'we built this with nothing but our bare hands' is more than just propaganda. sure, they had a sea port, but looking at what they have done is amazing. many c

'we built this with nothing but our bare hands' is more than just propaganda. sure, they had a sea port, but looking at what they have done is amazing. many countries have some advantage, but most do not use them properly. Malaysia is a bridge crossing away with just as much sea access and ample amounts of oil and other natural resources, yet I do not believe they have accomplished what singapore has done. taiwan, south korea, china, and japan are bad examples to compare to singapore, though Japan in the meiji restoration was at least somewhat comparable except that all of the countries you mentioned relied on heavy industry to get to where they were, where as singapore had no land for such heavy investment in industry - let alone the materials. singapore had to make a long series of specific-successful long term investments which played out very well, and that had little to do with wealth sharing. one of the things that made everything play out so well is the singaporean's culture of kiasu - afraid to lose. singaporeans are very determined and trying to get ahead rather than sharing wealth. it was always easy for singapore to guide the ship with everyone in the same direction because people obeyed so much to economic incentives. the only thing it really failed at was getting singaporeans to have kids recently.