indian/Indonesian/Philippino migrant workers who are allowed in to the country under significantly restricted rights.

class-entrenched ... what does that mean?

It means wealth runs deep between generations, and the society is significantly stratified.

the US props up Singapore

In exchange for looking the other way on Singapore's fascist dictatorship and history of large scale regional money laundering, the US receives the right to use the island as a strategic military base and regional signals intelligence collection point.

[bjshepard]

Thank you for saying truth.

[contingencies]

Hehe. I was reading https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14154898 recently and it included this pithy Hamlet quotation.

This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

[sho]

> migrant workers who are allowed in to the country under significantly restricted rights

How is this anything other than a straightforward win/win trade? The country gets work done for cheaper than hiring locals; the migrant workers make more than they could in their home countries. Mistreatment is of course illegal and they are in general free to leave at any time. Exactly how is this bad, unless you are against trade itself?

> wealth runs deep between generations, and the society is significantly stratified

Like every other country on earth, you mean? Except there's no real old money, because the country was only founded in the 1960s.

> looking the other way on Singapore's fascist dictatorship

Now you're just talking nonsense. Yeah, the fascist dictatorship with the single best passport on earth, that millions of people move to for work. Uh-huh.

Your opinions are so wilfully and aggressively ignorant that I actually wonder if you're trolling.

[contingencies]

How is this anything other than a straightforward win/win trade?

This statement may be shocking to you but people have rights and society has qualitative properties that cannot be purchased for money. 'Trade' is not the same as people's lives. If you treat people as disposable economic tools, you begin to create a culture and climate of facetious social engagement, private insecurity and fear... ie. your "win/win" becomes "lose/lose" very quickly.

there's no real old money

LKY and cronies laundered huge amounts of money from the pillaging of Indonesia, Malaysia and Myanmar's natural resources and established themselves as the highest paid politicians in the world. Much of the wealthy class in Singapore still owns significant business interests in those countries, such as vast palm oil plantations on recently deforested land. Meanwhile, the 'average' citizen is not doing so well, and the significant migrant labour underclass suffers daily out of economic desperation. These realities clearly represent dynastic, multi-generational wealth transfer and a stratified society. Basically, Singapore is a lot like Shanghai in conception ... rich people fled there during a period of relative instability then doubled down on exploiting regional postwar opportunities with the advantage of significant stores of capital.

the single best passport on earth

Gee, no rose-colored glasses there!

[sho]

> Gee, no rose-colored glasses there!

Simple fact actually. https://www.passportindex.org/byRank.php

As for the rest of your wild claims - if you had any evidence at all for any of it, your sensational exposé would probably topple the singapore government. Please, let me know before your book comes out so I can short some stocks!

[nickpsecurity]

"How is this anything other than a straightforward win/win trade? The country gets work done for cheaper than hiring locals; the migrant workers make more than they could in their home countries."

You could say the same thing about impoverished minorities in the U.S. whose ancestors came from poor countries. It would still be racism to pay them or allow them less due to race. It's more amusing given the Singaporeans that show up in comments talking about how racist America is. Turns out Singapore is pretty racist and classist, too.

[sho]

I don't understand how you are drawing these conclusions. I don't see any similarity at all to U.S. race relations.

If country A has a lot of money but a labour shortage, and country B is poor but has a labour excess, then it is of mutual benefit for country A to hire people from country B to perform needed labour. Country B's workers are not being paid less because of their race, but because they come from a relatively poorer country.

The workers come to do a job in which they will be paid more (much more) than comparable work at home, they do it, they get paid, the work gets done, everyone is happy, they go home. How is this racist, or even generally bad?

This basic economic principle is also, of course, the reason why companies locate manufacturing in countries with large available labour pools and lower comparative wages. So is Apple racist for manufacturing in China?

[nickpsecurity]

"Country B's workers are not being paid less because of their race, but because they come from a relatively poorer country."

Then the discrimination is based on source country instead of race. Either way, it's systematic discrimination. Singapore could just as easily pay based on position and prior experience across the board. Immigrants could move up in pay over time. Those there a certain amount of time could participate in the political process. And so on.

Whereas the current situation is pure exploitation that contradicts some of the morality claims I see in discussions on Singapore. Especially how some in the comments will say they're pro immigrants, not racists, etc.

[sho]

I feel like you are not listening. These are not "immigrants", they are temporary foreign labourers who are flown in to do a job, do it, and leave. It is not "discrimination" that they are paid less - the fact that they are cheaper is the only conceivable reason for hiring them in the first place.

I see you're a security consultant. Here's a thought experiment for you. Say you have trouble getting work back home, but you hear that in Switzerland they have a shortage of security consultants and the going rate is $200/hr. You ring up a company there and offer to work - they say well your French isn't quite up to scratch so we can only offer you $100/hr. You say sure, they say OK here's a 6 month contract, you fly in, do the work, and fly out.

You are paid less than the natives. You are there because you can be paid less. You are benefiting from the trade, and so is Switzerland. You do not get to vote in Swiss elections. Are you being immorally exploited by racist discriminating Swiss? Of course not. It is a win/win situation and a fundamental component of foreign trade.

Economically, wealth has been created. Your home country is better off to the tune of $X when you bring home your fat stack of euros. Switzerland is happy too because it thinks it gained $2X worth of work. The world is better off because you were working productively instead of browsing reddit waiting for the phone to ring. This is why trade is good. Your labour was able to move from where it was not necessary, to where it was.

The foreign workers in Singapore are not being paid $100/hr, of course, but otherwise the situation is exactly the same.

Does that make sense?

[hellofunk]

There is indeed a strong race gap in the Singapore workforce, worse than the well-known gender gap in American pay equality. If you are on a work permit from the Philippines, for example, you will get paid far less than another in your department doing the same work from Western nations or a Singaporean local. This is a fact of life there that runs through all the industries. It is also quite common to see job postings in Singapore that only allow certain races to apply; these are more blue-collar jobs.

[kranner]

> It is also quite common to see job postings in Singapore that only allow certain races to apply; these are more blue-collar jobs.

There are also white-collar jobs which will code this as "fluency in Mandarin required", which means you'd better be ethnic Chinese if you want to be considered.

[hellofunk]

If it's because the job genuinely requires the language skills, you'll find that all around the world. But if they're using that to mask a desire for particular race, that's different. However, most Singaporeans are not qualified for this job since most are not actually fluent in Chinese.

[kranner]

I meant the latter. It's used to signal that an employer will prefer to hire an ethnic Chinese person. Another phrase used is "Chinese working environment".

There's some discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/3bp5ql/the_stupi...

[HKs81e0]

and what a discussion, it's a well known that the r/Singapore is one of the most toxic expat communities in the entire reddit, full of spite and jaded cynicism toward anything, from the government, to the city and even signs of blatantly racism toward Singaporeans.

a truly horribly sub.

[kranner]

They say exactly the same thing about r/India by the way, but that doesn't mean the facts under discussion are inaccurate.

[aaron-lebo]

Singapore is pretty commonly cited in political science for being a single-party authoritarian government which subsidizes its popularity.

See Acemoglu and Robinson. South Korea's success was driven through similar means but that government has liberalized much more than Singapore at this point.

[CyberDildonics]

> Could you cite some evidence for this? I don't see anything to that degree in wikipedia.

Maybe you should ask people who live there instead of thinking a wikipedia article is going to give you any insight.