Thoughts on Singapore

In Singapore, the core cultural and the operational principles are pragmatic, but the form of political organization is authoritarian. Therefore free market principles are embedded within a heavily centralized form of political organization, which is socialist in some respects and liberal in others.

The political economy is market and externally driven. The constellated organization of social and political institutions are centrally controlled, bound together by developmental imperatives and social compacts grounded in culturally-sourced perspectives - pragmatism over ideals, merit over participation, and the emphasis of the individual in private over public spheres. The social system has been particularly effective in establishing merit over social class in the determination of social mobility.

The moral authority of the state remains absolute and unquestioned, as the state remains the vanguard; it determines the identity of the nation; which is constitutively pluralist, syncretic and porous to external influence - a major virtue in an open port city with a large migrant population.

Social control is exercised through a variety of state mechanisms backed by legislature and force; including the education system, national service, the mainstream media and civil rules against public disorder. This is backed by social norms which are in alignment with democracy-negating principles, which exist in a mutually conditioning relationship with the state.

The success of subtler forms of control open the space for greater freedoms within the boundary conditions established by the functioning of the state. There is freedom of movement; economic freedom; freedom of religion; freedom for political debate within non-ideological parameters; and positive freedoms of access to services and excellent public goods delivered by a clean and competent state.

What is traded off, then, is the flourishing of the individual in public life, as well as the celebration of individual initiative and inventiveness in the broader social and cultural life of the country - the concept of a society in collaboration with the advancement of human frontiers through an expanding life.