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For some arbitrary definition of "successful," strictly enforced by said authoritarian regime. Singapore has money, but it's not a shining example of human achi

For some arbitrary definition of "successful," strictly enforced by said authoritarian regime. Singapore has money, but it's not a shining example of human achievement. It's an example of brutality and rigid rules wielded effectively to manage a population. Their social ills can't be criticized - Hanging people for drug use or possession, indefinite detention and torture for political speech, and the money, corruption, and sex trafficking amongst the elite for starters. If they evolve to a more free, liberty and democracy focused society, they'll likely lose much of their wealth generating advantage. A non trivial portion of the money flowing through Singapore depends on groups and individuals involved in global cartels, and anti corruption laws effectively enforced would unveil a lot of shady dealings.

dustintrex 5y ago
The beauty of Singapore's economic model is that, like Canada and Australia, it's place for people to park ill-gotten wealth obtained elsewhere. So Singapore can stay squeaky-clean as long as it doesn't ask too many questions. As for "indefinite detention and torture for political speech", Singapore stopped resorting to this in the 1980s, bankrupting people with defamation suits is much more effective.
- hestefisk 5y ago
  How is this similar to Canada or Australia? Agree SG is a tax haven but it’s more like Hong Kong or Dubai.
  - dustintrex 5y ago
    A lot of the property investment in all three is fueled by highly dubious wealth.
noduerme 5y ago
I couldn't have said it better. The only thing to admire about the model is its ruthless willingness to suppress anything and anyone that could pose a challenge to it. Maybe that's necessary if you were a small-time dictator like LKY, trying to hold a tiny piece of territory. Good for him. It's the strategy in Civ games where you spend nothing on an army and make lots of alliances and just build stuff; it also requires executing a lot of people and being a dreaded dick. I won't step foot in Singapore or give it a cent of my money unless I have to change flights there. Nice little dictatorship, not a bad job if you can keep it. But it's disgusting to hear Westerners enamored with it as if it were some kind of utopia. These are the same people who party in Dubai doing things they could get garrotted for and then criticize Israel (a democracy with free speech protections). Makes you wonder what exactly turns them on so much about autocratic regimes.
mytailorisrich 5y ago
It's not an arbitrary definition of "successful". Singapore is a prosperous city with a well-fed, well-housed, educated, healthy population. These are all key development and quality of life metrics and are indeed a good example "human achievement". Of course we can debate what role the authoritarian nature of their system played in that, if any. We may tend to see things through a "1st world problems" prism, but when the people start with nothing, starving in a shack (which is still the life of many people on this planet) the metrics I mentioned are infinitely more important than the death penalty for drug trafficking (which is hardly a massive issue in any case).
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  Gangsters legitimizing their money, and a society willing to whore itself out to profit off of it, tarnishes any overall definition of "successful" you can apply to Singapore. They're much like Saudi Arabia, which is also very successful financially, with a fairly high quality of life. In both cases, the injustices and degradation of liberty is more important to my view of what a successful society looks like. They're an ethical Potemkin village, keeping the "dirty"things from which they profit a few degrees of separation from their ostensibly clean financial dynamo. Singapore, on the surface of things, almost has things right. The problems arise when you look past to the superficial goods into the overall social functioning - there's some really dark evil with deep ties to Singapore. Also, to make things clear, the US has its fair share of problems like this. Notably, the war on drugs and the cartels enabled by our failed policies are an absolute travesty. The advantage of liberalizing speech is the ability of a society to continually evolve toward the improvement of human wellbeing. When societies suppress speech, that's a telltale signal that those in power are engaged in shady business they don't want the peasants to squawk about. All that said, Singapore is a remarkably civilized and pleasant place to visit - I just wouldn't want to live there. If it gets held to account through revolution or civil breakdown, its failure mode will be spectacular.
  - lotusmars 5y ago
    Europe is choke full of Russian or Ukrainian criminal money: mafia, oligarchs, police, prosectutors all launder their money to Montenegro hotel property and Italian villas. Corruption is rampant in Europe. It's only layman's money will be AML'd. Real crime will easily find a way around it. At least Singapore and Dubai allow money to be laundered officially.

dustintrex 5y ago

The beauty of Singapore's economic model is that, like Canada and Australia, it's place for people to park ill-gotten wealth obtained elsewhere. So Singapore can stay squeaky-clean as long as it doesn't ask too many questions. As for "indefinite detention and torture for political speech", Singapore stopped resorting to this in the 1980s, bankrupting people with defamation suits is much more effective.

hestefisk 5y ago
How is this similar to Canada or Australia? Agree SG is a tax haven but it’s more like Hong Kong or Dubai.
- dustintrex 5y ago
  A lot of the property investment in all three is fueled by highly dubious wealth.

noduerme 5y ago

I couldn't have said it better. The only thing to admire about the model is its ruthless willingness to suppress anything and anyone that could pose a challenge to it. Maybe that's necessary if you were a small-time dictator like LKY, trying to hold a tiny piece of territory. Good for him. It's the strategy in Civ games where you spend nothing on an army and make lots of alliances and just build stuff; it also requires executing a lot of people and being a dreaded dick. I won't step foot in Singapore or give it a cent of my money unless I have to change flights there. Nice little dictatorship, not a bad job if you can keep it. But it's disgusting to hear Westerners enamored with it as if it were some kind of utopia. These are the same people who party in Dubai doing things they could get garrotted for and then criticize Israel (a democracy with free speech protections). Makes you wonder what exactly turns them on so much about autocratic regimes.

mytailorisrich 5y ago

It's not an arbitrary definition of "successful". Singapore is a prosperous city with a well-fed, well-housed, educated, healthy population. These are all key development and quality of life metrics and are indeed a good example "human achievement". Of course we can debate what role the authoritarian nature of their system played in that, if any. We may tend to see things through a "1st world problems" prism, but when the people start with nothing, starving in a shack (which is still the life of many people on this planet) the metrics I mentioned are infinitely more important than the death penalty for drug trafficking (which is hardly a massive issue in any case).

robbedpeter 5y ago
Gangsters legitimizing their money, and a society willing to whore itself out to profit off of it, tarnishes any overall definition of "successful" you can apply to Singapore. They're much like Saudi Arabia, which is also very successful financially, with a fairly high quality of life. In both cases, the injustices and degradation of liberty is more important to my view of what a successful society looks like. They're an ethical Potemkin village, keeping the "dirty"things from which they profit a few degrees of separation from their ostensibly clean financial dynamo. Singapore, on the surface of things, almost has things right. The problems arise when you look past to the superficial goods into the overall social functioning - there's some really dark evil with deep ties to Singapore. Also, to make things clear, the US has its fair share of problems like this. Notably, the war on drugs and the cartels enabled by our failed policies are an absolute travesty. The advantage of liberalizing speech is the ability of a society to continually evolve toward the improvement of human wellbeing. When societies suppress speech, that's a telltale signal that those in power are engaged in shady business they don't want the peasants to squawk about. All that said, Singapore is a remarkably civilized and pleasant place to visit - I just wouldn't want to live there. If it gets held to account through revolution or civil breakdown, its failure mode will be spectacular.
- lotusmars 5y ago
  Europe is choke full of Russian or Ukrainian criminal money: mafia, oligarchs, police, prosectutors all launder their money to Montenegro hotel property and Italian villas. Corruption is rampant in Europe. It's only layman's money will be AML'd. Real crime will easily find a way around it. At least Singapore and Dubai allow money to be laundered officially.