The Republic of Singapore is a city located in Southeast Asia. It consists of one main island and 62 smaller islands. Modern Singapore was founded in the 19th-century by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles and became a British colony until 1965 when Singapore became independent.
What is really interesting is Lee Kuan Yew or LKY who is largely considered the founding father of Singapore. He was the prime minister for nearly 3 decades and oversaw Singapore's transition from a British Colony to an Asian Tiger Economy. Lee had Singapore join the UN to get recognition of international independence and was deemed largely responsible for bringing the nations from third-world to first-world or in other words bringing on the Asian Miracle.
Singapore's Asian Miracle was based on the Meritocratic system Lee created. Meritocracy is a system where power is given to people on the basis of their ability.
Many of Lees policies were focused on long term economic growth. To boost the economy LYK focused on attracting foreign investment from multinational organizations. Singapore began building first-world infrastructure and eventually the likes of Texas Instruments, HP and GE had set up offices. This laid the foundation for Singapore to be a giant in the tech industry. Lee also worked to make Singapore an international financial center. Lee made sure they had trained professionals and again he helped build the infrastructure to make this dream possible.
To unite Singapore's immigrant population Lee encouraged Multiracialism. He made English the primary language but also mandated bilingualism. This helped integrate the immigrant population and allowed them to trade with the West while still protecting ethnic languages and cultures.
Lastly, he instituted many anti-corruption measures. He created agencies to keep corruption in check and created harsh punishments for those who were caught. On a similar level, Lee instituted a policy of corporal punishment. Many are sentenced to caning and similarly, the school system has corporal punishment by cane for boys. This policy was carried over from British times but for today's standards is widely unaccepted. At least in the US, this would be considered cruel and unusual punishment.
I think a lot can be learned from Singapore's rise. They obviously successfully instituted many policies. Some however by today standards seem odd. What lessons should our nation take from Singapore's success? Should we mandate bilingualism so Americans can be better connected and understand other cultures?
https://www.visitsingapore.com/travel-guide-tips/about-singapore/
https://kambublog.wordpress.com/2017/06/30/7-things-lee-kuan-yew-did-that-transformed-singapore-from-the-third-to-first-world-country/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kuan_Yew
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore
I found this article very interesting. The methods that Lee used to bring a third world country to a first world one is very impressive, many third world countries have been trying to do this for a very long time and still have not succeeded. The idea of a meritocracy is also very interesting. I think it is cool that he encouraged multi-racialism and that one way that he did this was by requiring people to become bilingual. As a whole lee seems like he was a very good leader.
ReplyDeleteThe methods of development that Lee Kuan Yew used were very interesting and impressive. It seems to be a historical trend that when a country so rapidly develops, the inequality between rich and poor grows substantially and creates some unrest. I was curious if this was the case in Singapore. I found that the income gap has increased but low-income workers have also experienced a large wage growth. They have a lower income inequality than the US and China. The country also enacted different income taxes to help constrain the inequality. So, although Singapore has seen a more significant income gap between the rich and poor, it has also experienced growth that has benefited all workers.
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