| Just because a nation 'has laws' does not mean they are implemented well, or effective. Singapore had Colonial 'laws' 'order' and 'policy' and what amounted to national strategy that worked well within their context as I pointed out in my first sentence: good commercial law in a sea of chaos. Also, they were a 'fresh slate' without historical ethnic groups, political causes, large swaths of poor, under-performing industries to be subsidized. They can focus on the 'high surplus' activities and leave everyone else to worry about the other things. Much like if Manhattan were to 'separate' from the US, kick out the poor people, and still control 65% of US banking activity - Manhattan would be much richer and the US somewhat poorer. They could bring in poor worker / non-citizens from upstate NY etc. and keep social costs externalized. 'Any state' cold 'copy' the Singapore model, yes, and the results would be they would probably be 'much better' (if they came from a bad starting point) but not as good as Singapore because of their strategic placement. If India were to be as efficiently run as Singapore, they would all be 25x wealthier just as a matter of efficient organization. But it'd be impossible to 'copy' the model because of historical, legacy political forces, every group and party wanting their supposed piece of the pie. And of course, 'efficient organization' is one thing, but without some kind of strategic industrial advantage, it's a bit harder. Of course, India could focus on being the 'IT / Software' power house of the world, and if they did that, then backed by efficient organization, they would be a 'rich' country. Canada, Australia and New Zealand are 'clean slate' (mostly) colonies with an effective colonial bureaucracy, and at least some advantage of natural resources, and they are rich. And FYI if every nation surrounding Singapore did adopt their model of governance, Singapore would be much less important in the equation, much like if the 'Rest of China' became as trustworthy, consistent and fair minded as Hong Kong ... then Hong Kong would lose much of it's advantage. |