What would you even call their socioeconomic system? They're not exactly doing neoliberal capitalism, their government is far too involved for that. They're not socialist, they've got free enterprise galore. The autocracy+militarization+heavily meddled with big business thing most resembles fascist states, but without the typical racist scapegoating (on the contrary, they've put a frankly inordinate amount of effort into preventing racial infighting).
In most countries "The country also passed a new law earlier this year that would allow the police to control the bank accounts of individuals who they suspect to be scam targets and limit what transactions they can do." would probably set off alarm bells, but it does seem like business as usual in Singapore.
This is crazy to me. How far are we willing to go in terms of restricting freedoms for safety?
If you don't live in Singapore: it's not your problem.
Except that this already happened[0], and not in "authoritarian" Singapore but in "liberal" Canada.
The cops adding checks and balances to delay you from wiring $50,000k overseas is a great government looking out for the vulnerable.
Western countries put enormous value on personal liberty — America probably the most so, but even EU countries are extremely liberal in a liberty sense compared to historical norms, and even compared to some well-functioning economies today like China and Singapore. It's interesting, since I think the idea of personal liberty is so deeply engrained in many of our consciousnesses that we couldn't conceive of living like that. But... plenty of people do, and they're happy about it.
that's not true. you just have to document and explain the transfer, if it is a foreign bank account. and if it is a local one then the citizenship of he account holder does not even matter.
They are famous for having a lot of rules, but the instances where they really go wild are when someone has been particularly egregious.
For the most part it is just insanely materialistic as the main downside.
Most of the "harsh" rules make a tremendous amount of sense when you actually go there. Yeah, gum and spitting are illegal, and that is a good thing in a city as crowded as that with a significant population from countries where spitting is customary. Take an overnight train in China, and you will come to discover that you too appreciate a place where people can't just hork one up at will.
To put it into perspective, SG is one of the rare tier 1 cities where you can get a Michelin meal from a street vendor (literally), after engaging the services of a prostitute, and drinking a beer in public. It isn't nearly as uptight as an HOA.
Asian Switzerland.
And if that offends anyone it ought to be the Swiss (and any fanboys they may have who take offense on their behalf).
It's just State Capitalism, isn't it? Like China. A market-based economy with free enterprise, but no illusions of egalitarianism or democracy, enables the state to step in and manage and direct the market with effective regulation. In a democracy the state can manage this for a time, but eventually a private entity or group of entities leverages their power to influence law and co-opt democratic power, so the market starts steering its own regulation and you end up with fascism as a means of population control or a Russia-style cleptocratic oligarchy. We have not yet figured out how to sustain democracy + capitalism, if it's even possible.
I worry that most will see the rise of countries like Singapore and China and the relative decline of the US/EU and conclude that democracy is a failed project all together.
For example, Auckland, our major economic hub, doesn't even have proper public transportation, and now citizens are battling with issues commuting to and from work.
I think part of Singapore's success has been it's ability to make bold decisions and see it through without worrying about short term election cycles.
China economically functions similarly to Singapore, with long documented connections and explicit emulation. In 1978, Deng Xiaoping already began this and hundreds of thousands of Chinese officials and leaders were trained there and in industrial parks with the explicit goal of knowledge sharing with the dream of "planting 1000 Singapores". [0, 1, 2, 3]
> fascist states, but without the typical racist scapegoating
Tangential, but Hitler added racism; Mussolini, Salazar, Franco/de Rivera (who used large Arab and Berber forces fighting the Republicans in Spain) etc. had none of that (until Hitler forced Mussolini's hand in 1938). Brazilian integralists and many other fascisms also weren't racially based.
[0] https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3042046/does... [1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24761028.2021.1... [2] https://www.fairobserver.com/economics/china-and-its-mentor-... [3] https://www.thinkchina.sg/politics/construction-singapore-mo...
For what it's worth is well accepted among most fascism historians that racism, at least in the sense of adopting racial laws and such came late, and mostly as a byproduct of the German alliance.
As for what did Italy do itself before that, if you're referring to the wars in Africa, that has nothing to do with fascism, and the two biggest colonial powers at the time were both very sane democracies.
The reason you find it odd is because you really can't find another country that the citizen have such a high trust towards the government and let the government do (almost) anything they wanted, yet the government doesn't abuse this power (mostly, at least) and continue focus on long term benefits of the country (rather than short term gains because the political party need to survive the next election in few years time)
> One of the most militarized countries (#3 by military spending per capita) in the world, yet their military has barely been used.
Ther reason is quite simple: Singapore is a very small country and it is very easily to be invaded. The high military spending is more of a deterent.
> What would you even call their socioeconomic system?
It is very much a free market capitalism with some state intervention, similar to many other countries. If anything, I would say Singapore is more free market than many western countries due to the fact that the government is very pro-business as the country is heavily rely on foreign businesses to survive.
I don't believe this is true. If you're talking about Non-Constituency Members of Parliament, they are consolation prizes given to best losers, and there are many things they cannot vote on. Moreover, the ruling party almost never lifts the party whip, i.e. members of the party CANNOT vote against the party line (without being kicked out of the party, which results in them being kicked out of parliament). In other words, since the ruling party already has a majority, any opposing votes literally do not matter.
If you aren't talking about the NCMP scheme, then I do not know what you're talking about, as the ruling party does institute policies that are beneficial for the incumbent party.
Pure authoritarianism.
Singapore is many things but not none of what you've written.
Personally, I don't believe in preventive effects of draconian punishment, but I also don't believe in cokeheads. Being a cokehead in Singapore means risking facing the mandatory death sentence for posession of more than 30g of cocaine, which depending on the habit is a months supply max for some.
People with substance abuse problems are generally the "get more every day or two" type not the "have a month's supply on hand" type.
And I really believe more in corporal punishment for a lot of things than the maze of fines, legal costs, and probation which really seems more like complicated inconvenience.
For drunk driving, sexual assault, and grand theft the appropriate punishment for the first offense is a public beating where they stop half way through and give you a chance to admit guilt and apologize on camera or they keep going. It would be particularly good for any fraud that nets you, say over a million dollars. Only for the kinds of crimes that have significant victims.
The recent corruption case of a Minister taking gifts of hundreds of thousands resulted in a few months custodial sentence for the Minister and nothing for the rich “donor”.
Massive money laundering scam? Stiff punishment for the foreigners and kid gloves for the local lawyers and bankers who facilitated it all.
Singaporeans constantly complain about how being rich in Singapore protects from actual punishment.
It’s not like the government woke up one day and started to cane scammers. There have been years of educational programs in different languages. A campaign with special focus on protecting the elderly. Every time you transfer money with your online banking app you get a warning about scammers. They instituted an SMS registry that results in unknown numbers (for instance pretending to be your bank) showing up as “LIKELY SCAM” on your phone. That hasn’t eradicated the problem, so now the punishment goes up.
Imagine a government that actually protects its citizens…
So for her to fall for a scam has us worried, it might be a sign of neurodegenerative disease. She went from sharp as a tack when it came to ignoring scammers, to falling into it. I'm sure this is a very common theme. These parasites prey on the elderly losing their mental acuity
Scamming would be much less prevalent if money were trackable, scam transactions would be possible to roll back, yes, transitively, from all the downstream users. The downstream users would then be keenly interested in the provenance of the money they're being paid. Ironically, blockchain-based currencies are perfectly trackable (at least in theory; mixers make it harder). Sadly, this has a ton of obvious privacy implications.
2OEH8eoCRo0•2h ago
tomcam•2h ago
The obvious correct answer is Bob Weilbacher, who fired me with no reason given from my cherished $3.75/hour job in the mailroom at Cal State Fullerton back in 1979.