This entry is really a response to one of the comments on my very first post, posted by Angelina. It resulted in a very interesting exchange between Angelina and Contempleteur and for those who are interested in this, just go through the comments. Angelina’s original questions are in bold.
Angelina and Contempleteur, I don’t know who you are (I’ve realized you’ve both used dummy email addresses), but I appreciate your ideas nonetheless and figured it merited a proper post:
Dear Angelina and Contempleteur,
I’m really enjoying the exchange. Angelina, it was mid-morning on a working day when I last checked this site to upload my second article, and I did not think I could do justice to your email in the midst of the short break I was taking, especially since I needed to check the proper context of some of the issues you raised. However, I need no further invitation/ provocation to dive in, so here goes 
Politics:
1. Do you have any comment on Mr Goh Chok Tong’s statement that ‘Anug Sang Su Kyi is part of the problem’ in Myanmar?
1. Any person who has made the kind of sacrifices Aung Sang Su Kyi has made deserves both respect and sympathy. In my lifetime, other leaders such as Nelson Mandela, Megawati Sukarnoputri and Benazir Bhutto have had similar sacrifices, and at various points in their career, would have attracted similar sentiments.
2. The quote above, attributed to SM Goh, is therefore likely to infuriate any reader. However, true intellectual honesty requires taking any statement in its full context. It is important to understand what the person is actually saying before you choose to agree or disagree.
3. I found the following report on the PMO website which provided some context for what I suspect is SM Goh’s actual view on the issue (rather than one sentence out of context): http://www.pmo.gov.sg/News/Transcripts/Senior+Minister/Views+of+Asia+Middle+East+must+change+SM.htm
4. The actual point he was making on reconciliation appears to be that he thinks the military and Aung San Suu Kyi need to come together to arrive at a sensible plan to move forward and both are a necessary part of the solution. A refusal to engage by either party is unhelpful to the process.
5. Personally, I am in favour of a gradual transition of power myself, and the only way I can see this happening is if Aung San Suu Kyi and the military manage to find some common ground to make it happen. In order to do so, stubbornness and intransigence are often unhelpful. In negotiations, it is usually better to find something the people on the other side of the table need and to offer it to them – this appears to SM Goh’s main point.
6. The next question is what position Singapore, as a foreign ASEAN country should take in relation to Myanmar. Generally, if one is interested in assisting countries transition to democracy, I am extremely sceptical of the effectiveness of sanctions and international condemnation. It may make us feel good to condemn what we perceive as the ill practices of our neighbours, but this often just forces the rulers of the said country to dig in their heels and hold on to their positions, shutting out the rest of the world. The isolation from the rest of the world often assists the said rulers. Apart from Myanmar, the isolation of North Korea, Cuba and Iran from the international community has generally resulted in immense suffering for the people of those countries with little impact on the power of the rulers.
7. In contrast, changes, both major and minor have taken place in the outlook of various countries as a result of being welcomed into the international community. Reagan, Thatcher and Gorbachev reached across the iron curtain to end the cold war, and this process eventually triggered the democratization of the USSR and led to the ideological victory of the capitalism/ democracy. Nixon first opened the doors to China in the early 1970s, a process that slowly saw China integrate itself into and become a major player in the world community, with its people enjoying greater prosperity than they would have dreamed possible 20 years ago. The independence of India came about not only because of Gandhi’s civil disobedience, but also because he was prepared to sit with the colonial masters and negotiate terms. The example of South Africa is one that you and Contemplateur have discussed – suffice it to say that whatever the relative bargaining powers of the parties concerned, there was substantial dialogue between Mandela and De Klerk, at which both made compromises to assist the eventual transition of power.
8. Myanmar is inching closer and closer to democracy. I am looking forward to the upcoming elections and hope that it will mark the beginning of a new era. However, the transition is a delicate process and it is my deepest hope that both the military and Aung San Suu Kyi and her party would be part of this process.
2. Can we call our Govt ‘democratically elected’ if more & more MPs are nominated instead of being elected by the people?
9. Democracy takes a great many different forms in various countries. I think the key point about the UK and the US is that some of the people who make up the government may have no direct mandate from the people. This includes the key cabinet members in the US, and in the UK, the entire upper house of Parliament (the House of Lords).
10. However, in both these countries, the majority of representatives are required to stand for elections and most of the law makers were therefore elected. The same is true for Singapore. I believe that each country’s own style of democracy is often a result of its own unique history and no two countries are identical.
3. How can GRC help improve the Governance of Spore?
11. Personally, I am not sure of the extent to which Singaporeans would vote on racial or religious lines, but I am extremely sensitive to the fact that if minorities are not represented in Parliament, there is a potential risk that issues specific or unique to their communities may not get heard.
12. One danger of democracy is the ‘tyranny of the majority’. Most people forget that Hitler was originally elected to power democratically, and in a few short years, managed to carry out the most gruesome policies ever on a minority race that had been living in the country for hundreds of years. All it took was the intolerance of one charismatic individual to change a relatively peaceful co-existence that had prevailed for centuries.
13. The GRC system, in a sense, is one way to ensure that Parliament will always have some minority voices.
4. How do we get to hear oppositions’ voice if our mainstream news media are all for ‘nation-building’ (as in telling only nice stories while burying the bad)?
14. I am not entirely sure how fair these stereotypes of the Straits Times are. Quite apart from the Temasek and GIC losses, the Straits Times pulls no punches in its review of MPs, and includes interviews and quotes from opposition members. It also gives air time to individuals who wish to raise civil issues and I understand there was a fairly full coverage of websites such as TOC (the team which runs this includes a Worker’s Party member).
Economics
1. Is Economics directly correlational to quality of life of the general population of Singapore? if not, why the bother?
15. One needs to understand economic growth in its proper perspective. Developed countries may grow their GDP at 1 – 2 % a year. Developing countries on the right track may grow at figures north of 8% a year. The reality is that people feel these changes slowly, even if one if growing at the fastest rate. Your life does not get better overnight, but over the course of a few decades, if growth is steady, you will see a marked difference.
16. My guess is that if most people speak to their parents and grandparents, they will find their lives are greatly better than what it used to be in the generation before ours. I remember stories told by my parents when they were growing up in the 1950s and 1960s. Many people lived in kampongs without proper running water, electricity or sewerage facilities. Flooding was common as there was no proper drainage. Many of the parents of the children of their generation had little formal education and not everyone could read or write.
17. In our generation, most people live in HDB flats with all the basic amenities available. Most people have a basic education, and a much larger proportion have tertiary education. We face a different set of problems, but as to whether the quality life has improved as a result of sound economic management, I think the answer is a resounding ‘yes’.
2. Is it sustainable for Spore to depend largely on foreign investment, with no trading off?
18. I’m not sure about whether Singapore depends ‘largely’ on foreign investment, nor do I understand what you mean by ‘trading off’. However, I agree foreign investment has played and ought to continue to play an important part in Singapore’s development.
19. The reality about economic cycles is that as time passes, businesses and industries rise and fall. For example, 50 years ago, aviation and automobiles were young growth industries and companies such as General Motors and Ford were growing companies. Now, these same companies are on the brink of bankruptcy but new companies such as Microsoft in the 1980s and 1990s and Google in this decade are rising stars.
20. The question for Singapore is what we do in relation to the inevitable booms and busts of capitalism. As old businesses become obsolete or die out, it will be vital for us to continue to attract enough new work for our people, and it will not be possible to develop this purely organically. With our small population, it will be impossible for us to continuously develop successful new industries from scratch – the law of probability is against us. In large countries like the US, for every company that makes it like Google, there are likely to be numerous failures – but they have a large enough population that they can afford these failures. Singapore does not have that luxury.
21. However, with a generally well educated population, it would be possible for Singapore to provide the necessary support for international businesses looking for expansion. Thus, as capitalism brings new businesses to the fold to replace old ones, we can provide these new businesses with a skilful, educated and hardworking population to assist in their expansion. In so doing, we provide Singaporeans with jobs that will help them maintain and hopefully improve the standard of living they have become accustomed to.
Q3. Is it good for our economics to have state owned businesses?
22. The concept of a state-owned business, in so far as it harkens to the socialist days of Europe and the Communist bloc in the Soviet Union, naturally brings to mind ideas of inefficiency and general economic decline. However, I think there is a fundamental difference between a ‘state-owned’ and a ‘state-operated’ business.
23. The situation today is a very different one from the old communist bloc days. The governments of many countries, including Singapore, China, Dubai and Malaysia, have formed companies to manage the funds of the State. In this regard, it is becoming increasingly common for sovereign wealth funds of these countries to own stakes in various companies. It is also common for sovereign wealth funds to invest more heavily in their own countries because they understand these businesses better – any investor would do that, including Warren Buffet.
24. One important difference is that when the State is an investor, through a sovereign wealth fund, it is just like any other shareholder. It holds the management of the companies in question to account like any other shareholder. If they do not perform, they can be asked to leave. In this sense, the state, as investor in a business, plays a wholly different role from the state as the operator of business, which was under socialism/ communism. The focus on profits, at least I the state is an intelligent investor, should remain notwithstanding that it owns a large stake in the business.
On Social issues:
Q1. Who should help look after the disabled, the ill, the pensionless elderly widow and the orphaned in society?
25. I agree with Contempleteur that the family is one of the most important building block of society and should be the first port of call for anyone in distress. Having said that, the State should also provide a safety net for those who are truly in need.
26. This is a tough balance because an overly generous welfare system would result in abuse. In many parts of Europe, there is an extremely generous welfare system, and although this has been cut back over the years, it still remains. For example, I have heard of university students who are able to claim unemployment benefits during their summer holidays, as long as they claim to be looking for a job, then use the proceeds to go for holidays. The taxpayer suffers for this and pays income taxes that are more than 2 to 3 times what would their counterparts in Singapore would pay. This is in addition to sales taxes which could be more than double our GST.
27. I think in Singapore, the idea is to consider all those who are truly needy on a case by case basis. The aim seems to be to provide people with enough support to meet their daily needs, but not so much that it takes away the incentive to work. Of course, if the person has no capacity to work (which may be the case for the examples you have picked above), then the benefits tend to be more generous.
2. Is it good for mothers of very young children to have fulltime work and leave the care of their young to non-professional minders who are not even required to pass basic first aid?
28. This is a decision every mother faces, not only in Singapore, but across the world. In Singapore, just as in UK, US and Europe, it is possible to get professional trained minders, but this is usually prohibitively expensive. The more common result is for women in all these countries to take a less demanding job and spend more time with the family.
29. I should add that I am also one of those men who sees no reason the woman should bear the entire burden for raising children, and thinks there should be no issue if, in a particular case, we have a house-husband rather than a house-wife. However, the reality is that in most cases, it is the woman that makes this choice.
30. In Singapore, the availability of domestic help gives women more options. Personally, I would not want to leave my children purely under the care of domestic helpers alone, but if, for example, retired grandparents are around to assist, this may in fact be quite a practical solution that permits the woman to pursue her full time job. My own mother was working full time the whole time I was growing up, but happily, my grandparents were often around to take care of me while my parents were out.
31. Personally, this is a decision every family should be free to make on its own. I’m not sure this is a matter for state involvement or legislation.
Anyway – that’s my two cents
Cheers,
Vikram
Vikram Nair is a lawyer specializing in Dispute Resolution, particularly International Arbitration. He has a keen interest in law, politics, philosophy, economics, business and finance and enjoys all forms of debate and discussion. He understands that there is often more than one view on most difficult issues and likes to keep his mind wide open.