[frenchieinsg]

I think the article gets (as most Western media does) one thing very wrong: the nature of the relationship between the citizen and their government. What singles out PAP is that throughout its existence, it has offered the citizen exactly what they want and has had overwhelming popular support as a result. It certainly is not the dictatorship that is so often painted abroad (because, how else could you explain the same party getting re-elected over and over again? Surely LKY = Pinochet?). It is definitely not popular because it bribes its citizen with free stuff taken from other citizen ("a paternalistic government ensures people's basic needs -- housing, education, security -- in return for almost reverential deference") - if anything, most of the complaints I hear from Singaporeans complain about the LACK of free stuff.

The distinguishing feature of the Singaporean government is that it is immensely trusted by its citizen and foreign residents alike. This was an open selling point of PAP from its inception, symbolically represented in their white uniforms signifying that this administration would not be corrupted, and is a theme that LKY for example has brought up over and over again in his writings and speeches (and was a major reason for me to move here from Europe, where government officials are often considered, including by the citizenry, as above the law - cf Francois Mitterrand's taxpayer-funded secret family). I think of LKY's efforts to keep PAP clean and respectful of individual rights are much more important and significant than his more publicized efforts to make Singapore an attractive business destination (which after all has also been done elsewhere, from Dubai to the Chinese Special Economic Zones). It is telling that he was also conscious of things like externalities; Friedman-inspired Chile had polluted rivers and crowded roads whilst Singapore introduced market mechanisms to limit the impact of these things on citizen ("wa lao, COE so expensive lor"). The rule of law extends to all residents and applies uniformly; I am always somewhat surprised to see Americans criticize what they perceive as "unfair" working conditions for Filipino maids or Bengali construction workers, who are here on a well structured agreement and protected by Singaporean courts during their legal stay, whilst their economy is propped up by illegal immigrants always looking over his shoulder for the heavy handed "la migra".

This is in stark contrast with many other countries that value individual rights, they will usually assume that government agents need to be restrained from having the means of committing rights infringement and that a small state is the only way to achieve durable rights protection (e.g. Switzerland, which has what is probably the weakest Federal government in the world, or the US prior to FDR or even, philosophically, Hamilton). PAP is powerful because the citizen like what it has to offer and its track record has (so far) matched its sales pitch; as such it has more leeway than most governments (where the electorate prefers to operate with the assumption of "before you let this administration do this, imagine what the administration in 4 elections will do with it").

From a foreigner perspective, it's more helpful to view Singapore as a sort of shopping mall (it is usually compared to a corporation) rather than a nation state. It offers a certain package including the protection of your rights, but has more restrictive laws than is typical for rights-protecting nation states, just like a mall might forbid smoking in its corridors even if the country in which it operates allows it - and these laws were not arbitrarily decided, but made by the elected representatives of the citizenry. The most extraordinary thing to me is that you, the resident or citizen, are treated like a customer, even if the service provider can be a little old fashioned, and businesses don't usually abuse their customers because their customers then leave. When is the last time a government agent smiled to you?

You can enter Singapore and do business in it if you are willing to abide by its rules, and in return you get exactly what you might want as, say, an entrepreneur or talent for hire: a comfortable, very safe environment, low (in my view, "normal") taxes that are spent fairly efficiently, very low amounts of red tape (particularly when it comes to visa policy, although 2014 has been rocky on that front) and durable protection of your property rights regardless of who you are. The fact is, just as currency manipulation is impossible in a country that has to import everything, if the state of affairs were to change, a lot of us would just pack our suitcases, transfer our companies' assets somewhere else, and fly off to better climes. As far as I know, there are no better climes particularly for the (non-American) "everyman" who does not have a huge fortune to buy his way into another nice place. As for the article, its misrepresentation of the nature of the Singaporean government does make me question the accuracy of the rest.

[crdoconnor]

>What singles out PAP is that throughout its existence, it has offered the citizen exactly what they want and has had overwhelming popular support as a result.

While it is undoubtedly popular among a certain portion of its citizens, this is not the whole story. PAP is highly UNpopular among a lot of its citizens as well. Elections usually go 60/40 by the popular vote even though at best the opposition wins one or two constituencies. There's a huge number of disaffected people out there.

The US embassy wikileaks memo on the opposition kind of explains why:

https://wikileaks.org/cable/2004/10/04SINGAPORE3001.html

tl;dr:

* They have no real ideology other than "stay in power" (so can and do co-opt some opposition policies like 'increase class sizes' with ease).

* PAP have become absolute masters of divide and conquer. They pull a lot of tricks to prevent the opposition parties from uniting.

* They use legal means to quash the opposition - the most common being suing them into bankruptcy for libel.

* They have a stranglehold on the media with one or two exceptions (e.g. the notoriously crazy "The Real Singapore" website). The opposition has essentially no media presence on TV or in newspapers - only online.

Much as it irritates me the way that people describe the country as being a dictatorship, I find it equally irritating they deem many of the policies designed to cement the PAP's stranglehold on power as "pragmatic and necessary".

No, there's no real reason why Singaporeans couldn't enjoy equal rights similar to those of a Norwegian or an American (or at least, a pre-9/11 American). But, people are so used to the PAP and are kind of incapable of separating their fantastic policies (mercantilism / heavy investment in public infrastructure) from their corrupt ones (maintaining a stranglehold on the press/suing the opposition into oblivion).

[frenchieinsg]

Isn't government (even in a representative system) supposed to listen to the people? So why complain when they do (by adopting opposition policies that the people want)? [leaving aside the "within the constraints of respecting their rights" part] Why is it bad, per se, that a single party has been in charge without change?

Regarding libel, I'd much rather libel cases, than gag orders (e.g. Australia recently). From the limited amount of time I've looked into the issue, I don't see cases of blantent abuse of libel laws. Of course, the person getting sued and eventually bankrupted will have a major axe to grind (as per the Wikileaks link you link to), but are they a fair third party to take your opinion of the situation from? If 40% of the people disagree with PAP, why don't they help finance the defendant, instead of letting him go bankrupt?

Regarding a press strangehold, today, fewer and fewer people are reading physical papers. Plenty of sites - including Singapore Dissident, linked elsewhere - are available just fine on my home connection (maybe the government classified us as "ang moh" so we get better access?).

I'm not defending PAP for the sake of defending PAP. I'm just finding it hard to reconcile my observations with the criticisms of the country I hear over and over again.

[frenchieinsg]

As an example of the problem with rumours in the press, look at the candidacy of Herman Cain. The opposition (be that his own, or on the other side) dug up a few women who had a dubious story of sexual harassment (something the US public is sensitive to) and the press gladly ran with it. Cain's campaign was shot down in literally days. From the little I followed, the accusations turned out to be baseless, but it was too late for Cain. In Singapore, the fear of rapid libel suits with proportional damage would have kept the press from publishing without verifying facts. The original article, of course, makes sure to leave just enough words in the right place to paint a very different picture ("look at how they abuse the national defense theme").

[crdoconnor]

>In Singapore, the fear of rapid libel suits with proportional damage would have kept the press from publishing without verifying facts.

In Singapore a Herman Cain wouldn't exist in the first place and would probably be sued into oblivion for libel himself. He wouldn't get a radio show either.

I've not yet heard of anybody successfully suing the PAP or anybody within it for libel either.

[frenchieinsg]

In Singapore Herman Cain would be a PAP MP :P

I did see (in the Straights Times) a PAP politician about 1.5 years ago go down for having accepted sexual favours from the sales staff of a corporation in exchange for granting that corporation government contracts (I can't remember any names with which to google the case). I loved the fact that in Singapore, this behaviour is punished and government members are held accountable. In many Western countries (not to mention guanxi), it's the accepted means of doing business. Let's not even get into what happened with US defense contracts in the last 10 years...

In my experience, all government officials I have known have been professional, rational people with great values, imbued by a sense of mission conspicuously absent from the civil servants I have known in other countries (who fit the "House of Cards"/"Yes Minister" profile more closely). I guess we'll know in 50 years when archives get declassified.

At the end of the day, we can't know what the opportunity cost of having all the talented politicians join PAP for career reasons is, simply because there is no equivalent anywhere in the world. Other small nations either do not have a strong Federal government (Switzerland), have a strong multi party system (Israel) or are controlled by outside interests (Hong Kong)...

[crdoconnor]

>I did see (in the Straights Times) a PAP politician about 1.5 years ago go down for having accepted sexual favours from the sales staff of a corporation in exchange for granting that corporation government contracts (I can't remember any names with which to google the case). I loved the fact that in Singapore, this behaviour is punished and government members are held accountable. In many Western countries (not to mention guanxi), it's the accepted means of doing business. Let's not even get into what happened with US defense contracts in the last 10 years...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Yamamah_arms_deal

"In 2010, BAE Systems pled guilty to a United States court, to charges of false accounting and making misleading statements in connection with the sales."

The China, the West and Singapore all enforce rulings against corruption sometimes... and sometimes not. I don't think you'll see any of the corrupt Indonesians who stash their money here get prosecuted for instance. They're even better protected by the financial secrecy laws than oligarchs in London are.

>In my experience, all government officials I have known have been professional, rational people with great values, imbued by a sense of mission conspicuously absent from the civil servants I have known in other countries (who fit the "House of Cards"/"Yes Minister" profile more closely).

Basically because they pay better here. That's good in some ways. In other "yes minister" countries they actually supply a state pension to poor people over the age of 65 instead of forcing them to scrape shit out of a food court toilet in the last pathetic years of their lives.

It's a country of polar opposites. The greatness of the country depends entirely upon your position in its class system, though. Based upon all of your answers, I'd say you're pretty far up, and believe me, I can well understand why you love it here.

[crdoconnor]

>Isn't government (even in a representative system) supposed to listen to the people? So why complain when they do (by adopting opposition policies that the people want)?

1) Even if they do, they should give credit where credit is due. They pretended the larger class sizes was entirely their idea. Maybe the opposition should have sued for libel ha ha ha.

2) There are some HIGHLY popular policies that they won't copy, and they are using their power to quash (e.g. minimum wage). This isn't because their ideology prohibits it. It's simply because they are greedy.

>Why is it bad, per se, that a single party has been in charge without change?

"Per se" it isn't. That's not the point.

>Regarding libel, I'd much rather libel cases, than gag orders

And I'd rather have libel than extra-judicial murder. That's not the point. If you want to argue that Singapore is a free and fair democracy the libel abuse has to go. YESTERDAY.

>I don't see cases of blantent abuse of libel laws.

There is one going on right now. A guy who blogged about financial impropriety is being sued personally by the prime minister. Assuming the allegations were true, he will still lose simply because proving the allegations true would require 10-50x more than he has in his legal fund.

Are the allegations true or false? We will never know. I guarantee it. No use pretending that we will. The court case certainly won't be illuminating.

Again: we can't pretend it's a free and fair democracy if they do this, and they do this CONSTANTLY.

>If 40% of the people disagree with PAP, why don't they help finance the defendant, instead of letting him go bankrupt?

Good luck with that!

Again: we can't pretend it's a free and fair democracy until they do sufficiently finance the defendant and they won't. Not now. Not ever. Not while the PAP is in charge.

>Regarding a press strangehold, today, fewer and fewer people are reading physical papers.

Could have fooled me. I see tons of people with the Straits times. They also watch television.

>Plenty of sites - including Singapore Dissident, linked elsewhere - are available just fine on my home connection

Yes, these things exist. I already mentioned this somewhere. They're the only media the opposition really has - and it's poorly funded and badly run and the government is trying to gain more and more control over them too (you heard of the recent blogging laws I presume?).

>I'm not defending PAP for the sake of defending PAP. I'm just finding it hard to reconcile my observations with the criticisms of the country I hear over and over again

Which of my criticisms do you find hard to reconcile?

I live here too remember. I find it easy to reconcile.

[frenchieinsg]

On 1) I would argue that the government in power adopting good policies from the opposition is what they should be doing anyway, provided it fits within the framework of their ideas (and larger class sizes appears to be an implementation, not ideological issue). Whether they claim credit or not is not something I care much about, since the wellbeing of political careers is not my problem.

On 2), having read quite a bit by LKY, I consider policies like minimum wage to be ideologically against what PAP stands for (or what Singapore has become). Minimum wage is a rights infringement, in that it impedes consenting individuals from forming contracts at terms deemed "illegal". It's been catastrophic in most countries it has been tried, although it's now so well accepted in the West that nobody thinks of criticizing it anymore.

For example, I remember Milton Friedman commenting on how minimum wage had artificially restricted the number of fast food jobs available to unskilled teenagers, causing whites to be disproportionately hired over blacks, causing higher black unemployment amongst the working class.

Minimum wage policy is being continuously introduced and voted down with over 70% of the popular vote in Switzerland, where a waitress at a cafe can easily make 6k CHF/month thanks to market forces.

The issue of course is that PAP can't outright say that its policy is often inspired by the Founding Fathers (although I saw at least one LKY speech quoting the US Constitution) but part of why I moved, was that it was pretty clear what ideological lines the country followed.

I find it hard to reconcile the criticism of the government as being corrupt, with the utter lack of actual evidence of, say, government contracts landing in the Lee family's pockets (if anything, Temasek seems to acquire companies AFTER they become successful, which is what you'd want them to do as a "shareholder"), or libel cases being judged immediately against a valid case for political reasons. It seems to me, considering the number of exiled Marxist lawyers, that if such evidence was around it would be well publicized and easy to find. (and reading the Wikipedia article, again on my home connection, completely unimpeded by government censorship, I see that he did raise $110,000 in legal fund aid to carry the case to completion).

The blogger case for example: * Narrative 1: blogger discovers great financial impropriety, attempts to bring it to light, gets sued to bankrupcy and fired as a result of government pressure. * Narrative 2: hospital employee uses company time and assets to blog during work hours (which is against his contract), gets fired as a result, independently of what he has discovered. Court digs, finds allegations to be untrue (and everything I've read seems to point at Roy Ngerng faking his data to make a point), finds against the chap, who continues to fight a PR battle against PAP nevertheless, playing on people's tendency to side with the underdog, particularly one fighting the billionaire son of Goliath.

How do you pick a side?

Where is the evidence? Where are the hard facts? That's all I ask for. Until then, I subscribe to the very American concept of innocent until proven guilty.

[crdoconnor]

>Whether they claim credit or not is not something I care much about, since the wellbeing of political careers is not my problem.

The question is not whether you support the wellbeing of others' political careers, it is whether you support the efforts to squash all opposition to the hegemony via legal means or otherwise.

I am frankly not comfortable with the PAP holding so much power, this is why I consider it my problem. The more they manage to destroy the opposition with tactics like these the more they can operate with impunity. Impunity means they don't HAVE to listen to the opposition at all - something apparently you like.

>having read quite a bit by LKY, I consider policies like minimum wage to be ideologically against what PAP stands for (or what Singapore has become).

It's not especially. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them implement it at some point if the cries become loud enough.

If you truly have read a lot of LKY then you should know that he puts pragmatism above all else.

>Minimum wage is a rights infringement, in that it impedes consenting individuals from forming contracts at terms deemed "illegal".

Libertarianism (20th/21st century) is kind of stupid and every privileged young white guy should probably grow out of it by their mid 20s. The unethical AXIOMATIC heart of its ideology is that "strong property rights" matter more than poverty. It's a corrupt justification for the abuse of the rich and powerful in other words.

>It's been catastrophic in most countries it has been tried

I don't know if this could be a more absurd statement. It's only 'catastrophic' for profit margins of companies that take advantage of people teetering on the edge of poverty. The economic incidence falls almost entirely on them (even the effect on inflation is very tempered, and unemployment almost never goes up).

>For example, I remember Milton Friedman

An absolute joke of an economist, who thought that you could control employment and inflation through interest rates (proven utterly and totally 100% wrong sine 2008).

>commenting on how minimum wage had artificially restricted the number of fast food jobs available to unskilled teenagers, causing whites to be disproportionately hired over blacks, causing higher black unemployment amongst the working class.

I'm always kind of wary about when rich, privileged white guys tell the unprivileged underclasses what's good for them. Especially when the empirical evidence for their claims is light.

There's been plenty of empirical research that demonstrates the effect on job losses is negligible and a lot of hot air by apologist for the corporate/oligarch classes' whose profit margins depend upon a low/non-existent minimum wage still claiming that it's all wrong. Lies.

>Minimum wage policy is being continuously introduced and voted down with over 70% of the popular vote in Switzerland

The minimum wage introduced that got voted down would have been THE highest in the world.

>where a waitress at a cafe can easily make 6k CHF/month thanks to market forces.

Or because of the same trade unions that actually got the vote for the $25 minimum wage introduced in the first place.

>The issue of course is that PAP can't outright say that its policy is often inspired by the Founding Fathers

They draw inspiration from all over the place, but the only real ideology they have is pragmatism. They hardly paid much attention to the 1st, 2nd or 4th amendments to the constitution did they?

>I find it hard to reconcile the criticism of the government as being corrupt, with the utter lack of actual evidence of, say, government contracts landing in the Lee family's pockets

Why would he do that when he can just pay himself the highest prime ministerial salary in the world?

What evidence there is (I believe there are bits and pieces, but from relatively unreliable sources) gets squashed more often than elsewhere because there's no free media and if you breathe a word of it without cast iron proof you will generally be sued into bankruptcy. Who is therefore going to dig for impropriety? Nobody.

So, even if he WERE corrupt as hell, I doubt we'd hear about it. The stranglehold on information is too tight.

LKY's son is prime minister now, too. If that doesn't scream nepotism, I don't know what does.

>(if anything, Temasek seems to acquire companies AFTER they become successful, which is what you'd want them to do as a "shareholder"),

Yeah, but pay attention to who they put on the board and what salaries they are paid.

>(and reading the Wikipedia article, again on my home connection, completely unimpeded by government censorship, I see that he did raise $110,000 in legal fund aid to carry the case to completion).

Gosh, you don't live in China. How wonderful.

Yes, he raised $100k. Not enough to prove high level corruption. Not even close. Know how much a good forensic accountant is worth? Know how much of their time you'd need? I'd estimate probably at least 2 good ones for one or two years for a case like this to have a shot at making a good case. I'd expect bureaucratic stonewalling even then.

>Court digs, finds allegations to be untrue

Court DIGS? I really don't think so. Court does what court is ordered if court knows what's best for it.

>How do you pick a side?

I haven't picked a side. You can't pick a side on this case. It's like like being asked to pick a side in a murder case in the middle ages where all of the evidence is hearsay. Any third party who claims to know which side is lying and which side isn't is lying themselves.

I SUSPECT that this allegation might be false simply because it's an allegation where the PM decided to use the nuclear option. It's a good tactic to scare anybody else with evidence into shutting up if occasionally you pick off somebody who did make an unprovable false accusation. I don't really know though. Even if he didn't, the chances of the case going his way are nil.

I'm saying that if the court case is to be at all meaningful then the defence fund needs to be charged up to at least $4-5 million dollars before we can be convinced that the trial was fair, because PROVING financial impropriety at that level (which is what he is being asked to do) IS ACTUALLY that expensive.

If they don't do that (and they won't) then it's a sham trial. End. of. story.

>Where is the evidence? Where are the hard facts? That's all I ask for.

Here's the thing: you're NOT asking for that. You're offering up a weak apology for the ruling party who intentionally created a rigged court case.

The US does this too, of course. Plenty of people are charged with a crime and have their assets confiscated, meaning that they can't put up a meaningful legal defense. It's one of many ways the state abuses its power.

[frenchieinsg]

Regarding the ad hominem: I emphatically disagree. Here's 2 libertarian countries, 1 social-democrat Western country, and 3 local emerging markets for flavour (pasting full link since I've read HN doesn't like URL shorteners): https://www.google.com.sg/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f...

It's even more dramatic if you log scale it: one little island somehow raises itself from one group to the next (and avoids the dramatic rise and crash typical of a FDI bubble). But I'm not going to debate libertarianism (or Objectivism) vs social-democracy vs whatever else, or any economics, because that leads absolutely nowhere and each side is firmly convinced they are right, based on facts and their value system, other than to say "white young men grow out of it in their 20s" strikes me as a poor argument (as are all ad hominem). FWIW, I also don't buy the "check your privilege" line. I've already put on my "trade", my money where my mouth is, by moving to Singapore.

High civil service salaries are a demonstrated way to avoid corruption by raising its economic cost to prohibitive levels, in emerging markets, and to attract the best talent, in developed countries. You can disagree, you probably will - Thatcher was a fan, and I a fan of hers. I also belong firmly in the camp that would rather hire an exceptional developer for $600k/year than 6 average ones for $100k/year, for the same reasons (the cost of a bad hire is exponentially higher than the money spent).

Regarding LKY's pragmatism, sure, that's what he preached and wrote about. 40 years of action shows a certain alignment with perhaps Jefferson or Patrick Henry, that few politicians today have had the balls to so systematically copy. Whether he derived it himself from "pragmatism" or (more likely) read up on history and watched the world, drew his own conclusions and then carefully avoided ad hominems by creating his own brand of politics doesn't matter to me - I see a 40 year track record and it is good - that PAP is systematically blocking attempts at creating a minimum wage is one more data point.

In fact, this track record leads me to rethink my view of government. Overwhelming global historical evidence tells you not to trust government and to keep it small. But Singapore's story flies in the face of this.

Regarding the CPF case, only time will tell. It's not something that keeps me awake at night. FWIW I think PM Lee ought to have accepted the small damages, strategically (as the blogger would then have publicly admitted not having evidence), but I understand his being more than a little annoyed at being accused of corruption, if it was unwarranted.

It seems to be the only evidence of impropriety brought forward, and I disagree with you that other evidence could meaningfully "just disappear" in the 21st century. Why did nothing surface on Wikileaks except that fairly mild assessment of the opposition? The US government has the means for "forensic accounting" as you call it. Why aren't the exiled (and perfectly free and ressourceful) Singaporean opponents finding things out? One option is that the ISD is extraordinarily good, the other option is that there's nothing to find out because well paid and competent civil servants see no point in cheating when it is more profitable to be honest in a system designed that way.

I do agree with you on one thing: we don't know where or how this will end. My experience has been (although it is Western) that it is incredibly hard for second or third generation wealth to maintain the same quality of thinking that the dynasty creator had. The problem is thus whether LKY has been able to create a legacy that will outlive him and his family (in which case Singapore has great days ahead) or whether the island will finish like Venice, with its ruling class making it increasingly difficult for entrepreneurs and those not born within it, walling off the moat, enjoying a few decades of decline and toasting the fall with overtaxed Dom. Very, very few emerging markets actually emerge, statistically, and for good reasons (cf Robinson/Acemoglu, although you might disagree).