Phil Bradley asks us to spot the common thread here
The Cato institute has just released its annual Economic Freedom of the World Report and interesting reading it makes.
The top 10 rankings of economic freedom – 1. being the most free – are as follows:
- Hong Kong
- Singapore
- United States
- New Zealand
- United Kingdom
- Canada
- Switzerland
- Ireland
- Australia
- Netherlands
The report itself analyses how over the long term differences in economic freedom results in large differences in economic growth and prosperity. If you are interested in the details you can read the report.
What struck me is that every significant anglophone country makes the top ten and only a single continental EU country (Holland) sneaks in at last place. The list is rounded out by Britain’s last colony of any size (Hong Kong), another ex-british colony that has 100% anglophone middle class (Singapore), and the last continental EU hold-out (Switzerland).
France comes far down the list at number 44, Italy and German do a little better, ranked at 35th and 20th respectively.
Most people think of the Anglosphere in terms of political alignment in world affairs. The Cato report identifies something more important, which is a common understanding of how economic freedoms are integral to society, our economic well-being and personal liberty. Those in continental Europe who wonder why Britain is so sceptical of the EU and its attempts to ‘harmonize’, have only to read this report to see that harmonization would unavoidably result in the erosion of freedoms in Britain.
Phil Bradley
Brilliant! I don’t know what it proves, but it’s great. After all, although Singapore is 100% Anglophone middle class, the country is 88% Chinese. They may speak fluent English, but they think Chinese. Hong Kong’s 100% Chinese. And these are the two countries that top the league. I don’t think one could legitimately (and I’m sure you wouldn’t, anyway) say anything about an overlay of Anglo values, because the Chinese enjoy immense commercial success wherever they are.
What this demonstrates, though, is, failure to burden commercial endeavours with overtaxation and petty regulation results in wealth creation which benefits everyone. The puzzle is, how can Blair and his gang of regulating thugs and preachers of a coercive ideology, not see this? Why can’t the French and the Germans see it?
Hooray for Hong Kong and Singapore! Hooray for the liberty-loving Anglosphere which is motivated to fight the imposition of chains and shackles, be they physical or economic!
The whole link makes very interesting reading.
Of course one could also read this as: once the Chinese finally, eventually, get rid of their commie government, the anglosphere had better watch out! 😉
Liberty Belle: …because the Chinese enjoy immense commercial success wherever they are.
er… except the 98% of Chinese people who live in China, that is, so I think it does indeed show that having taken a chunk of Anglosphere values and organisation makes a huge difference. It also shows what a dark miracle it was that Marx wrought: to have successfully beggared such a vast number of industrious people is no small achievement.
Perry, I’m sorry, and certainly with no disrespect, I think your point is unfair. China’s a communist dictatorship and like all such, the commercial breath is squeezed out of it with rules, laws and petty regulations. This will pass and then, as Julian Morrison notes above, watch out world! Even then, Guandong province is now Hong Kong in all but name. This will spread. It’s probably already seeping out round the edges of Guandong.
I don’t want to understate the importance of the Anglosphere and its adherence to, more or less, free trade – but the most commercially successful group in Indonesia – where we never had a presence – are the Chinese. They’re also successful in the Philippines, where we also never had a prescenc. Wherever in the world there is a large Chinese presence, there is also money, so I don’t think we should be so insular as to pat ourselves on the back and think it’s all down to us. And if you look at the link, one of the least successful, given its level of education and democracy is India, where we were the colonial power for 250 years, trundling in at No. 73.
BTW, Malaysia wasn’t mentioned, although it is also dynamic and thriving and enjoys a wealth creating business environment.
I live in Singapore and IMHO its unfairly maligned in mostly left wing circles. Its a society that mostly works very well. If I were to identify the main factors for Singapore’s economic freedoms, it would be a history of being a lazzaire faire trading port under the British, a traditional desire by the Chinese for the government to leave them alone and let them get on with making money, and the influence of Lee Kwan Yu, who became a militant anti-communist. Add to that the ability to speak english as well as the average Londoner or New Yorker means they can access the mainstream of anglophone ideas.
And as for China as a future competitor, would you prefer a competitor who challeges you, or a one that tries to drag you down to their level?
Phil, I wouldn’t quarrel with a word you wrote. Of course Singapore is maligned in socialist circles. It’s rich – and it did it without a single natural resource – not even water! – except for its people. Education is highly regarded. It is successful socially. Worse – it is an orderly society with respect for the rule of law. For some reason, the socialists think the $200 on-the-spot fine for discarding a cigarette butt on the street is a breach of human rights. They disapprove of Singapore because the police enforce the law.
Lee Kwan Yew is one of the greatest political leaders of all times. Singapore is his vision. Yet there is not one LKY Bridge or LKY Hospital or LKY School or Lee Kwan Yew Highway in the whole country.
On Switzerland, my brother-in-law has lived there for years now, and hasn’t learned virtually a word of Suisse-Deutsch (except the usual, “Kann Ich zwei bier haben, bitte”).
Virtually everyone in Zurich canton he ever meets, speaks not just fluent English, but almost perfect English, often, he says, better than the Yeah-Nah-Street-English, back in our socialist swamp of a country.
And often the french speakers, the italian speakers, and the german speakers, tend to speak to each other, in ENGLISH! 🙂
He’s told me English may even become an official fifth language, of Switzerland, after Romansch, because in most Cantons, it is the 2nd language learned.
And if they do this, using their fantastic democracy they have there, that will make them, officially PART OF THE ANGLOSPHERE!!! 😎
(Even the French bits)
Which is nice.
And the Dutch have a language, which is the closest to English anyway (except for Scots-English), only splitting from us, in around the 8th century AD. Even now, in the Friseian islands, of the original Angle-land, and on the way to Hamburg, they speak a Dutchified-Germanified tongue, which almost sounds English, in accent and structure, which really annoyed Hitler and his goons, BTW.
So this makes the Dutch (also descendants of the Anglo-Saxons), nearly English (or the English, nearly Dutch :), so if we bend the rules a bit, that brings them into the Anglosphere too! 🙂
Hey Presto, the entire top ten is in the Anglosphere.
Interesting piece!
I’d love to think this ranking is correct, and anecdotally, with my experience of Dutch people, Aussies, North Americans, it sounds about right. I’m just wondering what critics would say.
One doubt might be how the index is drawn up. The devil being in the details, I seem to think I’ve seen several freedom rankings like this before. Are they all from this one body or are there competing “definitions of freedom”? I don’t mean to nitpick – and I suspect other versions would look very similar. But I’m curious if others have seen competing free-society rankings?
Fascinating thought by Andy there, that 300,000 speakers in the Netherlands of Friesian [or Frysk], the closest living language to English, qualifies the Netherlands to be part of the ‘Anglosphere’.
I’ve seen written Frysk – it does look quite a bit like Chaucer. Dutch is close too, though. It sounds a lot more like Liverpool or Swansea slang than you might expect.
Libert Belle
Lee Kwan Yew is one of the greatest political leaders of all times.
Interesting, I have been a huge fan of LKY for many years. He was one of my heros in my teens (when I was a militant anti-communist). You can drive by his very modest house here in Singapore.
A lot of the Anglosphere’s liberal ideas came from the Netherlands in the first place, so perhaps it isn’t really out of place. And Switzerland is a very atypical and strange place by most ways of measuring.
The other thing that hasn’t been mentioned is that (with the exception of the Netherlands and Switzerland) these are all Common Law countries. Obviously this is tightly mixed in with the whole Anglosphere thing, but the question of how big a factor this is is one to think about.
On the Dutch, I’d also note they had their time on the great power stage at one point because they were a great TRADING nation. Everyone else in Europe seems to have done it with big armies…
Dale – very interesting point. And they were the colonial power in Indonesia.
Phil – LKY is also a hero of mine. I am trying to get hold of his book Third World to First World. Yes, you can drive by his house and it is quite endearing that his next door neighbour keeps chickens in her yard. It must be quite annoying to be awoken by a rooster crowing and hens shrieking in the morning, but he has never used his power to put himself above the law or get privileges above that of normal citizen.
I wonder how the Republic of Venice would fare on this list if Napoleon had not overthrown and destroyed its thousand-year-plus government by force [as he did with Holland] just before 1800?
Venetians introduced a lot of the financial-market innovations we now see as standard, were in early on double-entry bookkeeping, and developed a peculiar, multiply-randomised system for choosing the Doge so as to never have an overpowerful ruler. On the other hand they had some sinister judicial practices, so I shouldn’t praise too much.
Sorry to keep popping up here in this annoying manner, but Michael Jennings’ point just struck me about the Netherlands and Switzerland not being Common Law countries.
Both countries got invaded and ‘restructured’ by Napoleon, imposing French-style law on them. Does anyone know what NL and CH legal traditions were before the 1790s?
Germany, Italy and France score badly in this survey, and yet in terms of per capita GDP, they are doing better than most anglosphere countries – perhaps all, with the exception of the United States. Even taking into account the high euro, if you look at the accumulated figures over the past 15 years, the German, Italian and French economies have performed marginally better than the UK, Australian and NZ economies. The link between economic prosperity and economic regulation is a complicated one.
As for Hong Kong and Singapore, I’m dubious that their economic success has much to do with any anglospheric “overlay”. It’s more linked to the fact that they were designed from the outset as island trading posts, and they managed to hang on to this role in the post-colonial period. Is Macau’s relative prosperity connected to a Portuguese overlay? I think not.
As for Lee Kwan Yew, he is certainly a bizarre hero for anyone who professes libertarian instincts. His rule was an exceedingly authoritarian one, including the imprisonment of political opponents and heavy regulation in all spheres of social existence.
It’s such an irony that China opted for Communism, since the Chinese I’ve worked with have been the most cheerfully mercenary people I’ve ever known. And I mean that in an entirely admiring way.
Definitely, a capitalist China would be a terrifying force. And I mean ‘terrifying’ in an admiring way, too.
Some shrewd points from Becky just case we all start to get too self-congratulatory and smug.
Of course, her “accumulated figures” is a bit vague and naughty [though I pointed out the pro-Anglo rankings might be a little dodgy too]. I’m not sure what figures she has in mind, since unemployment has been unhealthily high and growth unhealthily low in both France and Germany since they started willing the euro into existence with as much interest-rate throttling as it took in the 80s. So she leaves me puzzled there – further back in the 50s and 60s she might have more of a case, maybe.
But the point about Macao not being in the Portusphere so much as being part of a neighbouring zone [Hong Kong] just as Hong Kong is/was really an outlet for China is a sharp one.
Becky might have some interesting different ideas about the link between regulation and prosperity. I hope we encourage her to share them.
My own hunch is that France and Germany – having twice the farmland x one-and-a-half the annual hours of sunshine per citizen than Britain [resource-rich Australia and underpopulated NZ are more complex cases] – are in some sense “naturally” wealthier.
By that I mean they can endure more inefficiencies and still be on the same level as us. If we were as agriculturally determinist as some of the Continental thinkers are, we might be asking why France is ever less than twice or thrice as rich as Britain.
Becky
The UKs entry into the EU was hugely disruptive to the Australian and especially the New Zealand economy. Then the UK went through its Thatcher revolution. But if you look at the stats for the last 10 years all three have clearly been pulling ahead of their continental competitors and its looks like it is accelerating.
As for Lee Kwan Yew, he is certainly a bizarre hero for anyone who professes libertarian instincts. His rule was an exceedingly authoritarian one, including the imprisonment of political opponents and heavy regulation in all spheres of social existence.
This is left wing claptrap. LKY did imprison without trial a hundred or so people, but this was at the time of a communist insurgency and threatened war by its neighbour Indonesia. The heavy social regulation part is just untrue. And finally LKY being exceedingly authoritarian is just phantasy.
Well, much as I hate to find myself agreeing with Becky about anything, she is correct when she notes that both Singapore and Hong Kong were island trading posts and she is right to ascribe importance to this fact. But we shouldn’t forget, there are lots of island trading posts in the world, but these two in particular were Chinese, which I believe accounts for their sustained success. And to be fair, Britain did allow laissez-faire trade, which rewarded the Chinese for their industry and acute commercial instincts.
Here again, we part company. LKY was authoritarian, no question, but he was by no stretch of the imagination “exceedingly authoritarian”. Stalin was “exceedingly authoritarian”. Mao was “exceedingly authoritarian”.
Lee’s political enemies were communist and I just can’t get my civil liberties dander up about throwing a communist in prison. He never had anyone killed and, so far as we know, never ordered anyone tortured. He never even sent anyone to a re-education camp.
When he was building Singapore (from scratch), he was intolerant of opposition parties, I agree. He had to safeguard the vision that turned into today’s Singapore. I am not saying Singapore is a libertarian’s delight, but I am saying it is a highly successful economy that has provided well for its citizenry through enlightened laws. The Central Provident Fund would be the envy of the world if more people knew about it. And LKY’s trading instincts are laissez-faire. Consider: there is no Singaporean diaspora. Singaporeans are very happy being Singaporeans.
And although there is a minority Malay and Indian presence, since the creation of Singapore around 40 years ago, everyone has been equal under the law, everyone has had identical educational opportunities and the police and armed services have always recruited from across the board.
I’m not clear on what you mean by “heavy regulation in all spheres of social existence”. He set out rules for dating? What spheres are you talking about?
So. I’m a libertarian, yet LKY is one of my great heroes. Nobody’s perfect.
Phil, you may or may not have a point about NZ, but the Australian economy was well on its feet and hardly reliant on the UK by the mid 70s when the UK joined the EEC. I don’t think you can drag that up to explain why Australia, in terms of per capita GDP, has not performed as well as the large European countries over the last decade or two.
Mark, I don’t believe that the fact that France has more land or sunshine is really very economically important. Neither the UK nor France are primarily agriculturally driven economies. Benelux countries, by that argument, should be gigantically disadvantaged. France and the UK are far more similar than they are different – both mid-ranking European countries with colonial pasts and similar socio-industrial infrastructures. My guess is that the extra regulations imposed on French businesses do not radically impact on the overall size of the economy – they are more to do with the money flows within the economy.
I don’t know, Becky. France is self-sufficient in food, Britain isn’t. They’re not that similar.
Being able to grow three times as much food as your neighbour with the same population does raise the question of why you are not consistently richer, no?
Mark, I’m no economist but I don’t see much evidence in modern Europe of a real correlation between the amount of land farmed, hours of sunshine, and size of the overall economy. Agriculture is an ever-diminishing proportion of all European economies. And as I said before, if it really was significant, where would that leave the Danish, Dutch, Belgians, etc. I think it would be more reasonable to wonder why the UK is not much richer than Germany or France, given that London is the undisputed financial centre of Europe.
Becky: Australia has performed extremely well compared to the rest of the developed world over the last decade. A lot of people attribute this (accurately I think) to the program of free market reforms and deregulation of the Hawke/Keating governments of the 1980s. The big story is how much better Australia did in the 1990s than in the couple of decades before, in which Australia was indeed sluggish.
As for the Hong Kong question, I think the British legal system was unbelievably important. In Hong Kong contracts were enforceable, judges were not corrupt, and laissez faire was in place. This allowed the mercenary tendencies of the Chinese to really achieve something spectacular. I credit both factors.
Liberty Belle, Lee Kwan Yu obviously got a lot right in managing the Singaporese economy. Nonetheless, what he instigated was an authoritarian form of capitalism which relied (and still relies) on political repression, control of the media, book banning and an unhealthy degree of nanny-statism.
Michael, yes Australia performed well in the 1990s and neatly sidestepped the Asian meltdown. But its economy, in terms of per capita GDP, remains about the same or a bit less than those of Germany, France and Italy, despite the fact that these countries haven’t undergone the same level of deregulation. And what about New Zealand? It also radically deregulated in the 1980s and 1990s, but has done poorly. All I’m saying is that I’m sceptical of a direct link between deregulation and overall economical improvement.
Food:
Food matters less than you’d think, now.
However it mattered a LOT in a middle ages, and the relative wealth of France, once they kicked the (anglo) Normans out of Normandy and Aquitaine, was enormously greater than England’s.
Amusingly enough, the Anglo-Norman Empire/Kingdom enjoyed a similar much greater wealth than the French in the previous period.
In both cases it made the other side green with envy.
Today it doesn;lt matter much. Food is pretty cheap, relatively speaking.
On the other hand, having fuel sources in your country can make a *really* big difference, EVERYTHING including food is dependent on energy availability & cost.
If you have to import all your energy you are either poor as dirt, or perforce, a great trading nation per capita.
Fred
Becky, Nanny state-wise Singapore is not much different from Britain or France and, as the nation becomes more mature, many old attitudes are being allowed to fall into disuse. You constantly overstate your case. LKY was not “exceedingly authoritarian”. I’m not going to let that ridiculous statement slip out of the limelight while you wheel yet more unsupported, agenda-driven factoids out onto the stage. It tells me you are unable to differentiate between monsters like Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao and someone being a hard man while wresting a nation from communism. Singapore’s 40 years old, for god’s sake!
You have also failed to explain your charge that LKY enforced “heavy regulation in all spheres of social existence”. What spheres of social existence? Again, you make silly, agenda-driven charges in the hope that readers won’t know enough to pull you up. Well, I’m pulling you up: Explain exactly what are “all spheres of social existence” and what “heavy regulation” was forced on them.
Authoritarian form of capitalism? What the hell is authoritarian capitalism? He brought in a one million dollar a year minimum wage law? He’s forcing yachts on people? What are you talking about?
Yes, the broadcast media is controlled to about the same degree as France’s broadcast media. French television is as much a voice of the French government and is charged with carrying out the government of the day’s propaganda agenda. I don’t approve of either, but it’s not unique in the world. At least Singapore TV carries a lot of outspoken American and British TV shows. And LKY’s favourite TV show, when he was still PM, was “Yes, Minister”.
The only books I have heard of being banned were books that glorified communism (and socialism, if LKY had as much sense as I credit him with). He was dealing with communist insurgents. Read your history. There was blood in the streets.
Before you post another word about Singapore, please explain why you think “exceedingly authoritarian” applies to LKY. Also explain all those social spheres where he exerted all this heavy influence.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re parrotting your lefty professors.
Liberty Belle,
“Lee’s political enemies were communist and I just can’t get my civil liberties dander up about throwing a communist in prison.”
… & you have the nerve to put “liberty” in your name? What is it then, “selective liberty for those who don’t disagree with me too severely”?
No thanks, don’t think i’ll be following you down that road any time soon.
A_t – If you were familiar with SE Asian history, you’d know that when I referred to Lee’s political enemies, I wasn’t talking about people who disagreed with him. I was talking about people trying to take over the country by force of arms against the will of the then-peasant populace. Malaysia – Malaya as it then was – had the same fight on its hands. It is called jungle warfare. Communist insurgents are not dainty people.
Don’t think you’ll be following me down that road anytime soon? I don’t recall inviting you.
Liberty Belle,
“Authoritarian capitalism” means that the state in effect controls the capitalist process in the country through the state-owned holding company Temesek, which has a controlling share in 20 of the biggest Singaporese companies and many smaller ones besides. It’s impossible for any Singaporese company to act independently.
“Exceedingly authoritarian” means the same party has been in control for the last 46 years, and currently holds 82 of the 84 seats in parliament. One associates such a political set-up with African banana republics, not mature democracies.
As for crushing dissent, this is what the crypto-communist Economist has to say in its country briefing:
“The ruling PAP has been successful in demolishing alternative focuses of opposition activity. Labour unions were brought to heel in the 1960s through tough legislation. Professional groupings also follow the party line, which helps to deter lawyers and others from entering politics on the side of the opposition. A disciplinarian approach by university authorities has likewise deterred academics from becoming too closely involved in the political process.
PAP members have shown themselves prepared to take out court actions, usually in the form of defamation cases, to hurt the opposition. This tactic has resulted in the award of significant damages against opposition figures, which has caused either the self-imposed exile of these individuals, or bankruptcy. A law barring those declared bankrupt from serving as MPs has removed these figures from the immediate political arena.
The opposition MPs often put up a creditable performance in parliament but their ability to force changes to government plans is nil. The opportunities for extra-parliamentary protest are limited. The SDP secretary-general, Chee Soon Juan, returned to Singapore in late 1998 from Australia. Mr Chee gave two public speeches, but was prosecuted for not obtaining permits to do so.”
etc., etc.
As for heavy regulation in the social sphere, there are all sorts of laws against spitting, smoking, not flushing toilets, death penalty for all drugs including cannabis, caning for graffiti; caning for underage offenders, huge fines for littering, jaywalking, banning of books critical of the government, etc. etc.
Singaporese TV? Jesus, have you ever watched it? The only good programmes on it are foreign ones. The news programmes never criticise the government. I’ve been to Singapore several times, I like it, but it’s certainly no paradise.
” Communist insurgents are not dainty people”
nor are most insurgents who wish to overthrow legitimate governments by force. Whether they were fascist or communist, i couldn’t care less… if they want to impose their will on an unwilling people by force, put ’em in jail, that’s fine. Just don’t start judging people on what side of the political spectrum they come from, which was what you appeared to do. I apologise if that wasn’t the case, but it certainly sounded that way.
Could Australia have successfully ducked the Asian crisis without lowered trade barriers, a floating currency, and deregulated capital markets? I really doubt it. Of course, you do not know what would have happened if policy was different. That’s what makes setting policy so hard.
And yes, Australia’s GDP per capita is about on a par with France or Germany, but it has definitely caught up with them over the last decade. (If you looked at it in exchange rate terms, this isn’t so obvious in the statistics, but it’s very obvious in PPP terms, and it is also much more obvious now than it was six months ago in exchange rate terms, due to the recent appreciation of the Australian dollar).
Goodness, hasn’t this thread got vigorous in the last hour or so while I was crossing from Buda to Pest by bus and metro?
If food is not important to the economy of France, then why is ten per cent of the whole EU budget (a tenth of all of it, not ten per cent of CAP) paid to French farmers? I think the French by their actions show they think farming is a big part of their economic system – or at least their get-our-politicians-into-their-marginal-seats-with-someone-else’s-money system.
Of course Becky is right to point to the City of London – there are the trawler fleets and fishing grounds Britain used to have – being early into carbuilding and early out – there are dozens of factors – I was oversimplifying to highlight food. Though it is noteworthy that France and Germany don’t have to import food but Britain does, especially when Becky is saying France and Germany did much better on the “accumulated figures” than Britain over the last fifteen years.
Given that growth and unemployment were much worse in France and Germany than in Britain over this period, I’m still hoping Becky will explain the rest of her accumulated figures. There are a lot of figures to choose from – I don’t mean to mock – I can well imagine F and G managed a better inflation performance over this period, for example. Perhaps one of the many quality-of-life indices on which both countries often score highly, often higher than Britain?
I’d just like to hear it from Becky, rather than talk about what I think she meant.
I have heard an acquaintance refer to Singapore as “Disneyland with the death penalty”.
Becky, the kind of petty restrictions you dislike, such as heavy punishments for spitting, etc, while they may be irksome, don’t quite equate to life under Pol Pot or many of the Communist nations of SE Asia in times gone past. One doesn’t have to be blind to such limitations of places like Singapore to grasp that fact.
What of course means is that when we construct “league tables of freedom” it is a good idea to look as freedom as a whole, rather than slice it up into separate economic, social, or political bits. By all accounts, places like Hong Kong – well, under British rule anyway – were incredibly free on just about every measure imaginable.
I don’t think there can be much quarrel with that.
Michael, you may be right that deregulation helped Australia to duck the Asian crisis. But I think deregulation is something that it’s impossible to be ideological about. Statistics don’t necessarily support the fact that deregulated economies do best. There are too many other factors at play. Weak economies sometimes collapse or stagnate under the strain of deregulation (vide Argentina or Russia). After all, most first-world economies were initially developed through ferocious tariff protection (Australia being one of the worst offenders) as well the artifical markets of colonial dependencies or client states. Once strong, these economies then reaped the benefits of deregulated free markets, while maintaining protective regimes when necessary (agriculture in the EU or the US, for example).
A_t I assumed a knowledge on the part of the readers that I had no right to assume, so I also have to apologise. Yes, the communist insurgency was awful; there really was blood running in the streets and bodies lying in the streets outside Raffles Hotel and along Middle Road. It was a horrifying part of the history of a very young and very tiny island that was basically on its own. LKY could not have done what he did without the support of the Singaporeans. He wasn’t a “strong man” with a thuggish military behind him. He governed with the consent of the Singapore citizenry. He did what he had to do. That meant throwing people who were dangerous to the state in prison. It meant banning communist propaganda. How serious was it and how much was at stake? Even six or seven years ago, not all maps in Malaysia were accurate. Many of them, after 40 years, contain deliberate errors. (This can be infuriating, but the thought was always to lead the insurgents away from populated areas into thick jungle areas.) Folk memories in this part of the world run deep. Had it not been for the charismatic Oxford lawyer, Singapore would not be the capitalistic powerhouse it is today. He did it on strength of character and willpower. And he has never allowed anything to be named after him, and nor has he allowed any statues of himself to be cast.
Johnathan – no of course Singapore is nothing like Pol Pot’s Cambodia and I never claimed it was. Nonetheless, compared with other first world countries, it doesn’t have a very good record for civil liberties and its government is authoritarian.
Mark, having just surfed the net I can’t find statistics for accumulated GDPs over the past 15 years, so I’ll concede the point. I’ll simply say that I’d be surprised to find that Australia, the UK or NZ had higher per capita GDPs than France, Germany and Italy over that period.
You write: “If food is not important to the economy of France, then why is ten per cent of the whole EU budget (a tenth of all of it, not ten per cent of CAP) paid to French farmers? I think the French by their actions show they think farming is a big part of their economic system”
45% of the entire EU budget is consumed by CAP. But this is precisely to do with the fact that the EU budget is so small – about 15 times smaller than the US federal budget for example. The U.S. subsidises agriculture more heavily than the EU.
And yes, agriculture is important to France, but for political rather than economic reasons. Politically, the farmers have a lot of sway and a fair amount of public support.
From Becky earlier: “Even taking into account the high euro, if you look at the accumulated figures over the past 15 years, the German, Italian and French economies have performed marginally better than the UK, Australian and NZ economies.”
I’m still hoping to hear more about the figures.
Sorry Becky – our two posts just crossed.
Becky’s been busy on the internet. Yes, the Singapore government, sensibly, has shares in the big successful companies. Gosh, Becky, doesn’t that make sense to you? That the government would invest in money making companies within its own economy? But “having been to Singapore several times” does not qualify you to comment on the capital markets. I don’t know whether the British government invests in successful British publicly listed companies or whether that is against Brown’s rigid, judgemental socialist inclinations. But definitely the British government is a huge investor – the largest in the world after America, I believe – in the United States. Does this mean the British government controls the top US corporations? Please. Be my guest. Step into the real world.
I can’t be bothered to answer all your socialist propaganda because it is to-o-o-o- dated and you are too much of a communist to get the point. Spitting spreads typhoid and tuberculosis, especially in a humid, equatorial climate. That is why it is forbidden, Becky. Capeche? It is not an aesthetic thing. It is a health thing.
Singapore television is as bad as French television, but at least it has British and American comedies which are actually funny, as opposed to French state television. Also, the Singapore presenters are way, way better looking. So you can turn down the sound and watch the eye candy.
Who cares how many times you’ve been to Singapore? You are not qualified to rant transliterate its ethos through your socialist/CND British Socialist prism. But yes, for selling drugs, it’s the death penalty. Oddly enough, this leads to practically no drugs trafficking in Singapore. Most Singaporeans seem to feel, without reference to your good self, that this is a good thing.
Finally, please try and get your spelling right. There are no such people as “Singaporese”. (Are you sure you’ve been to Singapore “several times” – or did you just pass through Changi Airport on the way to Oz or Chang Mai?) And in the Roman alphabet, LKY’s name is spelled Lee Kwan Yew. Thank you.
Becky – I’m not sure it makes any sense to talk about the “EU” budget v. the US budget without including the budgets of the EU member nations. I cannot believe that the combined budgets of the EU member nations are 1/15 that of the US federal budget, especially since the EU member nations combined have more people, a larger economy, and each of these nations take a larger share of taxes.
As much as I hesitate to introduce facts into political discussions, this is a link to per capita GDP in 2001: http://www.worldfactsandfigures.com/gdp_country_asc.php
A few notes:
US – $36,200
France – $24,400
Netherlands – $24,400
Germany – $23,400
Australia – $23,200
UK – $22,800
Make of it what you will. Given the disparities in growth rates over the last two years, I would expect that today the US has somewhat extended its lead, Australia has closed with or passed Germany, and the UK has caught up somewhat.
“Yes, the Singapore government, sensibly, has shares in the big successful companies. Gosh, Becky, doesn’t that make sense to you?”
I don’t know about Becky,but I find government investment in private companies to be absolutely appalling. First, it is a recipe for corruption. Second, investment decisions are likely to be made for political, not economic, reasons, leading to a distortion of the economy. Third, the government has no business overtaxing the people to accumulate the kind of cash surpluses that it must have in order to invest.
Liberty Belle –
You’re supporting the Singapore government for having controlling interests in all its top companies – and I’m the socialist?
From the Economist, bastion of pinko propaganda:
“Mr Lee made sure that the government owned Singapore’s biggest companies. In this respect, Singapore was different from Asia’s other “tigers”. Hong Kong grew rich as a bastion of laisser faire; in Taiwan and South Korea, government may have guided, but rarely owned.” […] “Temasek is a government holding company that is the most concrete expression of Singapore Inc. Temasek owns (in effect) controlling stakes in 20 of Singapore’s biggest companies and many smaller ones.”
Thanks T. Hartin! I find it refreshing to see some numbers sometimes, however tricky we know statistics can be.
Becky certainly looks vindicated on one part of her claim – DP per head for the year 2001. France and Germany ahead of Australia and Britain, by over a thousand dollars a head in the France-Britain case.
T Hartin. I can’t be bothered to explain the CPF to you. But the investment money doesn’t come from taxes. Again, you are looking at this from an ethnocentric point of view, not realising that there can be a way other than your own to have a robust capitalistic society. But where to begin? This isn’t meant to be perjorative, but the world’s a big place and there is more than one route to successful capitalism.
And “corruption” is a very, very dirty word in Singapore. Phil Bradley, where are you? Why am I fighting this battle all by myself? OK, it’s one in the morning there, but I hope you’ll have ploughed in by tomorrow morning! It’s your thread, after all!
T. Hardin, nice list. I just wonder what accounts for the extra $12K for the U.S. over the other countries listed. That’s basically a 50% premium for being an American. And it’s not like the U.S. is static in its population (see Japan). The U.S. has a quota of 800,000 legal immigrants PER YEAR!! (This is in addition to the 8 – 12 million illegal immigrants already in the U.S.)
I believe that part of the answer lies in that fact that, when it comes to business, the U.S. is actually more like 50 smaller countries (i.e., the States). A state has a lot more say in how easy a business is formed, the level at which it is taxed and regulated, etc., than the federal government does (in most cases). In addition, let one state get too onerous in its taxation or regulation and you will see plenty of other states offering inducements.
Just a theory of mine.
T. Hardin, nice list. I just wonder what accounts for the extra $12K for the U.S. over the other countries listed. That’s basically a 50% premium for being an American. And it’s not like the U.S. is static in its population (see Japan). The U.S. has a quota of 800,000 legal immigrants PER YEAR!! (This is in addition to the 8 – 12 million illegal immigrants already in the U.S.)
I believe that part of the answer lies in that fact that, when it comes to business, the U.S. is actually more like 50 smaller countries (i.e., the States). A state has a lot more say in how easy a business is formed, the level at which it is taxed and regulated, etc., than the federal government does (in most cases). In addition, let one state get too onerous in its taxation or regulation and you will see plenty of other states offering inducements.
Just a theory of mine.
Liberty Belle: “I can’t be bothered to explain the CPF to you. But the investment money doesn’t come from taxes.”
Thanks for contributing to my understanding. Where does the money come from? Of course, by this point, they are probably reinvesting their earnings to some extent, but nonetheless, where did the original seed money come from?
My objection was in principle to government investment in private companies. That may be ethnocentric; I regard it as being the fruit of experience and historical observation. Maybe in Singapore they have solved all these problems.
I don’t doubt there is more than one route to successful capitalism. I just am very skeptical of government, as opposed to private, investment as a means of creating a market economy based on consensual allocation of capital. Old LKY may have been a veritable secular saint capable of running such a system, but I doubt that a system that contains a significant element of direct government investment will remain viable in the longterm due to the inevitable temptations and frailties of the people in charge.
T Hartin, I said I can’t be bothered to explain it to you because I am sick to death of using my time to explain Singapore to people who are regarding it — as we all, inevitably do — from the standpoint of their own experience. You say, “Thanks for contributing to my understanding.” Where’s my obligation to contribute to your understanding?
Phil Bradley, who started this thread, will be up before most of us tomorrow morning and will jump back in, I hope.
Singapore is Asia. It is not the United States. Not Britain. It has a completely different history with ancient peoples coming from totally different perspectives. It has become the second free-est, after Hong Hong, economy in the world. This didn’t happen because you and Becky weren’t on watch that night.
T. Hartin–
I can’t imagine why investment based on political purposes “distorts” an economy, whatever that means. If I boycott someone because of their stance on some issue, I wouldn’t say that the result is a distortion of the economy. The beauty of a free market is that, as long as it is truly free, there’s no such thing as a proper or improper result.
If I make a huge investment in garbage for political reasons, I’ll just lose all my investment capital, that’s all. Same with the government. If the government makes a bad investment, it doesn’t really matter whether the investment was politically motivated or not–it’s still a bad investment and, if anything, the nature of liberal markets is to punish any investment made in site of (rather than because of) economic reality.
There may be other reasons to discourage government investment in the private sector, but the notion that it will result in some kind of “incorrect” economic result seems to be based on a false impression of the entire premise of a liberal market.
Maybe one of the more economically literate hosts of this site can correct me, but that’s how I see it.
In the 70’s I visited HK many times on business. During one of those trips I had reason to ask for a copy of their banking regulations. It was 15 pages long.
I think that illustrates one reason why HK is such a commercial success and will continue to be if the PRC will leave it alone.
I read elsewhere that only six countries in the entire world survived the 20th century with the same government with which they entered. Specifically: U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland. All others either experienced revolution and/or invasion/occupation. One can draw many different conclusions from this. The obvious one, at least to me, is that economic freedom cannot prosper in the absence of military strength and security. As an aside, this is why the Marshall plan required NATO’s bulwark to succeed in rebuilding Europe’s economies after WW II.
Very interesting point, Tsenf, and one I’ve often tried to make–with little success–to my libertarian friends. Sadly, liberty hounds are always in the minority, and I think history shows that force of arms has played the pivotal role in ensuring economic freedom–which is, after all, the real precursor to political freedom.
Calling Lee “authoritarian” is brass-bound understatement; calling Mao “extremely authoritarian” is like calling SARS a common cold.
The degree to which dissent and free speech are forbidden in Singapore is stunning, yet commonly ignored (and certainly trivialized in this thread). This makes Singapore extremely dangerous: it serves as a hothouse example of economic success achieved in a country that lacks political liberty. If Singapore can do it, why can’t Burma, North Korea, mainland China? So think the dictators. Thanks to old man Lee, who actually still calls the shots in a nation whose government mocks democracy, those murderers and lunatics running other Asian dictatorships feel very comfortable thinking they, too, can work some economic miracles. Lee disputes the philosophical claim that liberty is indivisible, and that hurts everyone, everywhere.
Too, one must put Singapore’s achievements in context: the nation is surrounded by larger, poorer nations that supply cheap labor and ready markets for the few things manufactured in Singapore. Like labor unions, which exploit the non-union labor force, Singapore exploits its neighbors shamelessly. Singapore is unique, and if its island status were not both literal and cultural, it would be just another port in a large nation, going nowhere fast.
The best idea that old despot Lee ever had was finding ways to limit the endemic corruption that ties the hands of so many SE Asian nations; give the devil his due. But don’t praise the guy — he’s a smug, power-hungry bully who depends on his thought cops to keep his tiny country from getting out of line. Hero? Yeah, and so is Castro!!
liberty belle,
the chinese are terrible managers of their economy. i don’t fear them at all. they have gotten this far because the west has pumped massive amounts of capitial into their ecomomy. they are just in the right place at the right time. as their economy starts to get complicated.. i predict is will collapse. currently, their top 4 banks are insolvent AND they are not doing anything about it. they are continuing to write bad loans as if the direct foriegn investment will never dry up.
David Crawford – Your’re absolutely right, to a small extent 🙂
States compete with each other all the time for labor and capital. They understand that if they can attract good companies, they will also attract good people spend a lot on their homes and increase land value (more on that in a moment).
However, their influence is limited. Although several major companies are based in states such as South Dakota (who lives there, anyway?) and Delaware for advantageous tax reasons, a lot of companies aren’t. The benefits aren’t that great or different. The Federal Govt. taxes income about 20x as much as the State governments do, so the States don’t have a lot of leverage. Most states get their revenues from property taxes (which the Fed can’t touch), and corporations aren’t too concerned about them.
However, your theory does hold some weight. Recently Boeing announced they were leaving Seattle for a more geographicly central location in the country. Several states got into a bidding war offering special tax breaks. Illinois won, and Boeing moved to Chicago. It’s also not an accident that 60% of all professional athletes live in Texas (no State income tax), and another big chunk live in Florida (same reason).
I don’t know crap about Singapore, so I don’t want to say anything and piss off miss Belle 🙂 I admire what they have achieved though, especially given what they had to work with.
I can say this about deregulated economies: they adapt. Planned economies don’t. Deregulated and free economies, where people can start any business to meet any need are very, very versatile. That’s why Aus wasn’t crushed with the rest of ASEAN by the financial crisis. They had a deep, and robust economy. When the crisis came certain sectors were hit, but others picked up the slack. The key to this was at-home consumerism. Most of ASEAN was (and still is, to a lesser degree) dependant on exports. When they couldn’t do that anymore, they had nothing left. Countries like Aus are coming around to the USA model of getting your consumer base in order before you develop dependance on exports. That’s mission critical.
As for China, there is so much potential there, it isn’t even funny. The Chinese govt. studies Singapore furiously, and is trying to figure out how to do the same thing (without reliquishing control), which is of course impossible. They are making progress though. There are also more students of English in China then in the entire US public school system (or so I have heard), so there will be no problem of “Anglosphere” ideas making their way in. Look to Hong Kong and Taiwan as to what will happen, only 100x as large.
And A_t, lighten up. When the comment was made about putting Communists in jail, it was because they were violent insurgents, not because they had an opinion. They were enemies of the state, just as al Quaeda is to the USA today. Notice that there aren’t too many Americans really upset about the prisoners in Guantanamo. Same story.
What some are missing, I think, in emphasizing the Chinese of Hong Kong and Singapore (and everyplace else the Chinese have migrated to) is that the “Anglosphere” concept is not a racial one. It’s based on political philosophy and ideas.
Hong Kong and Singapore certainly show that Chinese people can be as successful as anyone. But no one disputes that.
Indeed, I don’t think many people dispute the fact that French people could be, too, if they operated under a similar set of rules: Hong Kong’s and Singapore’s are based on Anglosphere values (which transcend racial and ethnic categories); indeed, the fact that Chinese people often succeed wherever they are found are really proofs rather than disproofs of that, since the spread of the Chinese was fostered by the British Empire and (and America).
But back to the French as an example: look at the place. It is, IMO, a testimony of the spirit of the French people that they are able to manage as well as they do under the political economy they have set over themselves.
The problem is political culture.
The distinction here isn’t Anglo ethnicity, or Chinese ethnicity, as the keys to success. It is understanding and trying to cleave to certain principles, principles that are associated commonly with the “Scottish Enlightenment” (and thus the Anglosphere it influenced) and successive thought, but principles that are general and will work wherever they are tried.
As for the point that “Singapore is successful because it is surrounded by poverty” – that’s risible.
Lots of places are surrounded by poor areas, and they are usually poor themselves. Being surrounded by poverty is not a benefit.
In any case, the main point is that IDEAS (not ethnicity or race) MATTER MOST.
According to the World Fact Book: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html
Australia: $27,000 per capita GDP
Germany: $26,600 per capita GDP
France: $25,700 per capita GDP
GDP growth in 2002 was:
Australia: 3.6%
France: 1.1%
Germany: 0.4%
The difference in growth rates will leave Australia twice as wealthy as France or Germany in about 25 years. In a century, Australia will be 10-20 times wealthier.
Tsenf makes a brilliant point.
Sage – Nothing wrong with political investments, so long as its non-voting stock. Once the govt. wants to make business decisions though, that’s usually bad. You could make arguments that they could only use their votes to encourage legal behavior, but I would argue against that and just let the crime enforcement agencies do their job. Which in Singapore, they appear to do well. So, in short: Non-voting stock = Ok.
Tsenf – The lesson I take from your little list is this: Federalism and strong defense are good, but being on the opposite side of the world from Germany is great.
Or living in an impregnable mountain fortress, of course.
Liberty Belle wrote:
“[The Chinese are] also successful in the Philippines, where we also never had a prescenc.”
I think the point you are making about Chinese industriousness when they are given freedom is a good one. But the Philippines was an American colony from about 1900 until 1946.
Since I am old fashioned, I sometimes clip articles out of the paper when they seem especially interesting, and then usually tuck them away somewhere to be forgotten. Anyway, I saved an article from April 10, ’03, from the Minneapolis StarTribune business section by a University of Minn. economist who was being awarded the Nemmers Prize (for really good economizing, I guess).
Since I am too unskilled to provide links, the operative part for this discussion reads:
“Why do some countries remain poor while others prosper? Governments that intervene frequently and inconsistently in economic decisions, that fail to enforce property rights or impose regulations that stifle free markets, consign their populations to the fate of economic have-nots, according to Prescott’s research.”
There is much more to the article if anyone wants to get the whole thing. On the same subject, I recall an anecdotal article from several years ago about the differences in countries. An economist from Peru ( I think it was) did an experiment of trying to start a small business of some kind in his home country and then doing the same thing in a Southwestern state in the US.
It took 2 or 3 days to get the required permits, with no bribes requested, in the US, but over 3 months, with several bribes required, to get permission to open the doors in Lima. This is not ideological opposition, in general, but the burden of relentless beurocratic maze building and the corruption which is the true villian in many societies, regardless of what the official economic policy of the government is supposed to be.
I recall that in the old Soviet system in Romania, the unofficial currency was Kent cigarettes. Nothing was done, from a business deal to a Dr’s appointment, unless a certain number of cartons of Kents were also included in the deal. A similar system operated in Russia, and does today in China, India, Cuba, etc., in which liquor, American or other hard currency, cigarettes, and other valuables independent of the (usually worthless) official money is most desired, and often required, in order to get anything done.
Regardless of the pimples on Singapore’s or HK’s behind, the fact that the system was fairly free and transparent may very well be the foundation for all the rest. Ireland seems to be proving those principles in the current economy, or at least was until the computer slowdown.
How do you gushing “libertarian” admirers of Singapore’s Senior Minister Lee reconcile yourselves to the country’s apparent need to censor its media with a heavy hand? A benign fascist is still a fascist…
The Peruvian economist mentioned by veryretired is Hernando De Soto, who is well worth reading.
Scott –
You seem to be suffering from the “If it ain’t perfect, it sucks” meme. No one here has praised Singapore’s Free Speech history. If you hadn’t noticed, this thread is about economic freedom, which Singaport has a lot of. If you want to discuss economic freedoms, go right ahead. This is not the censorship thread.
Well, Liberty Belle, if you don’t participate in these discussions to increase the understanding of others and help bridge cultural divides, why are you here?
I think Porphyrogenitus hit the nail on the head, above. Even those Asian countries that enjoy economic success seem to do so because Anglosphere values have been successfully transplanted to some degree. I would be interested to learn others thoughts on what went wrong in the British African colonies.
I remain very skeptical that the aSingapore model of government-centered capitalism will prove successful in the long run. It simply seems impossible to me that the combination of economic and political control can be combined in the hands of one family and their elite cadre of essentially unelected bureaucrats indefinitely without the wheels coming off. It has never worked that way anywhere else. Maybe Yew family has a magic formula, but the fact that, as the man said about monarchies, “virtue isn’t hereditary,” indicates to me that either their brand of authoritarian capitalism will ossify, turn into a kleptocracy, or be radically transformed by a democratic revolution.
I must say that I find Liberty Belle’s refusal to let us in on the magic secret of Singapore disappointing. Apparently its an “ethnic” thing, since I am “ethnocentric” for not grasping it instinctively.
Still wondering where all that money came from that is now managed so benignly by the Singapore Ministry of Finance, as well.
Brock–
Of course you’re right. Thanks for making the distinction clear. (I usually need a little nudge like that on the nuts-and-bolts issues in economics.)
Sage – I think investments made for political reasons distort the economy because, by definition, they are not made for economic reasons (that is, they are made for some purpose other than putting capital to its most productive economic use). They are distorting for the same reason that tax “incentives” are distorting, if that helps.
A dollar that is invested in today’s feel-good fad is a dollar that is not invested more productively somewhere else, and an opportunity cost/drag on the economy is the inevitable result.
For a primer in political investment management, see, e.g, the history of the Soviet Union.
The Chinese people who live in “Communist” China are enjoying tremendous commercial success and have for over twenty years. I don’t know if the reported 9% yearly growth rate is accurate, but I have seen how people (my wife’s relatives) live. The Chinese are far richer than they were two decades ago.
I put “Communist” in quotes because the only thing Communist about China is the name of the ruling party. When I was there last November the Party Congress was enacting laws defining and safeguarding private property. Probably every major university campus is more left-wing than mainland China.
Related to the comments on the sucesses of the British colonies. I am unsure of the release date of Singapore, however India, Pakistan and the African Colonies were de-colonied prior to the spread of economic power from post WW2 America.
I would think that the States got a burst of growth owing to the shambles that was continental Europe. As you will notice all the top 10 with the exception of the Netherlands were spared the wholesale destruction of WW2, thus having an open field where the inherent strength of their systems could expand.
First visit – I MAY COME BACK! I would like to point out on the lingo thingy however, that although English may be spoken as an excellent second language just about everywhere on this globe, it is losing the battle in the USA. Over a 3rd of the population of the state of California is composed of immigrants. Now they may be willing to move to gringospeak, but my experience has been they belittle the English tongue. ‘They’ are not the only ones, nor is CA the only place this is occurring. I could give you numbers, but I support statpigs who can do magical things with numbers, and that really isn’t the point. I’m damned tired of getting calls from ‘IT support staff’ that can’t handle English, much less GrEEK’. It’s become PC to tolerate bastardized and butchered English, and I don’t think it’s fair. I came from a bilingual home and learned French before English. However, when I got to school, I was taught English EXCLUSIVELY. Both of my parents are dead now, and although I can still read and speak a ‘little’ French, I am articulate with a distinctly Montana tongue. Anyone else feel the same???
To Becky, mark, and other people looking for statistics:
You can find some numbers on historical GDP-per-capita here. It’s an internet debater’s dream…
Porphyrogenitus wrote:
“The distinction here isn’t Anglo ethnicity, or Chinese ethnicity, as the keys to success. It is understanding and trying to cleave to certain principles, principles that are associated commonly with the “Scottish Enlightenment” (and thus the Anglosphere it influenced) and successive thought, but principles that are general and will work wherever they are tried.”
The early members of the Scottish Enlightenment were educated at Leiden in Holland. The founder of Edinburgh University Medical Faculty (1726) and four of its professors had studied there. Many Enlightenment-era Scots lawyers had also studied in Holland. This brings us back full circle to the Netherlands being in the top 10 and honorary members of the Anglosphere.
Brock is spot on, with one clarification. No one should judge his friends by one set of standards and his enemies by another set of (generally utopian) standards. When you add it all up, would you rather have been born in Singapore or Beijing 30 years ago?
The magic formula for success of Singapore:
You wouldn’t understand. It’s a Sing thing.
As far as governments investing in private companies, they shouldn’t. Governments pretty much suck, as they are very susceptible to corruption and, even more so, inefficiency, and they operate in the name of every individual in the country, backed up with the threat of force, the legitimate use of which they monopolize. Thus, the actions and interference of governments should be kept to a minimum, and investing in private companies is not a necessary function. In particular, if the point of the government investing is to earn it more revenue, why not just let the engine of capitalism run, let private companies more efficiently make money, and then just tax it?
It was Neuromancer author William Gibson who described Singapore as “Disneyland with the death penalty”. The article in which he did this was published in Wired magazine in 1993, and can be found here.
I am largely in agreement with the first part of what Lawrence said. I find the lack of democracy, the lack of freedom of speech and the level of censorship in Singapore deeply troubling. I really wouldn’t ever want to live there. I find the prospect that other countries in Asia or elsewhere look at Singapore and conclude that a lack of civil liberties was a fundamental part of the what made Singapore successful and will feel the need to deny liberties to their own citizens also very troubling. (In actual fact, what is more common is for governments that deny these rights to their citizens already to point at Singapore’s lack of liberties and democracy and its prosperity, and claim that “we are trying to make our country like Singapore” and therefore continue to deny people liberties and democracy).
An even worse example of this kind of thing is to hear despots in various places say that “needs a General Pinochet”. The Chilean example of a regime that was extremely brutal but at the same time got its economic policies essentially right has been used as an justification for brutal regimes that wanted to stay in power in lots of places, and this is much worse than using Singapore as a justification.
That is not to take anything away from Singapore’s economic achievements. Building an advanced economy from where Singapore started 40 years ago was an immense achievement. I disagree pretty much completely with the second part of Lawrence’s post. Singapore’s prosperity is entirely its own doing. Yes, they have taken advantage of some cheap labour from nearby countries, but virtually any country can do that if it wants to. (The countries of the Middle East have imported lots of cheap labour from around the world, but it hasn’t helped them develop advanced economies). All the evidence supports the conclusion that it is much easier to become rich if you are surrounded by other rich countries, and not the other way round.
Dave Dubé –
I live in California. In my experience, it’s not so much the case that immigrants refuse to learn English, most seem quite eager, especially when it comes to their children’s education. The problem, I think, lies much more in the educational system here, and in particular, with the guilty white liberals who run it. It’s not that immigrant parents don’t want their children to learn English, it’s that, at a California public school, it’s nearly impossible to do so. Regardless of the actual law, which is constantly changing on this issue, states, allegedly bilingual (meaning, in practice, monolingual Spanish) education is very prevelent here. Obviously, I also regard this as a serious concern, but I don’t think the problem is with the immigrants per se.
Insert rant about the need for vouchers and the like here.
Laura
PS
The immigrants I know tend to be from Mexico or China, and live in or around San Francisco, so this may not be quite representative of the entire immigrant population.
Dave –
please stick around!! I wouldn’t worry about the Mexicans and other hispanic immigrants. The first major waves rarely learn the English tongue, but their children do. The only problem is the ****** CA education system that doesn’t want to teach English to them because it might be too hard. In other words, they are not getting the great benefit of English you did in your younger years.
Godlesscapitalist – That site is awsesome!! Thanks!!
On Investing: Generally, T. Hartin is right in that government investing is a bad idea. However, its not as bad as he thinks. Singapore, in owning stock can benefit from ownership without telling the companies how to run their companies. They really shouldn’t. That was the Soviet’s problem. The govt. can’t and shouldn’t try to allocate scarce resources in large swaths of the economy. It’s crappy at that.
Now the US Govt. “invests” in its economy by running a deficit. This leaves tax revenues in the hands of citizens. They can then spend that money on telle-tubbies (or fixing the roof, whatever). The US is the only economy in the world that can do that however. Most govts. who tried that would see the wealthy take their saved money and invest it in the USA. Therefore, if they want to have any “local” investments, they have to spend the money themselves. Not a perfect solution, but it prevents flight of capital.
And if you want to see the bad side of “flight of capital”, see post-soviet Russia, ’97 S.E. Asia, et. al.
Could someone turn up “light” and turn down “heat”? It’s getting pretty hot and dim in here.
As to Singapore, there are good points on both sides. The notion that Singapore is extremely authoritarian, considered in light of places like North Korea, Burma, and Cuba, is clearly silly.
On the other hand, Singapore is noticeably authoritarian, even to someone who only visits for a short while. While this doesn’t mean thugs in the night, as it does in Iran, it does mean that, for example, one of the recent (rare) opposition politicians was eventually bankrupted and impoverished for saying things that wouldn’t have been unusual in England or America. There is no question that dissent is very risky.
(Although not impossible: I saw a great teeshirt “Singapore — a fine city” along with a listing of the sorts of fines one could receive for, say, spitting on the street. Gentle but effective, and if they’d have had one in my size I’d have bought it.)
The notion that this kind of freedom doesn’t affect economic freedom, though, is silly and mistaken. For example, Singapore has terrific banking — but as someone pointed out, the media is pretty limited. No one is going to get rich by opening an opposition newspaper there.
Singapore is, in truth, a lovely place, and one of the few places other than Colorado where I’d consider living. Do something about airconditioning the city, and it’d be even better. But it’s as foolish to suggest it’s not pretty authoritarian as it is to suggest the opposite.
Brock: “Singapore, in owning stock can benefit from ownership without telling the companies how to run their companies.”
But then, since stock ownership is literally ownership of the company, Singapore is a delinquent owner, not taking any responsibility for it’s property. That’s no good.
”Germany, Italy and France score badly in this survey, and yet in terms of per capita GDP, they are doing better than most anglosphere countries – perhaps all, with the exception of the United States. Even taking into account the high euro, if you look at the accumulated figures over the past 15 years, the German, Italian and French economies have performed marginally better than the UK, Australian and NZ economies. The link between economic prosperity and economic regulation is a complicated one.”
Trusting the site that Godlesscapitalism gave us…
Both Canada and Australia actually beat those 3 countries… Now, knowing that those data are from 2002 and looking at the actual situation in France and especially in Germany, I think there is a good chance that it will also be the case with UK…
I don’t want to understate the importance of the Anglosphere and its adherence to, more or less, free trade – but the most commercially successful group in Indonesia – where we never had a presence – are the Chinese. They’re also successful in the Philippines, where we also never had a prescenc.
Ah, Libby, you really should check your history. The Philippines became a part of the US after the Spanish-American war of 1898, and stayed US territory until independence was granted after WW2. While I certainly wouldn’t say chinese commercial success in the Philippines was because of that, it is not accurate to say the US has never had a presence there.
1) I know many Mexican immigrants in San Jose. Uniformly, they want their children to be fluent in English. Almost all want their children taught in English, though many will go along with whatever teachers suggest, since they believe teachers are the experts. The parents often feel they’re too old to learn English or to learn it well but they want their children to succeed.
Now that the voters have made it much harder for schools to stick children in all-Spanish classes, we’re seeing much better reading and math scores for “English Learner’ students, at least at the elementary level.
2) The Dutch must have the best command of English of any non-English-speaking country in the world. Even people who aren’t very well educated speak good English. They don’t even have an accent. My brother lived in Amsterdam for years. Whenever he tried to speak Dutch, the Netherlander would reply in perfect English. The only person who’d speak with him in Dutch was a fellow American.
Becky,
The U.S. subsidises agriculture more heavily than the EU.
I couldn’t let that blatant error go unanswered. Subsidies for agriculture in Europe are fully 73% higher as a percentage of production. The U.S. has been trending the wrong way — last year’s farm bill is an example — but we still have a long way to go before we catch up with Europe on agricultural subsidies.
It’s my hope that we’ll end them altogether and instead, in a politically feasible move, spend the money on income assistance and retraining.
The source for the statistics is The Economist in a story where they rightly blame the U.S. for it’s steel tariffs and added agricultural subsidies.
On the GDP stats, I’ve crunched the CIA WorldFactBook numbers on GDP, and there is a high correlation between GDP/person and percent of the economy that is services (i.e. where all of the Information Age economy is mostly going to be measured).
So adding value without actually needing more physical stuff to do it is how modern levels of wealth are created.
Correlation with the Ag. sector is about -.25, services was a bit over .5, and Industrial was something very tiny.
Regarding the correlation between economic freedom and per capita GDP: What matters more than the present level of economic freedom is the level of economic freedom over a period of time. If suddenly China spread Hong Kong’s laws, judges, and attitudes all over China, its per capita GDP wouldn’t suddenly match Hong Kong’s. Germany and France are relatively rich because for some period in their post-war histories, they were significantly freer, economically, than they are now. The UK had food rationing until 1952, while Germany was run by an American who said “the Mark is the only ration coupon we need”.
Economic freedom should correlate with growth rate, not level of wealth. Unfortunately, levels of economic freedom have been pretty variable in most countries even over the past 20 years.
One is left to wonder why the growth in the PRC greatly outstrips that of any of the “economically free” countries and city-state’s on the list.
All this talk about absolute GDP per person misses the point. Many historical factors contribute to the current GDP of a country. What matters is the relative change over time. The simple fact is that the Anglospere has been performing better over the last 10 to 20 years than continental Europe, particularly France. Here is a link that analyses the French economic performance relative to other countries.
Over the last twenty years, the relative standing of France, in terms of living standards, has
been declining relative to most of the countries with which it is competing. The decline is most
marked relative to Anglo-Saxon countries. Until 1980, France was closing the gap relative to the
U.S. while diverging from the U.K. In 1980, the French were 23 % richer than their British
counterparts and 19 % poorer than Americans. In 1999, the French were only 9 % richer than the
British, and 31 % poorer than Americans.
A Miscellanea of comments:
Australian GDP per capita is not easily measureable, because of our exchange rate being so volatile recently. The Aussie Dollar has been as low as 49c less than a year ago, and as high as 69c. Even over the last 3 months, its value has changed by +20%.
Economic growth rate is on the order of 3-4%, despite having the worst drought in 100 years in much of the country, the SE Asian Economic Meltdown, and a World Economy in the doldrums. We should really be in a deep recession, by all accounts.
Vlaams, Ostfriesisch, and Plattdeutsch are all European dielects of the same language as Broad Yorkshire Dielect. They’re all more similar to each other than to standard English. I speak Dutch – or rather the Twents dielect, a sort of Dutch-with-a-German-accent – badly, and with a mixed English/Aussie accent. But this means when I speak “Dutch” I can be understood by Flemish, East Friesian and Low German speakers, who have difficulty with the more standard Nederlands or Deutsch (and vice-versa).
One sentence to Liberty Belle’s claims about the Chinese:
Taiwan did not make the list of ten.
I should probably leave ‘Is Singapore authoritarian?’ question alone, but here goes!
In the Anglosphere we love to debate and dissent. And lose sight of the fact that other societies value consensus and social cohesion more highly than we do. This is by no means restricted to Singapore or even Asia. A couple of years ago in Finland on business, I recall being politely requested not to argue if I disagreed with something. Instead raise it with the person directly and try and reach an accomodation with them.
Singapore is a socially quite conservative country that values social cohesion, not least because of its racial mix. Its a real democracy that happens to always elect the same party (but no different than some other places such as Japan). Its generally considered to be a ‘career limiting move’ to be an opposition politician, although a couple get elected in each election, I think because of language politics. I regularly see the best known opposition politician selling his book or newspaper and he doesn’t seem to be harassed by the police.
There is a degree of self-censorship in the media, but I can buy any international media I want (and Singapore has one of highest levels of internet access in the world). The only restrictions are on pornography and publications that are considered to incite racial or religous conflict.
The government loves to indulge in social engineering, which all governments do to a degree, but Singapore goes much further than most. While people occasionally complain, most are intended to contribute to a safe and functioning society, and are generally supported.
On the economic front, I think the government control of significant parts of the economy is economically mis-guided, but this hardly constitutes being authoritarian.
The thing to remember about LKY is that he perhaps uniquely beat the communists at their own game by out-organizing them. In 40 short years he turned a poor small island, into an economic success story in large part by giving most people a stake in the country’s success. Sure he did some things that if they happened in an Anglophone country people would rightly be up in arms about (well at least until 9/11), but sometimes the end does justify the means.
This is a safe clean country where stuff works, people work hard and there is little political dissent but don’t think the lack of dissent is somehow reflective of an authoritarian government. From my perspective its primarily a social/cultural phenomena.
Charlie – Singapore is not “extremely authoritarian”. The statement is based on ignorance and socialist prejudice. The Soviet Union was “extremely authoritarian”. China under Mao (and maybe now, I don’t know) was “extremely authoritarian”. Please, silly, over-wrought comments such as yours do not contribute and serve only to turn people off.
Banning chewing gum because it’s a noxious substance that gets on people’s shoes, is put under cafe tables, sometimes left to melt in the equatorial sun on cars, used by smartass teens to gum up the doors of the sparkling clean, efficient subway system – is not the same as throwing people in prison without trial, using the Stazi to get families to spy on one another, using torture as a means to obtain confession, etc. This is a libertarian thread. Please try to be rational.
To those whose American/British experience points to corruption if a government buys stock in corporations, please understand that Singapore is not America or Britain. The Singapore government is so heavy on corruption that frankly, I’d be scared to death to work for them. I recall that the head of the electricity company (or board, don’t remember) was found guilty of some minor infraction of Singapore’s draconian corruption laws and was removed from his position and disgraced. This is something the Singaporeans are very, very serious about.
To all the lefties who inexplicably haunt this site, Singapore is a very conservative place. This means they have no sympathy with any of your little socialist/communist/fascist memes. Their country is one of the best run, maybe *the* best run countries in the world. They like it. Becky’s drivel about the death penalty for drug trafficking included typical lefty sobs because cannabis is included as a drug. Singapore does not want a drug problem and does not have one. When you go into Singapore, you are handed a card that tells you trafficking of drugs attracts the death penalty. Not maybe. Not “Good lawyers are expensive, so you better have enough money to pay for one.” It says, if you sell any illegal substance in Singapore and are caught, you will die. Becky seems to find this unfair. She thinks the drugs she approves of should be excused. Doubtless she also feels that all drugs should be excused because it’s somehow not your fault if you traffick in drugs. Singapore thinks traffickers are a virus on society. It eliminates the virus.
Now, it doesn’t happen that often, because the entire planet knows that if there is one place off limits for selling drugs, it is Singapore. Sometimes a moron, not understanding the high level of Singapore’s police and intelligence services, gives it a whirl anyway. They are caught and the trial date is set swiftly. (Trials are open to the public, by the way. There’s nothing sinister about them.) It will be a fair trial – as I say, completely open to public and press. If the three judges find the defendant guilty, he is hanged that Friday at sunrise and there will be a little notice in The Straits Times. One sentence with the person’s name and offence and time declared dead.
Many comments on this thread, including those of the ghastly, self-righteous, preachy sob sister Becky stem, it comes across to me, from racial prejudice. Some people just seem to see Chinese people as sinister.
Lawrence – You’re talking out of your arse. Singapore ruthlessly exploits its neighbours? Please name some. Rich, modern, thriving Malaysia? Malaysia’s rolling in gravy, old boy. Yes, many Malaysians who live in Johore Bahru, a three minute drive across the Straits of Malacca, work in Singapore because Singapore is such a successful economy it has 100% employment. Malaysians who work there have special “smart cards” so they can through Immigration to work without hassle. There they are paid identical rates to Singaporeans doing similar jobs — sometimes, they may even be better paid because it’s a very competitive employment market and employers are willing to pay whatever it takes. Or maybe Lawrence was thinking of Thailand. Thais do come looking for jobs on building sites (they don’t speak English, so manual labour is all they can do) but the government prefers that Thais not be offered jobs because they’re violent and have knife fights and take up a lot of police time.
Indonesians seeking jobs on building sites usually apply to Malaysia because the language is almost identical (although Malaysia is also Anglophone, Bahasa Malaysia, which everyone also speaks, is the same as Bahasa Indonesia) and it is a fellow Muslim country. Although recently, Malaysia’s been turfing them out because, like the Thais in S’pore, they’re violent and cause social problems.
T Hartin – I think it’s rotten of Phil Bradley to start this thread and scamper off, and I was hoping he’d answer your question overnight. But he seems to have disappeared, so I am going to give my final explanation of S’pore although I have no obligation, other than fondness for the people and country, to do so. CPF is the Central Provident Fund. You contribute to this all your working life. Don’t know the current percentage, but something like 12.5% of your salary is deducted at source. Your employer pays something like 17%. Anyway, every month, that 12.4% and that 17.% contributed by your employer, goes, by law, into your CPF account. This account remains yours for life. There’s a phone number and code you can call 24 hrs a day to check on exactly how much you’ve got in your account. This accumulates during your entire working life. You can’t withdraw it except to buy your own house or apartment (this gets people out of government housing because the government doesn’t want to be in the housing business), or BUY SHARES in 20 or so blue chip/gilt edged companies approved of by the government as being very sound, safe investments. Even then, the amount of your money you have access to before the age of 55 is a very small proportion of it.
As the government knows when you will turn 55, it knows exactly how long it has to borrow your money at favourable rates to complete its capital projects. On your 55th birthday, you are free to take it all out and do as you please. There are secretaries and nurses in Singapore retiring with a million US$. Your money is never available for any other use. It is always yours. You lend it to the government for capital projects, but not for anything else. There’s no unemployment compensation in Singapore. At all. Not one thin dime. You don’t work, you starve. Your choice.
I humbly apologise for the length of this, but there are so many misconceptions about S’pore – much of it based on outright prejudice. And I thought Phil Bradley had gone on the lam, but I see that he has started posting again, so I can shut up and get back to work. Defending an entire country is very time consuming.
Liberty Belle’s approach to Chinese industriousness & trading abilities (Shanghai, Canton, Honk Hong + South East Asia) is right. I don’t know if that has anything to do with free market or State-downsizing, but they are business-focused & community-oriented & also have a great deal of common-sense & adaptability. Even in environment like France (as opposed to extreme freemarketness), they’re thriving while abiding to French “huge regulation” & “Statism” etc. This fact alone shows how limited hazy theories & ideological bric-à-brac (rightist or leftist) can be…
As for Venice, Napoleon or not, the city was rotten anyway & entering sweet economical decadence as the XVIIIth century vanished. Venice wasn’t the only Italian polis to develop banking, bookkeeping & international trade (you could also mention many State-cities located in German-speaking area or in Flanders).
ANDY: Dutch & Old English are indeed more related than is say, the latter with High German although Low German (Low Saxon = Plattdeutsch = Niederdeutsch = Niedersächsisch) is perhaps closer to Dutch than Old English was. Nevertheless there are uncountable similarities between Dutch & (High) German once your drop the phenotypic dissimilarities (vowel writing & vowel sounding for instance).
Anyway the Dutch are a great trading & innovating nation with a sound ability to develop State management & social welfare.
The Singapore nation-building is striking because the country is new & heavily mixed with Chinese (majority), Malese & Indians. It works because cultural differences have been deliberately erased & replaced by business values & a strong sense of hierarchy (not so libertarian). The use of English is to this extent examplatory (although Mandarin is currently being supported again as an attempt to regain minimal authenticity). As for freedom of speech & real democracy, can Singapore be a model at all?
MARK: according to the Napoleonic tradition, a judge is merely a law-performer or applying texts to cases heard whereas in pre-Napoleonic Switzerland a judge was running judicial performance as a private business; what the law philosophy pertaining to judicial business could have been before Napo came in, I don’t know.
THE UNDERLYING BIAS OF THE SURVEY
If the survey’s authors presuppose that “low fiscality” & “low regulating” are major criterions to deem what’s working or better or not, then the ultimate ranking is no wonder, is it?
Forrest: One is left to wonder why the growth in the PRC greatly outstrips that of any of the “economically free” countries and city-state’s on the list.
Easy. High growth rates are not difficult when starting from such a dreadfully low base level. For example increasing GDP per capita from $1000 per year to $2000 per year (100%) is going to be much easier than from $25,000 per year to $50,000 per year.
Warmongering Lunatic – Very interesting point about Taiwan. I wonder why.
A friend of mine pointed me to this discussion, and being a Singaporean currently living in California, I read it with some interest.
Phil Bradley really summarises the argument best of all. I lived my first 18 years in Singapore, and the next 8 years in California, and I do not consider Singapore to be authoritarian, although I can see how it might seem that way. The thing to remember is that there is a difference between theory and practice, between a law as it is written and how it is actually enforced (or not!). Because of its small size and lack of resources, social cohesion and stability are absolutely essential to the well being of all Singaporeans, individually and as a society. Singapore cannot afford four-hour gridlocks twice a day on its roads, five-day labour strikes or two-day racial riots. Such a thing does not affect just a single area of the country, or a single segment of the economy. It affects the entire country absolutely.
Phil very accurately pointed out that the same party just happens to get elected each time. And the reason for this? It’s because they’re doing such a great job, or at least almost everyone seems to think so. Plus with a few notable exceptions, there is no really viable alternative among the opposition. If the PAP (present ruling party) ever faltered, rest assured that Singaporeans will let it know through the vote. Thus far it has continued to reaffirm the confidence and trust the people have placed in it.
And just for the record, the PAP has not been in power since time immemorial. In Singapore’s first election, the Singapore Labour Front was the ruling party.
With regard to Social Engineering, yes I do admit that there is more that goes on in Singapore than there should be. But then that’s only my opinion. Singaporeans do recognise that most of the engineering is for the common good. And when we don’t believe so, the government does listen. After which one of two things happen: The government explains the reasons behind a particular policy and the people accept it, or they do not accept it, and a compromise is reached or the policy is eliminated.
Except for that silly chewing gum ban. Though I just read that it’s going to be relaxed because of the FTA with the US. Apparently pressure from Wrigley’s led to the requirement that Singapore relax the ban on over-the-counter chewing gum sales. I find that rather amusing, and then I wonder at a system that allows a single corporation to influence US foreign policy…
And as for the government controlling the Singapore economy to a large degree, again the issue of the country’s size becomes a factor. In order to succeed, pretty much all of the country has to be galvanised and guided in a particular direction to remain relevant to the rest of the world. Since Singapore’s independence 38 years ago (not yet 40!), the country has been remade at least three times — first as a manufacturing base for multi-nationals, then as an advanced manufacturing and tertiary services centre, and currently as a biotechnology hub. Could such drastic switches have occurred spontaneously in the private sector? And there is no way to have different parts of the country become specialised in different sectors of industry — Singapore is smaller than Taiwan, smaller than Hong Kong, smaller even than Los Angeles. Virtually the whole country has to shift, or not at all.
In addition, even if such control is misguided, this is still a judgement pronounced on a short-term view of things. I doubt that the same level of control will continue to endure for the next twenty or thirty years, not just because it is untenable as many have already stated previously, but also because there was more control twenty, thirty years ago. There has been a loosening of the reigns since the late seventies and early eighties, and previously government-controlled companies are now very much private, including Singapore Airlines, Singapore Telecoms (now SingTel), and what was once the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation.
Phil’s description of LKY are again dead on. Singaporeans recognise that in certain situations the ends do justify the means, that Singapore as a country was, and continues to exist, in a tenuous state, affected by events large and small in neighbouring and distant countries. They made a compact with the government, tolerating the occasional heavy-handedness for generally sound governance — that there seems to be a lack of obvious dissent does not mean that dissent is not present. And the results speak for themselves. Over the past five years Singapore has gone through one currency crisis, two global economic slumps, multiple threats to its water supply, one contagious and deadly disease, and a couple of threats of war to boot. And it’s now the first SE Asian country to have an FTA with the US.
But of course things are not pitch perfect. You can bring a country through 70 years of economic development in 40 years, but changing the attitudes and beliefs of its people will take more time. Thus compared to, say, San Francisco, Singaporeans are a lot more conservative in their values and thinking. However things are changing, and will continue to change, as younger Singaporeans become more prominent in the decision-making process, and the reigns continue to be loosened. One of the most recent surprises was Prime Minister Goh’s unfussy endorsement of homosexuals. A small step, but a step nonetheless.
One other cultural perspective. The person who wrote that Singaporean television is bad, is perhaps being a little ethnocentric. I watch Singaporean TV shows, especially sit-coms, whereas I never watch American sit-coms (and hardly ever watch American dramas). I can relate to the characters and situations in the Singaporean shows, but can see why others would not.
I am not saying outsiders should not judge, but OTOH don’t assume your perspective is the only valid one. And if you judge, try and judge based on measurable outcomes for people, and perhaps most importantly how much those outcomes have changed.
One of my favourite anecdotes about Singapore is shortly after Independence a minister was asked why so many people were living in hovels, and his reply was (and I paraphrase) ‘Right now, we don’t have enough hovels!’
Gregory Chew: Thus compared to, say, San Francisco, Singaporeans are a lot more conservative in their values and thinking. However things are changing, and will continue to change, as younger Singaporeans become more prominent in the decision-making process, and the reigns continue to be loosened.
No doubt, but social attitudes and accepting the legitimacy of certain laws are seperate matters. Disapproving of something and using the violence of law to ban it are materially different.
I too have spent some time in Singapore and to be honest I think that most Singaporeans cannot see the difference between civil society and state and thus the notion that popular predudices should be backed by violence seems perfectly natural.
Clearly Singapore has a great deal of economic freedom, but does that mean I can set up a bunch of strip clubs there? After all, if the vast majority of Singaporeans disapprove, I will go broke… isn’t that what ‘economic freedom’ is all about?
Or is Singapore’s economic freedom just the freedom to do what you like economically provided is in accordance with national objectives and sensibilities? Is that really freedom? Well if I took my capital and set up a factory making electronics, rather than opening strip clubs, I am sure the Singaporean government would both welcome my investment and leave me to run my business unmolested. But then the German state would have reacted in much the same way if I had set up an electronics company there in 1939, so I am not sure why I should be all that excited about Singapore.
Gregory Chew, thanks for the breath of fresh air after all that hyper-ventilating on the thread. I hope your lucid and rational explanations calmed people down and disarmed their misconceptions about this wonderful country. I’m just sorry I didn’t even get a little pat on the back after all that hard work I did defending Singapore single-handed until Phil Bradley swanned back in and walked away with the Oscar!
Perry, that was last post was particularly opaque.
All governments prohibit certain economic activities for social or public order reasons. Therefore, why point out that Singapore does? Try setting up poison gas manufacturing plant in London or New York, or a brothel for that matter.
Liberty Belle writes:
“the ghastly, self-righteous, preachy sob sister Becky”
I may not agree with you, but I think I’ve remained civil about it so I don’t know why I merit this outburst.
Liberty Belle, sorry, I went bed cos I don’t like seeing people I admire, gratuitously bashed out of what I perceive to be ignorance, and I would probably have become ‘intemperate’.
Thanks, you did great work, although I never intended this to become a debate on Singapore!
Phil Bradley – Yes, that’s why I was motivated to keep on posting too (I knew you’d have gone to bed as I think you’re six hours ahead of us). The misperceptions and malicious socialist rhetoric got under my skin. I have met Singaporeans I have heartily disliked, but I’ve met many more that I like and respect; and I like and respect their country, too. And as I said before, LKY is one of my heroes.
More country ranking as to human development may be found here:
http://www.undp.org/hdr2001/hdi.pdf
HDI (Human Development Index) country ranking for 2001:
01 Norway
02 Australia
03 Canada
04 Sweden
05 Belgium
06 United States
07 Iceland
08 Netherlands
09 Japan
10 Finland
11 Switzerland
12 Luxembourg
13 France
14 United Kingdom
15 Denmark
16 Austria
17 Germany
18 Ireland
19 New Zealand
20 Italy
21 Spain
22 Israel
23 Greece
24 Hong Kong,China (SAR)
25 Cyprus
26 Singapore
27 Korea,Rep.of
28 Portugal
29 Slovenia
30 Malta
Among the 48 countries belonging to the High Human Development, Singapore is ranking 26 (2nd half).
Liberty Belle, I take it from your little speech about drug traffickers that you approve of Singapore’s draconian laws.
To mock as “soft” those of us who think the penalties are utterly disproportional to the threat posed (particularly for cannabis, which i challenge you to demonstrate the societal danger of), is ridiculous.
To say “oh, they receive a fair trial, so they can’t complain” is equally ridiculous. Would you be happy to have expats in Saudi etc. executed for drinking, provided their trial is fair… or women executed for not wearing veils, provided it could be proved in a fair court that they genuinely were guilty of the ‘crime’? (& yes, i’m sure you could make a good case for women’s empowerment being a ‘virus’ that corrupts society too).
Wrong laws have to be challenged, and believing that most drug ‘crimes’, particularly those related to cannabis, are not crimes, is hardly the sole preserve of bleeding heart lefties.
Rosignol, I probably do need to read my history about many things, but I was perfectly aware that the US had had a presence in the Philippines and I never said you didn’t. I said “we” had never had a presence there. This is a British blog, although it is incalculably enhanced by the large number of interesting and thoughtful Americans who post here. “We” in this instance, meant Britain. But as we were discussing the Anglosphere, not Britain or America, I should not have made the distinction. I stand corrected.
A_t – People who break the law, whether in their own country or someone else’s country have to take the consequences. The world knows very well that Singapore is totally intolerant of drug trafficking. If you choose, nevertheless, to go to Singapore and traffick in drugs, you have no choice but to accept the penalty.
How dare you say that “wrong laws” should be challenged? Wrong by whose lights? I sense a colonialist mentality here. Singapore’s laws are passed with the consent of the Singaporean electorate. They are not your business and you are arrogant beyond belief to suggest that laws that have been passed by an elected parliament in another country should be challenged because you don’t approve of them.
Go fix the laws in your own country. You don’t have a vote in Singapore.
I have have no interest in Saudi laws and am not qualified to comment on them. Neither are they relevant to the discussion of the standing of Anglosphere countries in the economic freedom leagues.
Phil: Sure, but some things like poison gas factories pose a literal physical threat in ways brothels do not. The fact government ban things is clear, but the extent to which they ban things and for what reasons is how we decide which are the lesser evils and which are the greater evils…
Singapore has much to commend and calling it ‘fascist’ is certainly wide of the mark, but it is far from being a ‘free’ country. If I was a betting man I might place a wager that it was more likely to become a truly free country than the vast majority of places in the world… but I am not ready to wax lyrical over it just yet.
A_T, Singapore considers certain drugs to be sufficiently socially corrosive to attract severe penalties. It is not alone in considering cannabis to be in this category. Note that the death penalty applies for possesion of half a kilo, considered to be prima facia evidence of trafficking.
To equate drug trafficking with not wearing a veil is frankly ridiculous. As is the implied equivalence of social restrictions in Singapore and Saudi Arabia. FYI women in Singapore are full economic participants and women are frequently in management in other senior positions.
I met a dutch airman during the ar, from the friesians, he said the local dialect was quite similar to his local dialect.
Phil, you misinterpret me; i was in no way implying that women are subservient in Singapore, or even Saudi, come to that… just that people on this board, and Liberty Belle in particular, would have no problems with opposing laws in foreign countries, no matter how “fairly” enforced, which dealt with this kind of thing.
but “Singapore considers certain drugs to be sufficiently socially corrosive to attract severe penalties.”
Much of Afganistan considers women not wearing veils to be socially corrosive too. Does that mean we should just let them stone/beat women who go barefaced, without any murmer of condemnation?
& Liberty Belle, precisely the same thing… so suddenly you think there are no absolute rights & wrongs? I am not permitted to comment on the laws of another country because i might be seen as *gasp* colonialist? Put your copy of the guardian away girl… or stop fighting dirty; one or the other.
Personally, i think consuming drugs is an entirely private business for the individual concerned, which the state has no business interfering with. Much of the associated crime occurs simply because the drugs are illegal; much like the crime that built up around alcohol during prohibition in the USA.
You’re happy to condemn French state intervention into business practices, (which many French people support), yet I’m not allowed to condemn repressive drug laws, which don’t just lead to inconvenience, but death for people who i feel have done nothing wrong?
disappointing reasoning.
As an avid fan of jazz cinema I’m curious about film censorship in Singapore.
I know cinema classification is strict. Is there much of an undercounter video market? Is it easy to import pornography and video nasties through the post as it is in Britain? Is internet usage monitored?
TIA
Much of Afganistan considers women not wearing veils to be socially corrosive too. Does that mean we should just let them stone/beat women who go barefaced, without any murmer of condemnation?
I don’t normally indulge in moral arguments, but lets take morality as a proxy for utility. Women are more than capable of holding up half the sky and to deny them the opportunity to do so hurts us all. I can find no equivalent argument for drug dealers.
disappointing reasoning.
Exactly!
Phil Bradley,
I’ve known plenty drug users (who let’s not forget, are usually criminalised too; i believe singapore has pretty harsh penalties for posession), some of them women, who were quite capable of ‘holding up the sky’. Also, many dealers are eminently capable people, some of them very nice, who in a normal world might be able to operate as successful businessmen. The demon, cold hearted traffickers/pushers of miami-vice fame do certainly exist, but are not as common as is widely believed. Also, they *only* exist because of the illegality of drugs in the first place; these people are career criminals whose chosen field is drugs, largely becuase of the huge profits involved. It also should be noted that the ‘war on drugs’ rarely catches such individuals; usually all they get are young entrepreneurs who have basically seized one of the few opportunities that were presented to them.
All of the above is irrelevant anyway, as my main point was just this: if I strongly disagree with the laws of another country, I have the right to say they should be changed without being accused of colonialism, racism or any other rubbish.
further, I was not directly implying an equivalence between the suppression of women & the suppression of narcotics; clearly one is more important than the other, & i’d be a fool to deny it. However, i don’t belive in parcelling up human liberty into “essential” and “non essential” packages, & don’t see why i should keep schtum on this issue when injustice is being doled out around the world, and millions fall into the hands of a**hole crime bosses.
Phil Bradley,
I’ve known plenty drug users (who let’s not forget, are usually criminalised too; i believe singapore has pretty harsh penalties for posession), some of them women, who were quite capable of ‘holding up the sky’. Also, many dealers are eminently capable people, some of them very nice, who in a normal world might be able to operate as successful businessmen. The demon, cold hearted traffickers/pushers of miami-vice fame do certainly exist, but are not as common as is widely believed. Also, they *only* exist because of the illegality of drugs in the first place; these people are career criminals whose chosen field is drugs, largely becuase of the huge profits involved. It also should be noted that the ‘war on drugs’ rarely catches such individuals; usually all they get are young entrepreneurs who have basically seized one of the few opportunities that were presented to them.
All of the above is irrelevant anyway, as my main point was just this: if I strongly disagree with the laws of another country, I have the right to say they should be changed without being accused of colonialism, racism or any other rubbish.
further, I was not directly implying an equivalence between the suppression of women & the suppression of narcotics; clearly one is more important than the other, & i’d be a fool to deny it. However, i don’t belive in parcelling up human liberty into “essential” and “non essential” packages, & don’t see why i should keep schtum on this issue when injustice is being doled out around the world, and millions fall into the hands of a**hole crime bosses.
Liberty, Singapore is part of the Anglosphere. Lee Kuan Yew, in his excellent Third World To First, discusses the mesh of ‘Confucian values’ on an Anglo ‘infrastructure’ (e.g. common law). While it may not be exactly congruent to Western Anglospherism, it shares many characteristics of it. Look where many of Hong Kong’s elite went before the change of regime: Sydney, London, New York, Vancouver, Toronto, San Francisco. The vibrancy of ethnically Chinese immigrants in Anglosphere communities without any effect on government ‘authoritarianism’ tends to show that many of these Confucian values are very similar to Anglosphere values. Too many people seem to forget that China’s only been communist for 50 years, and historically has been very capitalist. As we all know, capitalist powers can’t succeed without innovation (think of all of the inventions Marco Polo et al brought back), which stems from freedom of expression.
Frank,
All you say is fine.
Just explain why there’s this steady powerful Chinese immigration in Paris, the capital of socialism, communism & rigid Statism & the quintessence of Anglo-Saxonhood?
🙂 well pointed out Kodiak… was thinking that myself, reading this thread.
A_t – Do not call me “girl”.
You said that “wrong laws must be challenged” in the context of Singapore law. It is not your business to challenge Singapore law. To compare Afghanistan and/or Saudi Arabia to Singapore, a first world country with a freely elected Parliament, rule of law, open trials, the belief that guilt, not innocence, must be proven and all the other appurtenances of civilisation is so bizarre that it beggars credence. You are “permitted” to think whatever the hell you want to think, but it is not your business to “challenge” laws that were made by elected representatives of a free people in a foreign sovereign country.
I have a right to condemn state intervention in France because I am registered to vote here. I am part of the electorate. Something tells me you’re not on the Singapore electoral rolls.
To repeat, do not refer to me as “girl” again.
God! I’m gasping for breath…
Liberty Belle: you’re voting in a socialist 3rd-world country infested with Muslim communists who are hunting for Anglo-Saxons in every street corner?
What a bit of irony!
Isn’t France too generous?
Liberty Belle,
Unless you’re a French citizen, and perhaps you are, you do not have the right to vote in the legislative or presidential elections – i.e. the important ones. You only have the right to vote in regional elections – a right given to you by the last socialist government.
You do talk a lot of nonsense, don’t you girl? Since when can one only challenge the laws of a country one can vote in? Are you really saying you have nothing whatsoever to say about the legal discrimination against women in Saudi? Were you indifferent to the apartheid laws in South Africa?
Frank – thank you for motivating me to finally read ‘From Third World to First World’. It’s been at the back of my mind for some time, but after reading your comments, I went straight to Amazon and ordered it.
I take your point about the flight capital from HK fleeing to the Anglosphere, but on reflection, where else could it have gone? The educated HKers speak English and their mother tongue is Cantonese. The only other place they speak Cantonese are some provinces in China, which obviously wouldn’t have been a choice.
I do know that many fled to Singapore (also in the Anglosphere), and were actively encouraged to do so by the Singapore government, who were handing out permanent residency passes to fleeing Hong Kongers like candy. Would that we had had the compassion, vision and sense of honour to do the same!
Becky,
Well done!
Ca c’est bien envoyé!
Becky, your problem is, you are very bitter about something. You have a socialist agenda you are eager to press with hostility rather than argument. You have bossy, know-it-all input on absolutely every topic that comes up. Yesterday, you were an expert on Singapore. You equated Singapore’s Senior Minister Lee Kwan Yew with Pol Pot, Stalin and Mao, and you equated banning chewing gum with arresting people in the middle of the night, throwing them into prison without a trial and sending them off to the gulags.
When you cannot find anything on the internet to back you up, you resort to spite. You are a very angry person. Styling me ‘girl’ after I reprimanded A_t for doing so was the act of a spiteful little six-year-old in a temper. Had someone been so patronising as to style you ‘girl’ you would have have been all over them like a rash. (Had A_t edited his copy, I am confident he would have taken out ‘girl’ as his post obviously wasn’t intended to be insulting. He was just miffed and dashed off an answer in a hurry, which is why I didn’t ask for an apology.) All your posts, to the contrary, are spiked with malice. And I would no more ask for an apology for your manners from you than I would of a fly that landed in my drink.
Regarding your unasked for guidance about my voting rights, why would you assume that I don’t already know where I can vote? Why did you assume superior knowledge about my rights to that which I possess already? Becky, to save yourself further humiliation, be assured that when I want advice, I am accustomed to paying for the best. That leaves you with the same status as roadkill. My citizenship and my passport are not, by any stretch of your angry, fevered imagination, your concern. Your haunting this site is a waste of time as the people posting here, by and large, find socialism/communism/thought fascism (same programme, different brand names) anathema. It would take far more coherent and intelligent arguments than a little hysteric such as yourself is able to martial to persuade them otherwise. I, for example, will continue to think that Lee Kwan Yew is one of the giants of the 20th Century and will go down as one of the all time visionaries of Asia, whether the ill-informed but opinionated Becky, who has “been to Singapore several times” (no doubt on the way to the Golden Triangle) is able to understand why I say that or not.
Your alter ego Kodiak has not been quite as vicious and rude today as he normally is, so I assume he has received a warning about abusive language. Nevertheless, he continues to infect every thread of Samizdata with his pointless meanderings and dull-edged “jokes”. As in your own case, there is no subject under the sun on which he does not have an opinion and superior knowledge. You and he together have lowered the level of discourse on this site. A thread is full of interesting and rationall ideas, then one of you makes an appearance and the whole thing dies a death. I may be the first one to take my leave until you both evaporate, but I guarantee I will not be the last.
I’m just pleased that my last effort here yesterday, before the appearance of Gregory Chew and the reappearance of Phil Bradley, who does, after all, deserve his sleep, I single-handedly for several hours defended a country of which I am very fond against a bunch of people who had been misinformed by communistic propaganda, and an individual whose political thinking and achievements will be referred to long after Becky is dust, along with her beloved EU regulations.
Everyone: excellent discussion! My impression is that Brits (or Anglophiles, or whomever you are) are infinitely better at reasoned debate than my American brethren. I don’t know why this should surprise me.
Liberty Belle and Becky: thank you both for expanding my understanding of the subject matter.
Liberty Belle: I think you’re fundamentally correct, but don’t understand why you experience anything Becky has said as personally insulting.
Becky/A_T: you are of course entitled to express your opinion about another country’s laws, so long as you clearly state that it’s only your opinion (unless either or both of you are God, in which case I most humbly apologize). If the laws in question are determined democratically through the free action of all of the nation’s citizens, then they are appropriate for that country. You may still feel they’re immoral, but that’s much tougher to prove, and requires that your audience share your moral framework.
Phil Bradley: excellent thread.
First off to Perry’s post:
It is true that social attitudes are not quite the same as the rule of law, or is it? I should clarify that I was really referring to SOCIETAL attitudes, which it is the purpose of law to reflect and uphold. And since the social attitudese of a people make up the attitudes of a society, A leads to B leads to C, and laws are created accordingly.
With regard to one not being able to set up strip clubs, the government has deemed such a thing to be harmful to society, because the society and the people who make it up, deem it to be harmful to them. To transplant this to somewhere else, before you can set up a strip club, you’d need to gain permission from the City Council or similar body in the area you’re targetting. You may be accepted, or rejected because the Council does not want that kind of thing in the neighbourhood. And that decision is made by the Council who represent the interests and desires of the people who live in that neighbourhood.
Bring that back to Singapore’s case. It so happens this country is small enough that the government of the country is literally the same as the government of the state, and the city etc. There is some hierarchy, between so-called city councils and the cabinet members etc., but the relationship is very tight. Thus there is a ban on strip clubs because each town and district in Singapore desires that there be no strip clubs in their neighbourhood, and it becomes the law of the land.
“I too have spent some time in Singapore and to be honest I think that most Singaporeans cannot see the difference between civil society and state and thus the notion that popular predudices should be backed by violence seems perfectly natural.”
Maybe so, but then again we’re back to the fact that laws are supposed to uphold the values of a society, such values being surely more than just “popular prejudice” if practically everyone upholds them. Taking another example, the US Supreme Court recently overturned a Texas law prohibiting sodomy…wait a moment, there actually exists laws in the US prohibiting sodomy??? Surely opinions regarding sodomy are a matter of personal opinions and prejudices and shouldn’t be subject to law…oh wait a minute, it’s because enough Texans shared the same opinion regarding sodomy that they passed a law reflecting that opinion, that societal attitude, a law that was properly endorsed by a majority of the people.
And now on to A_t. From what you’ve written, you seem to believe that there are “good” drugs and “bad” drugs, “good” drug dealers/traffickers, and “bad” dealers. Well, that’s fine with you. Singaporeans don’t consider it that way. We feel that all drugs are harmful, and by extension anyone who trafficks any kind of drugs is harmful to society. This includes cannabis. Don’t like that, go smoke pot somewhere else. How about California? Hold on, there’s something of a debate going on now in California regarding marijuana use. If it’s not harmful at all, why is there a debate?
But then your opinions regarding drugs are your opinions, and you’re completely entitled to them, just as I’m completely entitled to mine. All other Singaporeans are also entitled to theirs, which happens to be that all drugs are harmful to their society. Thus as part of the government’s mandate to reflect the values of the people who elected them, they impose laws and penalties against drugs and drugs trafficking. They may seem harsh to you, but not to Singaporeans, for Singaporeans obviously consider drugs to be more of a vice than you do.
And finally, Kit, here’s how Singapore’s film censorship and classification system works. There are four classifications last I heard: G, PG, NC-16, and R(A). G is General. PG is Parental Guidance, and basically means “most movies that aren’t made by Disney.” NC-16 is “No Children Under 16”, and R(A) is “Restricted (Artistic)”, or no one under 21.
In terms of censoring films themselves, for the most part they are left alone, and a classification placed on them. It is only if the distributor/film director requests that a film be placed under a different category that cuts are made to the film to bring it up to spec, same as any other country’s classifcation system. Such cuts are made often in cooperation with the filmmaker, and if he isn’t happy with the new cut, he can instead opt for the higher rating.
The R(A) rating is really a catch-all for everything that is too “adult” for the other ratings. The “Artistic” qualifier basically means “not porn”. This does not mean “no nudity and sex”, for such is allowed if there is artistic merit. Something like “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover” would be allowed, but something like “Debbie Does Dallas” wouldn’t be.
So to answer your question, jazz cinema should be fine. Depending on the arrangement between the censorship board and the filmmaker, there may be no cuts and the film is R(A), or some cuts and the film is NC-16 or PG. Such was the case with Basic Instinct, which might have made a lower rating with some cuts, but was instead shown with an R(A) rating because the director wanted the film to remain untouched.
I should add that this of course is infinitely better to the situation 12 years ago when all films were cut down to the same specifications, so that they could be watched by anyone and everyone. Malaysia still uses that system, with censorship rules that are much stricter, especially with regard to sex and displays of affection. I heard that the official Malaysian version of Pearl Harbour screened at a little over 1.5 hours, which in this case I think is actually an improvement.
Gregory Chew: thanks for two interesting comments in a row.
That is exactly the point I was making and you just confirmed it. You see no real difference between society (which is a group of people interacting socially) and state (which is an institution which uses violence (i.e. law) to mandate things). If you think the states exists to make mores, views and prejudices of the political plurality have force of law, rather than to underwrite several rights, then you actually think social interaction is in reality only what is allowed and in fact mediated by political (i.e. force backed) interaction… “Society” is free to act socially only with political sanction, which means social interaction is really an illusion. Which is exactly why I concluded long ago that there is no civil society in Singapore, only a politically mandated order. If you like what is mandated, which most seem to, then life is great. If not, then best you find somewhere else to live.
Which is why I do not really admire Singapore all that much. It is a pleasant place to visit, a fine place to run an approved business, the food is great, the people are congenial and above all, extremely tame.
No thanks.
The fact that a country taxing over 40% of GDP from its populace can be considered the 5th most “economically free” country in the world is rather depressing. Let’s face it, most countries on that list are not economically free at all – they are just slightly less bad than most of the others.
The people at Cato also seem to have forgotten about tax rates. A person paying 0% tax is in most respects an economically free man – someone paying 50% per year is a slave for half their working life. So they should have included tax havens like Monaco, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Cayman Islands etc, and low tax larger countries like Russia.
Also, as noted by a previous poster, it is actions, not written laws or words, that achieve freedom. A backward country with repressive laws may be more free for you personally if those laws are not enforced, or avoidable at low cost via bribes or cunning. So a corrupt backwater may be relatively free in real terms, whereas a “free” country like America will tax you ruthlessly even if you move to live on the other side of the world, and will exact severe penalties for certain voluntary economic exchanges (e.g. buying a joint or a Cuban cigar).
Which raises the final quesiton – is there any meaningful distinction between economic and personal liberty? I would say no. How free are Hong Kong, Singaporean, UK or US citizens to buy and sell firearms, narcotics, or sexual entertainment?
Finally, there is a bizarre tendency for everyone to take GDP figures at face value. Remember who makes these up? Yes, that’s right folks, it’s our old friend the *government*. So take GDP figures with a pinch of salt. Firstly, much government spending, most of which is highly wasteful, is regarded as a positive contribution to GDP. So employing someone on $30k per annum to build bridges to nowhere is seen as economically just as “good” in GDP terms as paying someone $30k per year to build a house, or work as a doctor or shopkeeper. Yet obviously the latter activities are productive, and the former destructive or at best worthless. This focus on production per se, rather than *useful* production, means utterly worthless projects drive a country up the GDP ranks. Thus countries with large amounts of state spending get an artificially high GDP rating.
The only real way to measure economic prosperity is to visit a place for a while and see what kind of real living standards prevail. What kind of cars do people drive, what clothes do they wear, how nice are their houses, are the streets clean, how good are the restaurants, how long does it take to get from A to B?
Wow!
This thread got a link from Instapundit!
Cobden Bright,
Excellent post.
Which raises the final quesiton – is there any meaningful distinction between economic and personal liberty? I would say no. How free are Hong Kong, Singaporean, UK or US citizens to buy and sell firearms, narcotics, or sexual entertainment?
Agree – there is no meaningful distinction. Ultimately, all liberty is the defense of property rights (which include ownership of the self). Rothbard eloquently makes this case in The Ethics of Liberty. Only when individuals have freedom from violence can they take part in voluntary interactions that are ultimately required for economic prosperity.
Liberty Belle: are you a Stalinian?
An anthology of your own words is quoted here below:
——
” (…) you are eager to press with hostility rather than argument”
LB: drop the “you” and write “I” >>> fits to reality.
——
” (…) you resort to spite”
LB: get an umbrella if you aren’t ready to get what your deserve.
——
” All your posts, to the contrary, are spiked with malice”
LB: yes, you belong to the axis of good.
——
” (…) which is why I didn’t ask for an apology”
LB: don’t ever ask; you could be disappointed.
——
” (…) to save yourself further humiliation (…)”
LB: get a dictionary & spot the entry for “humility”.
——
” It would take far more coherent and intelligent arguments than a little hysteric such as yourself (…)”
LB: please read your posts filled with hatred, ignorance & paranoid hystery.
——
” Your alter ego Kodiak has not been quite as vicious and rude today as he normally is, so I assume he has received a warning about abusive language”
LB: don’t assume too fast; & please check any item above- & below-mentioned as for your own maliciousness & rudeness.
——
” You and he together have lowered the level of discourse on this site”
LB: hopefully you don’t have any public responsibility & no gun at hand.
——
” A thread is full of interesting and rationall ideas (…)”
LB: like your immensely intellectual contribution given for free in threads related to France?
——
LB: get a mirror somewhere & look what’s in there.
Cobden Bright,
The Cato report is a relative ranking it makes no pretence to absolute measurement. Therefore, any criticisms in the context of the report, about absolute freedoms are arguably not relevant.
They do include personal taxation rates. Tax havens are excluded because they are not economically significant.
is there any meaningful distinction between economic and personal liberty? I would say no.
I agree with you! But then you go on to cite 3 examples (guns, drugs and sexshows) that most people, at least for the first two, are in favour of government regulation on a social and public order basis. We had a semi-humorous discussion a few weeks ago, about whether individuals should be allowed to keep a personal nuclear device in their basement. The point being these are not primarily economic freedom issues.
Measuring GDP is difficult and I could take each of your productive/unproductive examples and show situations where they are productive/unproductive, e.g. a shopkeeper in a store that doesn’t sell anything. In the end we have to rely on specialists. I agree GDP doesn’t tell the whole story about quality of life, and some countries seem to make a concious trade-off, forgoing economic freedoms/benefits, for quality of life and social cohesion. I had a German and an Australian make these points to me recently, but again the Cato report is concerned with economic activity, not quality of life.
Readers might be interested in this post from Crooked Timber on the same subject. Some thought-provoking points are made.
Becky care to elucidate what those thought-provoking points are? All I found was a rather juvenile rant, that verged on self-parody.
I guess socialists use different criteria for the term ‘thought-provoking’.
I thought what was interesting was his division of Cato’s indicators of economic freedom into negative and positive liberties. Negative liberties being the absence of restraints on one’s actions, and positive ones being means to enable one to do something. Libertarian philosophy puts the emphasis squarely on the former, although admits the need for a minimum of the latter (in this case, legal structures, enforcement of property rights, access to sound money – you could add policing, national defence, etc.). But by even accepting the latter, libertarians are admitting that economic freedom is pointless unless you have the means to use it. The poster then points out that the richer you are, the less need you have of positive liberties, i.e. you are more likely to be able to generate the means to use your economic freedom.
I simplify a post that is already a simplification of an idea, but I think that’s the gist.
Cobden,
“Finally, there is a bizarre tendency for everyone to take GDP figures at face value”
Right.
There’s also the PPS through PPP approach (systematically taken into account in the HDI* system).
*HDI = Human Development Index
http://www.undp.org/hdr2001/hdi.pdf
Becky, I think you are touching on an important question, although its probably too far into a too long thread to really explore it, which is, to what extent should the state ensure provision of certain goods and services for the general good of society and the welfare of individuals.
Why don’t you write a few hundreds words laying out a position and submit it to Samizdata for publication.
Phil – I’m not sure Samizdata would be too interested in publishing any of my thoughts on the issue. I have a critical interest in libertarianism and political and ethical philosophy in general, but I could by no stretch of the imagination call myself a libertarian. Nor am I a socialist – I’m just having fun trying to find out what I think by engaging in lively debate with intelligent people whose views I find challenging.
Becky, You might be suprised! A well argued and cogent position is generally well received here.
Liberty Belle,
Since your formerly & publicly questioned my French nationality, I dare you for a public verbal fight in French (with due translation in English) here on another blog. I don’t care.
I publicly affirm you don’t know French, even if you were lately granted petty electoral rights by Lionel Jospin.
——
Belle Liberté
Ma nationalité française ayant été précédemment & publiquement remise en cause par tes soins, je te somme de m’affronter au cours d’une joute verbale en français (avec traduction en anglais, bien sûr), ici ou sur un autre forum. Peu m’en chaud.
J’affirme devant tous que tu ne connais pas le français, même si tu bénéficies des droits civiques mineurs que Lionel Jospin t’a récemment accordés.
Becky: please do submit your thoughts on this. Without wanting to patronize the Left, I have discovered comparatively few voices capable of articulating strong defenses against libertarian logic. As a frequent troll on some leftist sites, I admire your guts for presenting controversial views on a rightist site.
Could I just say that I’m not the same Becky of the above post – I’m not in the habit of talking to myself! I very much doubt they’d publish anything I wrote but I really don’t think libertarian logic is as unassailable as you think. There are fundamental problems with how you define liberty in a world of meshed social actions, whose liberty you’re defending, how you derive “natural rights”, etc. etc.
Psuedobecky: I think that’s all the more reason that you should take some time to set forth your point of view. I’m more or less blissfully unaware of these problems, and would no-kidding love for you to point them out.
Becky,
Thanks very much for the link to crookedtimber. It has cheered me up with its good sense. After reading that girl Liberty Belles drivel for the last half hour I was starting to lose my sanity. I normally avoid libertarian sites like the plague as I prefer my conservatives straight. You however run a fine line of argument and just about make this place worth the visit. Anyway health restored now. Cheers. PS What rates is Phil offering you for your submission?
I don’t fancy a weekend with Ayn Rand or Hayek but if someone will point me in the direction of a concise summary of the libertarian position, on this site or elsewhere, I’ll examine it and try to take it apart over the weekend and submit a concise analysis to Samizdata – although I doubt very much they’ll publish anything by the enemy!
Becky,
You will be expected to furnish us with the concise summary of the libertarian position as it does not exist yet. Excluding of course that very concise summation: “LIBERTY!”
Becky:
…I wouldn’t want to weigh you down with Rand, Rothbard, Mises or Hayek…I’m sure even many self-labeled “libertarians” would consider that sort of reading material “dry” or “unentertaining” on their weekend off…I have found Libertarianism – A Primer by David Boaz a good place to start…It cover the fundamentals (“non-initiation of force”, “natural rights”, “the market process”, etc.) without having to read thousands of page by dead and wordy scholars…
>Jonathan: you are of course entitled to express your opinion about another country’s laws, so long as you clearly state that it’s only your opinion (unless either or both of you are God, in which case I most humbly apologize). If the laws in question are determined democratically through the free action of all of the nation’s citizens, then they are appropriate for that country. You may still feel they’re immoral, but that’s much tougher to prove, and requires that your audience share your moral framework.
Unfortunately you’re simply engaging in logically incoherent moral relativism. You can criticize anything you want about another country – simply because something’s the law there does not make any criticisms invalid. Extending that, you cannot criticize the laws of your own country, for, after all, if they were “determinded democratically through the free action of all the nation’s citizens,” they must be appropriate for said country. Your citizenship is irrelevant to the content of your argument.
Kodiak: I look forward to your debate! Bonne chance! (not that you’ll exactly need it…)
Becky: This site might be helpful: http://world.std.com/%7Emhuben/libindex.html
Josh,
Merci pour ton soutien. Rires garantis si la personne défiée ose se présenter. Traduction simultanée en anglais garantie aussi.
Thanx for your support. Laughters guaranteed if the one challenged dare turn up. Real-time translation into English guaranteed too.
Josh:
…Oh no…Not the dreaded “Non-Libertarian FAQ”…
Hasn’t David Friedman discredited that site yet?
…I considered telling Becky about that…But I was worried about giving too much “aid and comfort to the enemy”…I wouldn’t want my fellow classical liberals/libertarians to think I was committing treason…I was just curious if Becky is able to put together some type of (thoughtful) critique of libertarianism that I had not seen yet…
MayDay72: The fact that David Friedman responded to it does not mean he was successful in “discrediting it.” Read the responses to it on Huben’s site.
And would this be the same David Friedman who uses the example of some idealized village society of 10th Century Iceland as evidence of the feasibility of libertarian ideas? Oh, wait, it is!
Kodiak: Still waiting, it seems. 😉
Oh, and concerning Singapore, I believe the original point was that it is precisely NOT the sort of country that would land near the top for “freedom” generally, and, though I’ve never been there, any state which sanctions the death penalty for drug trafficking is further gone from libertarianism than is social democratic Sweden.
Josh: Whilst I am no fan of Singapore, I have yet to encounter anyone who thinks a tightly regulated place like Sweden is even the slightest bit ‘libertarian’.
Perry: I said Singapore is “further gone,” that is, “farther from” libertarianism than is Sweden, which, though it may be “tightly regulated,” does not dispense corporal punishment for gum chewing.
What’s logically incoherent about moral relativism? I consider myself a committed Christian. Shall we all agree to use my morality today? Or yours? How about Stalin’s?
While I certainly believe in Absolute Good and Evil, and that they are very often revealed to us through the consequences of actions, I wouldn’t for a moment expect anyone here to accept my opinion of what’s morally right just because I happen to say I am.
The citizens of Singapore have put together a set of rules which they, collectively, feel are appropriate, and to the best of my knowledge they allow those who disagree to emigrate. You happen to believe, based on your life experiences, that their penalties for drug use and trafficking are too strict. They disagree. If you cannot come up with any objective, substantiated reason that they are wrong and you are right, how do you expect to persuade anyone?
Or perhaps you’re just venting. That’s certainly allowed, and maybe therapeutic, but I don’t think it rises to the level of discourse that seems prevalent here.
What’s logically incoherent about moral relativism? I consider myself a committed Christian. Shall we all agree to use my morality today? Or yours? How about Stalin’s?
We needn’t agree, but we can certainly criticize each other. Moral relativism suggests that, because certain cultures have certain laws and values, they must be right because those people chose them, it’s part of their identity, etc. By such logic, we cannot criticize laws in our own countries, since, after all, the majority must collectively feel they’re appropriate.
Or perhaps you’re just venting. That’s certainly allowed, and maybe therapeutic, but I don’t think it rises to the level of discourse that seems prevalent here.
Said level of discourse here is not very high as it stands. I’ve re-read my post and nowhere do I explicitly say that I disapprove of Singapore’s laws – I merely pointed out that it’s hardly a libertarian society. And, I’ve already explained what’s wrong with moral relativism – in my first post here. I also said this: Your citizenship is irrelevant to the content of your argument.
Disagree?
(And, incidentally, I do disapprove of Singapore’s highly paternalistic and overbearing laws. A desire for social cohesion is one thing, sanctioning the use of force – caning – to maintain gum-free sidewalks is a drastic overreaction. Ultimately, this shows that Singapore’s government cannot trust its citizens to ever do the right thing. I’m not interested in living in a society that does not trust me to put my gum in the garbage can rather than spitting it on the sidewalk.)
We needn’t agree, but we can certainly criticize each other. Moral relativism suggests that, because certain cultures have certain laws and values, they must be right because those people chose them, it’s part of their identity, etc. By such logic, we cannot criticize laws in our own countries, since, after all, the majority must collectively feel they’re appropriate.
Certainly you can criticize anything you want to. Just not, it turns out, persuasively.
Said level of discourse here is not very high as it stands.
You should see what passes for discourse on many sites in the US. Methinks you’re spoiled.
I’ve re-read my post and nowhere do I explicitly say that I disapprove of Singapore’s laws
You didn’t have to. Your entire tone reeks of the very disapproval that your last paragraph confirms.
I merely pointed out that it’s hardly a libertarian society.
To the extent that this is your thesis, you have something of a point, though I think libertarians allow for policing as a legitimate function of the State, no? I don’t see as how limiting the State to policing means that the State should be limited to policing in a namby-pamby way.
And, I’ve already explained what’s wrong with moral relativism – in my first post here. I also said this: Your citizenship is irrelevant to the content of your argument.
If you’ve resigned yourself to arguing unpersuasively, I can’t fault you for logical inaccuracy. But I remain mystified as to your motive.
(And, incidentally, I do disapprove of Singapore’s highly paternalistic and overbearing laws.
Well, obviously you do, and that was what I was addressing as much as anything. Good of you to admit it, though.
A desire for social cohesion is one thing, sanctioning the use of force – caning – to maintain gum-free sidewalks is a drastic overreaction.
Let’s remove the discussion from emotionalism and confine it to the objective measure of “effectiveness.” What country, using which more compassionate punishment, has cleaner sidewalks than Singapore? I recommend that you start from there and build you argument outward.
Ultimately, this shows that Singapore’s government cannot trust its citizens to ever do the right thing.
I don’t know where the “ever” snuck into your otherwise reasonable statement, but I think what this shows is that Signapore has come up with an effective deterrent which ensures that the marginal utility of spitting chewing gum on the sidewalk is less than the cost of the punishment multiplied by the percent chance of getting caught. Arithmetically speaking, it is the only effective policy on chewing gum I have ever seen.
I’m not interested in living in a society that does not trust me to put my gum in the garbage can rather than spitting it on the sidewalk.)
NO society trusts you to put your gum in the garbage can vs. spitting it on the sidewalk. Think about what you’re saying! No society in the world trusts you to do that. The contest is between the countries which give a crap about whether you do (Singapore) and those which do not (everyone else).
If by spitting out your chewing gum on the sidewalk, you would cause a nuclear reaction that would destroy the country, do you honestly believe there is any country in the world which wouldn’t kill you immediately to prevent that from happening? A truly compassionate country might staple your face shut and feed you intravenously. Singapore likes its streets clean. Other countries don’t care as much. Trust of the citizenry doesn’t even enter into the equation.
Certainly you can criticize anything you want to. Just not, it turns out, persuasively.
Given that you seem to have already decided to ignore my arguments, I see no reason to think anything I would say would be “persuasive.”
You didn’t have to. Your entire tone reeks of the very disapproval that your last paragraph confirms.
Ahhh, I see.
To the extent that this is your thesis, you have something of a point, though I think libertarians allow for policing as a legitimate function of the State, no? I don’t see as how limiting the State to policing means that the State should be limited to policing in a namby-pamby way.
I have never seen any self-described libertarian argue for the death penalty for drug traffickers or applying corporal punishment for gum chewing or littering. They like to talk about the “minimum state,” which necessarily does NOT police in the interest of “social cohesion.”
If you’ve resigned yourself to arguing unpersuasively, I can’t fault you for logical inaccuracy. But I remain mystified as to your motive.
Where is the logical inaccuracy?
Let’s remove the discussion from emotionalism and confine it to the objective measure of “effectiveness.” What country, using which more compassionate punishment, has cleaner sidewalks than Singapore? I recommend that you start from there and build you argument outward.
Where’s the emotionalism? I do not believe the goal of cleaner sidewalks requires litterers be physically assaulted*. And, having never been to Singapore, I cannot comment on the effectiveness of the policy.
*I’m not actually sure this happens, given below, so I’ll have to check around.
I don’t know where the “ever” snuck into your otherwise reasonable statement, but I think what this shows is that Signapore has come up with an effective deterrent which ensures that the marginal utility of spitting chewing gum on the sidewalk is less than the cost of the punishment multiplied by the percent chance of getting caught. Arithmetically speaking, it is the only effective policy on chewing gum I have ever seen.
I should correct my earlier posts – this is the actual policy on gum chewing:
“The import, manufacture and sale of chewing gum has been banned in Singapore since 1992, and the penalty for smuggling gum into the country is a year in jail, and a 10,000 Singapore dollar- ($5,500-) fine.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2494499.stm
(apparently, the laws are being relaxed)
Anyway, this does change things a bit. It is still a punishment hardly proportionate to the crime, however. The “harm” posed by gum chewing amounts to little more than a minor aesthetic annoyance on an individual level – I somehow doubt it would cost $10,000 to clean it up.
If by spitting out your chewing gum on the sidewalk, you would cause a nuclear reaction that would destroy the country, do you honestly believe there is any country in the world which wouldn’t kill you immediately to prevent that from happening?
Given that gum chewing does NOT cause such a nuclear reaction, your analogy is flawed. It is precisely the point that gum chewing is not such a dire blow to society that Singapore’s ban and associated punishments are excessive.
Singapore likes its streets clean. Other countries don’t care as much. Trust of the citizenry doesn’t even enter into the equation.
Well, I’m less opposed to the laws not that I see the punishment is not corporal… at least, I can’t immediately find confirmation of that. So I guess this’ll stay open until I can find some primary sources about this.
Here are some relevants sites:
Amnesty International’s report in Singapore:
http://web.amnesty.org/web/ar2002.nsf/asa/singapore?Open
And some apparent myths about the country:
http://www.fongnet.net/stories/singmyths.htm
Given that you seem to have already decided to ignore my arguments, I see no reason to think anything I would say would be “persuasive.”
You haven’t substantiated any of your arguments. Give me an opportunity to ignore them. If you think caning for chewing gum spitting is “excessive,” and I think it’s “appropriate,” why should I ever agree with you? You are making the claim, the burden of proof is on you to show how caning reduces life expectancy, or increases the rebelliousness in those caned, or something.
I have never seen any self-described libertarian argue for the death penalty for drug traffickers or applying corporal punishment for gum chewing or littering. They like to talk about the “minimum state,” which necessarily does NOT police in the interest of “social cohesion.”
Says who? Please cite your source. Libertarianism is not the same as anarchy. If a law is enacted by the legislature, the police are to enforce that law. I see no evidence that the police are to pick and choose.
Anyway, this does change things a bit. It is still a punishment hardly proportionate to the crime, however.
Of course it isn’t. Why should it be? If the punishment was exactly proportionate to the crime a morally neutral person would always commit the crime, because the risk of getting caught is less than 100%. It would have no deterrent effect whatsoever. In order to be a deterrent to someone intent on committing a crime, the cost of the punishment must exceed the value of the proceeds of the crime.
The “harm” posed by gum chewing amounts to little more than a minor aesthetic annoyance on an individual level – I somehow doubt it would cost $10,000 to clean it up.
Again, this is your subjective opinion. I think it’s disgusting, everyone who sees it experiences it collectively, and it’s immaterial as to whether $10K would cover the cleanup cost. It also wouldn’t matter if caning were the punishment. What matters is whether it would serve as an effective deterrent, in the context of the rest of the society’s laws.
Given that gum chewing does NOT cause such a nuclear reaction, your analogy is flawed.
Gum spitting, actually.
No, actually my analogy is necessary to expose the flaw in your thinking regarding the degree to which any society “trusts” its citizens not to commit a crime. You claimed that other societies trust their citizens not to spit out their gum, which is patently ridiculous. Other societies expect their citizens to do so, and don’t care enough to prevent it. Go to any member of whatever government you have in place, or any of their assistants and functionaries, and ask them, point-blank “Are you absolutely, positively, confident that I will never, today or at any point in my life before I die, spit chewing gum out on the sidewalk?” If anyone is stupid enough to say “Yes,” please don’t vote for them again.
You understand my point now, I hope?
It is precisely the point that gum chewing is not such a dire blow to society that Singapore’s ban and associated punishments are excessive.
Again with the subjectivism. According to whom, other than yourself? According to what scientific study? You sound very imperialistic when you go around making moral judgments for other peoples’ countries based on no objective evidence whatsoever.
You haven’t substantiated any of your arguments. Give me an opportunity to ignore them. If you think caning for chewing gum spitting is “excessive,” and I think it’s “appropriate,” why should I ever agree with you? You are making the claim, the burden of proof is on you to show how caning reduces life expectancy, or increases the rebelliousness in those caned, or something.
On the contrary, the burden of proof, as always, is on those who would attempt to justify a punishment. Caning is simply “cruel and unusual punishment,” causing actual, lasting physical injury to convicted offenders.
Says who? Please cite your source. Libertarianism is not the same as anarchy. If a law is enacted by the legislature, the police are to enforce that law. I see no evidence that the police are to pick and choose.
Let me rephrase then: a libertarian “minimum state” would not legislate in the interest of “social cohesion.” And the police do indeed exercise discretion over law enforcement from time to time – they may give you a mere “warning” for speeding, for example.
Of course it isn’t. Why should it be? If the punishment was exactly proportionate to the crime a morally neutral person would always commit the crime, because the risk of getting caught is less than 100%.
What is a “morally neutral person”? Either someone is moral, or they aren’t. Presumably, someone commits a crime believing they won’t be caught – it is surely impossible for them to know the precise probability that they won’t get away with it.
It would have no deterrent effect whatsoever. In order to be a deterrent to someone intent on committing a crime, the cost of the punishment must exceed the value of the proceeds of the crime.
What are the proceeds of spitting your gum on the sidewalk? All you gain is avoiding the exceedingly minor inconvenience of having to dispose of your gum in a trash can. Even a mere $100 fine would greatly exceed both the cost of cleaning it up AND whatever convenience you’ll gain by avoiding putting your gum in the trash.
Again, this is your subjective opinion.
No, it isn’t. It’s a minor aesthetic annoyance. How are people “harmed” by it?
I think it’s disgusting, everyone who sees it experiences it collectively, and it’s immaterial as to whether $10K would cover the cleanup cost. It also wouldn’t matter if caning were the punishment. What matters is whether it would serve as an effective deterrent, in the context of the rest of the society’s laws.
You think it’s disgusting. So what? That’s just your *subjective* opinion. Your entire concept of justice relies on the assumption that “giving every man his due” is irrelevant to the question of whether a punishment deters others. Why should individual offenders necessarily be made examples of to others? Is it just to hand down sentences considering only their deterrent effect? The only effective deterrents are those which are outrageously disproportionate to the crime. Again, is it just to punish someone disproportionately? You have put forward a deeply authoritarian conception of justice and punishment, one that is solely concerned with deterrence (whether effective or not). Am I wrong?
No, actually my analogy is necessary to expose the flaw in your thinking regarding the degree to which any society “trusts” its citizens not to commit a crime. You claimed that other societies trust their citizens not to spit out their gum, which is patently ridiculous. Other societies expect their citizens to do so, and don’t care enough to prevent it. (…)
Very well. I shall rephrase: (some) other societies do not consider it a duty of the State to enforce simple manners.
Again with the subjectivism. According to whom, other than yourself? According to what scientific study? You sound very imperialistic when you go around making moral judgments for other peoples’ countries based on no objective evidence whatsoever.
Well, according to Amnesty International, as shown in my link above. “Scientific studies” don’t come into this – how could they? What “objective evidence” do I need, hmm? You’re again retreating moral relativism. I’ve explained my points thoroughly. Why is *your* subjective opinion that it is appropriate correct?
You’ve claimed my arguments aren’t “persuasive” but have yet to clarifiy how they are either invalid or unsound. I don’t have to persuade *you*.
On the contrary, the burden of proof, as always, is on those who would attempt to justify a punishment. Caning is simply “cruel and unusual punishment,” causing actual, lasting physical injury to convicted offenders.
Says who? Those who are elected to make the laws have the authority to do so. That is justification enough. If the electorate feels the elected have overstepped their bounds, they are free to swap leadership. Guess what? They haven’t.
Let me rephrase then: a libertarian “minimum state” would not legislate in the interest of “social cohesion.” And the police do indeed exercise discretion over law enforcement from time to time – they may give you a mere “warning” for speeding, for example.
I still need to know what source you’re citing. I don’t know whatever Libertarian Manifesto you may be quoting from, and I’m open to being educated on the topic, but the opinion is yours and so is the burden of proof.
Also: when officers of the law apply discretion in the performance of their duties, I think of that as “corruption.” If we are all equal before the law, then we are all equal before the law.
What is a “morally neutral person”? Either someone is moral, or they aren’t. Presumably, someone commits a crime believing they won’t be caught – it is surely impossible for them to know the precise probability that they won’t get away with it.
They don’t need to know with precise probability. They need to have a gut feel, and you don’t even have to be human to go through this fundamental-for-survival exercise. The feral cats I try to tame go through an elementary risk/reward analysis when deciding whether to risk taking the tasty chicken from the scary furless guy on the back porch. To ignore this is to ignore reality.
What are the proceeds of spitting your gum on the sidewalk? All you gain is avoiding the exceedingly minor inconvenience of having to dispose of your gum in a trash can.
Yes! You are catching on! You are correct here, except for failing to note that despite this “exceedingly minor inconvenience,” a huge percentage of the public still elects to spit their gum out on the sidewalk. So either they are EPIC slobs/sloths, or the inconvenience is more significant than you are willing to admit.
Even a mere $100 fine would greatly exceed both the cost of cleaning it up AND whatever convenience you’ll gain by avoiding putting your gum in the trash.
Here is where you ignore probability again, to the detriment of your argument. If a gum-spitter was 100% certain to be caught, the $100 fine might be an effective deterrent. Otherwise, the $100 fine is totally ineffective both as a deterrent and as a means of funding your implied Ministry of Gum Scraping, whose bureacracy would presumably be responsible for picking up the gum, blowing the noses, and otherwise wiping the a**es of a citizenry which you refuse to hold meaningfully responsible for cleaning up after itself like non-Neanderthal human beings.
Again, this is your subjective opinion.
No, it isn’t. It’s a minor aesthetic annoyance. How are people “harmed” by it?
Yes, it is, and no degree of autism or egotism on your part will make it otherwise. And in answer to your question, “millions” are harmed, all to a very small but cumulative degree. Are you the type to only acknowledge “harm” when you see blood flowing from a sucking chest wound? If so, I ask that you not referee sporting matches. Billions of people spend trillions of pounds/dollars/yen to move to nicer neighborhoods, with houses that have larger neighborhoods, with zoning laws which prevent the adjacency of land-fills. People spend millions on the care and maintenance of flower gardens, much more than is spent on chewing-gum gardens. Why? Because aesthetics matter. Why do you think Germans are so fascist about natural light in their work spaces? It isn’t because fluorescents cannot provide an equal number of lumens.
I think it’s disgusting, everyone who sees it experiences it collectively, and it’s immaterial as to whether $10K would cover the cleanup cost. It also wouldn’t matter if caning were the punishment. What matters is whether it would serve as an effective deterrent, in the context of the rest of the society’s laws.
You think it’s disgusting. So what? That’s just your *subjective* opinion.
Freely acknowledged. But when I join with others to enact a law, it becomes a legal code.
Your entire concept of justice relies on the assumption that “giving every man his due” is irrelevant to the question of whether a punishment deters others.
Probably so. I hadn’t really considered it, but the notion does appeal to me.
Why should individual offenders necessarily be made examples of to others? Is it just to hand down sentences considering only their deterrent effect?
Primarily. But I’m willing to make allowances for those who spat out gum to save their dying mother, etc.
The only effective deterrents are those which are outrageously disproportionate to the crime.
Well, I would say they have to be greater than the value of the crime times the probability of getting caught. “Outrageous” is, as always, your subjective judgement.
Again, is it just to punish someone disproportionately? You have put forward a deeply authoritarian conception of justice and punishment, one that is solely concerned with deterrence (whether effective or not). Am I wrong?
Probably in your definition of “authoritarian,” yes. Someone with no respect for human life would consider you “authoritarian” for locking up a murderer for any length of time. I associate the term “authoritarian” with heavy-handed rule by unelected bodies, but that is not a dictionary definition.
Very well. I shall rephrase: (some) other societies do not consider it a duty of the State to enforce simple manners.
Thanks for the acknowledgement. I appreciate that you are discussing in good faith.
Well, according to Amnesty International, as shown in my link above.
That’s fair, but extremely limited in its application. Amnesty International has moral authority only to the extent that they can assemble a majority opinion, or to the extent that they can show their opinion to be morally aligned with that of God.
“Scientific studies” don’t come into this – how could they? What “objective evidence” do I need, hmm?
To convince someone that he/she is wrong relative to your opinion, you absolutely need objective evidence. I would hope this is self-evident. You can’t just say something over and over and become correct through repetition.
You’re again retreating moral relativism.
What else is there, other than theology?
I’ve explained my points thoroughly. Why is *your* subjective opinion that it is appropriate correct?
For the simple reason that it aligns with the majority opinion of Singaporeans (or whatever they call themselves) and there is no evidence to contradict us.
You’ve claimed my arguments aren’t “persuasive” but have yet to clarifiy how they are either invalid or unsound. I don’t have to persuade *you*.
Well, you do in order to ethically proclaim your opinions as The Truth. If you acknowledge that you have no objective evidence with which to convince me, then you must allow for the possibility that my (countervailing) opinion is correct. And if you allow for this possibility, then the best you can say is “Amnesty International and I feel that the caning punishment is excessive based on our life experiences, etc.”
What we know with certainty is that:
1) their method is the most effective method known for supporting aesthetics and hygiene.
2) they apply the punishment only to those who are guilty, not to the rest of society as you would. This satisfies both a fundamental notion of “fairness” as well as the economic principle of “internalizing externalities,” necessary for the smooth and productive functioning of society.
3) they have a societal concensus that what they are doing is right.
This is more compelling to me than anything you have presented. But that’s only my opinion, just as your opinion is also only an opinion.