Onward, Singapore...or the wet dreams of our local unfriendly capitalistas

Capitalist hero Lee busy building bridges
to Putin´s Russia, here with Medvedev

“The Wit & Wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew (1923-2015)” is a collection of short quotes from the writings and speeches of Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of Singapore, the independent Chinese city-state south of Malaysia. The publisher seems to be Singaporean, but nominally unconnected to the ruling party. The book is difficult to understand unless you have a working knowledge of Singapore´s history and politics. Interestingly, it covers all phases of Lee´s political career: his “socialist” anti-colonialist period, his authoritarian anti-Communist period, and the later liberalization (or supposed liberalization) of the regime. The last quotes in every section often deal with globalism and the new information technology era.

Singapore, while nominally a parliamentary democracy, is a de facto one-party state dominated by the People´s Action Party (PAP) and Lee Kuan Yew himself (until his death in 2015). Since Singapore is considered a capitalist success story, the early “democratic socialist” statements by LKY has to be seen to be believed. His authoritarian statements are surprisingly explicit – no beating around the bush here (in contrast to Communist regimes). Lee openly says that of course the PAP must remain in power, that the only way to rule a Chinese society is by force, stability and economic growth is more important than democracy, indeed, democracy is wrong even in principle since it assumes that all men are equal or can contribute equally to society. 

Lee does have a siege mentality in which Singapore is constantly threatened by its neighbors, by Communism, by communal violence or by a downturn in international trade (Singapore being an important trade hub). Of course, this siege mentality wasn´t entirely irrational, the little city-state having a somewhat precarious geopolitical position. To Lee, the only guarantee of national survival is to keep the PAP strong, pure and willing to use the knuckles if necessary. In return, the people get economic growth, good education and a fight against corruption at all levels. In his later statements, LKY even concedes that Singapore used to be “boring” (this was a state in which you could get arrested for spitting on the pavement) and should instead become an international center for culture and entertainment. The older Lee Kuan Yew, while graciously allowing an Opposition, nevertheless constantly warns the people against voting for it, fearing that a non-PAP government will ruin Singapore in just five years…

Many of the quotes in this little book are standard capitalist sound bites against high taxes and nationalizations, for home ownership and huge wage differentials, complaints about Singaporean workers being lazy, and so on. This from the leader of a party which at least nominally belonged to the Socialist International! More interesting are Lee´s views of immigration and a multi-cultural society. He seems torn between a more nationalist-traditionalist position, and one more in keeping with global capitalism. There are apparently 500,000 foreign guest workers in Singapore (presumably unskilled ones), but the leader assures the people that they won´t stay indefinitely. 

Skilled immigration is explicitly encouraged, however, and use of the English language as a lingua franca is promoted. It seems to have been Lee Kuan Yew´s first language. At the same time, Lee doesn´t believe in an American “melting pot”, but rather a situation in which different ethnic communities live side by side, keeping many of their traditions intact. This would be similar to the multi-culturalist ideal current in the contemporary West. Lee doesn´t seem to like the widespread use of Hokkien, the Chinese dialect actually spoken by the common people in Singapore, but instead promotes Mandarin, the “Standard Chinese” used officially in both the PRC and Taiwan. It´s unclear whether the reason is some kind of Han national pride, or simply pragmatic considerations.

As far as I understand, Lee Kuan Yew was much admired in the United States by the tireless promoters of the eternal blessings of capitalism. This is interesting for many reasons. As already pointed out, Lee was no democrat. Nor was he a nationalist in the sense usually understood by that term (despite Singapore´s break with Malaysia). Is this the state of affairs secretly yearned for by the GOP-ish and business Democrat establishment, an authoritarian multi-cultural society?

With that reflection, I close this discussion of “The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew”.