Democracy or Wealth: A Case Study - Singapore

Challenge, Nov, 2000 by Gerald Houseman

This experiment had to come to an end for two reasons. The film that was an important introduction to the material is becoming outdated; and, more importantly, the Singapore of today is not the zingy phenomenon that it was a year or two ago. Problems have crept into the economy because this city-state is not in a position to insulate itself from the troubles of its region. Certainly this experiment in essay-writing raised any number of tantalizing questions that were not answered by the students. Is Singapore's attraction as much grounded in its towering status as a consumerist society as in being a secure society? After all, it is a place of wall-to-wall malls, which is well-illustrated in the film and other materials. The "traders" rarely mentioned any problem with the lack of democracy: They did express some criticism of its gun control, drug laws, and limits upon automobiles, even though a case can be made that these regulations also coincide with the lifestyle one might expect in a free society. This ex periment, then, probably raised more questions than it answered.

GERALD HOUSEMAN teaches at Indiana University at Fort Wayne.

Notes

(1.) "The Mini-Dragons: Singapore" (New York: Ambrose Video, 1991).

(2.) Sharing Success: Government Programmes, 1990--1995 (Singapore: Ministry of Information and the Arts, 1996).

(3.) This lengthy handout is primarily a list of laws and economic data; for example, per capita GDP, election results, incentives for having children, military service requirements, high ratio of home ownership, rules on smoking, certificate of entitlement for purchasing a car, and government campaigns such as "Speak Mandarin."

(4.) See, for example, R. S. Milne and Diane Mauzy, Singapore: The Legacy of Lee Kuan Yew (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990). For a contrary view, see Walden Bello and Stephanie Rosenfeld, Dragons in Distress: Asia's Miracle Economies in Crisis (San Francisco: Institute for Food and Development Policy. 1990).

(5.) See, for example, the weekly statistics compiled in the Far Eastern Economic Review or Asiaweek, or the quarterly reports on Singapore of the Economist Intelligence Unit.