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Maybe at first. Singapore had to make lots of tough decisions early on, and they fixed it early. Problems which still plague their neighbors to this day. I say
by largepeepee 4y ago
Maybe at first. Singapore had to make lots of tough decisions early on, and they fixed it early. Problems which still plague their neighbors to this day.
I say today, the base economic situation of the people and the disparity of wealth is a bigger factor to what makes a country -overall safe or unsafe, which is what the thread is about and what I was replying to.
Safety first.
- eru 4y agoWhen measured by income or accumulated wealth, Singapore has huge inequality. When measured by things like access to good education, infrastructure, housing, things look more equal. A big temper to any real authoritarian tendencies in Singapore is that it's easy for our inhabitants to vote with their feet: people can and do leave. Thanks to some special diplomatic deals, Singaporeans have special access to working visas for the US, too. So Singapore can only be as authoritarian as McDonald's: there's no vote for what goes onto a Big Mac, but if you don't like it, you can always go to Burger King.
- largepeepee 4y agoWell said, I rarely compliment replies but I feel that description is worth bookmarking.
- eru 4y agoThanks for the kind words. I'm a big fan of subsidiarity and local decisions making, exactly so that when people vote with their feet, they don't have to travel too far to get meaningful change. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity It sounds like a boring, middle-of-the-road principle; but it gives you such radical sounding conclusions as 'a federal minimum wage is bonkers, why couldn't the counties (or even cities) handle that issue by themselves?'
- User23 4y agoSingapore was also blessed with an extremely capable leader in Lee Kuan Yew[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kuan_Yew https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kuan_Yew