So some old folks think that the “youngsters” (some of whom are older than me by the way) in the forum were rude, or inappropriate in their questioning. The only conclusion I can come to is that these petty-minded relics of the past have no idea what a debate truly is (although I have to stress that those were not the questions I would have asked). I also found it hilarious that MM Lee called them “radical English-educated young“.
The forum participants did not provide a convincing case for voting for the Opposition. Opposition for its own sake is a terribly weak reason. It also doesn’t help that Opposition parties are vying for the populist and protectionist space (restricting “foreign talent” and “protecting” jobs for Singaporeans), which really casts a negative light on their economic credentials.
The real case for social and political freedom, is that it is not separate, and cannot be separated from economic freedoms. There is a reason why Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, etc etc etc the worlds greatest generators of wealth hail from the United States. To unlock and unleash the potential of human creativity and ingenuity, we need more than just governments throwing tons of money on infrastructure. Without the freedom to think and to express, all that human potential will remain just that, potential.
So next time, when these “Chinese-educated” oldsters are retrenched or unemployed because they do not possess skill sets in demand by the economy, or do not possess any skills at all, and sitting at home moping around feeling sad and sorry for yourself, please remember, its your naive and blind obeisance to Asian values and authority that got you where you are.
AsiaOne - Not all young people think like those at forum, says MM
Channelnewsasia.com - Participants in MM Lee dialogue tell their side of the story
TODAYonline - Please mind the age gap
12 Comments
I wonder if MM Lee considers himself to be formerly a conformist Chinese-educated youth, then.
MM Lee was, himself, a radical english-educated youth.
ok, given, he went to some not very famous primary school, but after that he went to RI for secondary and pre-university education, and also went to Cambridge, at a time when any post-secondary school education was a very very big deal. when he joined politics, he challenged colonial rule, he overthrew the communist party, he went heads-on with the malaysians.
conformist? i don’t think so. and he only learnt to speak fluent mandarin after he became prime minister.
i don’t know if this is the pot calling the kettle black, or a display of complete self-delusion that he was ever ‘part of the common people’ because he obviously wasn’t, and still isn’t. or maybe he’s just trying to stoke the fire, and creating an ever greater divide between the pre-1975 and post-1975 singaporeans (i’m using an arbitrary year to signify the over-30s and under-30s). or maybe, just maybe, he just doesn’t have a very high opinion of anyone apart from himself and his select few.
but anyway, it’s typical of the ‘older generation’ to regard any opinion that differs even slightly from their own to be ‘disrespectful’ and ‘rude’. it’s so confucianistic, and sure it’s what they were taught in school and at work and within their families, but society and government are not families writ large. it’s also inapplicable in a world where lateral/horizontal units are much more effective than vertical/top-down heirarchies due to their ability to adapt and change quickly.
and that ‘asian values’ thing? i have too much to say about it, and must seriously get down to writing a post on the illusion and delusion of asian values soon.
Japan and Korea have their fair share of wealth generators, however their economic and labour policy is no where liberal. It is quite well known that Spore use Japan’s development model to develop itself.
I would also argue that without govt intervention in the econ, it is highly unlikely we would modernise into a 1st world city state in 1 generation. However I would agree that some privatisation is needed for now.
at82:
You’ve provided good evidence why Asian values is an utter failure. It’s no coincidence that Japan’s economy has been moribund for more than a decade, and its recent mini-recovery is driven by a generation of youths disillusioned with the kind of blind loyalty and respect for authority that their salaryman fathers enslaved themselves to. Note that I said fathers and not mothers, because their mothers are supposed to stay at home and be good homemakers and sex objects.
Korea’s economy is driven by a few well-run chaebol, and that’s only because of the post-1997 market reforms introduced by the IMF forcing them to divest their non-core assets. Hyundai Motors is relatively successful because they no longer are a part of the Hyundai Group. Samsung sold of its horrible loss-making motor division and now they are a world-beater in DRAM, Flash and consumer electronics. Same for LG (formerly known as Goldstar).
I remember that we had Samsung vehicle for HQ during my army days. That car was a serious piece of shit.
Really? I talked to a few opposition members and they don’t seemed to hold anti foreign talent views. Their only qualifications is that the talents must be true talents. And even though I am trained in economics, the outsourcing of jobs that impacts negatively on my fellow citizens is indeed hard to see and accept. Besides, economic creds aren’t just determined by their attitudes towards this two issues, you of all people should know better. There are also many examples of how other developed nations have political parties that also strenuously fight for protectionist policies.
The Chinese educated already lost out very early on in the independence days. That’s why many of them turned to politics especially the Nanyang grads.
It is just plainly factually wrong to blame it on the “chinese educated” or on “asian values” because:
1. Thsse people are NOT chinese-educated — they are un-educated! (Think hard! What formal education did these hokkien speaking uncles and aunties received? literally none or at most minimal)! Do they know Hong1 luo2 meng4, or the Chinese equivalence of shakespeare? No!
The real chinese-educated people are NOT blindly obedient to authorities — consider hard again: who are the one who stood up strongly against PAP in the 1950s-70s? Ans: the trueblue chinese-educated youth from Chinese High. from Chung Cheng High etc. They gave LKY so much headache that some of them were exiled to China, remember? Thus, we should not confuse “un-educated” with “chinese-educated” and blame the behaviour of the “un-educated” on “chinese-education” thereby anyhow giving the latter a bad name
2. These are NOT asian values — the real asian values does NOT teach blind obedience to authority. In fact, a good knowledge of Chinese history will reveal lots of emperors whose court ministers openly criticise/scolded the emperors and Chinese philosophy has always upheld these out-spoken ministers and such open-minded emperors as the best.
The real confucison ethics has one true story: A disciple of confucian was hit by his parents and dispite being injured, he allowed his parents to continue the beating. When Confucius heard of it, he scolded this disciple because according to confucius: it is the duty of children to stop/prevent parents from doing wrong things (corollary: just as it is the duty of ministers to speak up and criticise emperors for doing wrong). It is wrong of parents to hit their children till the children become injured. (wrong = injuring pple is wrong). By not stopping the parents from doing such wrong deeds — thereby making the parents commit a crime and feel guilty for the rest of their life — the disciple is actually being infilial (bu4 xiao4)!
That’s the true confucion ethics and true asian values. Unfortunately, it seem to me that many English-educated Chinese nowadays lack a TRUE understanding of the chinese-educated and Asian/Confucian values.
Someone wrote to the Chinese press recently precisely to clarify point 2. Part of his writing in quoted in the comment section of this post.
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you wrote:
> The real case for social and political freedom, is that it is not separate, and cannot be separated from economic freedoms.
I absolutely agree. Not just currently, from also throughout history in China, India, Arabic world (i.e. There was a time when these countries are respectively the super-power of the world and during those time, their social, political (and therfore) scientific/economic freedom are also number 1 in the world) — as elaborated further here
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> retrenched or unemployed because they do not possess skill sets..
I personally find it a strange phenomenon why the people who suffer the most are the most supportive, and why people like you (and I) who actually “benefited” from the system are the most critical. Any reason you can think of?
ted:
I am not saying that the Opposition have no economic credentials at all. I am saying however that on these two issues at least, they score a negative point.
The question is, how does one know whether “foreign talents” are truly talents or not? Who gets to decide? What is the criteria?
My argument is that, for private business owners at least, why should the government tell them how they should spend their money, if they choose to employ someone without regard to their nationality? If these businesses really employed talentless foreigners, then they would pay the price themselves with the failure of their own business ventures. There is no need for governments to step in.
With regards to state-owned/controlled enterprises however, it becomes a trickier problem. The question is, are these enterprises meant to provide a public service, or to make profits? I am against the idea of governments making profits on economic and philosophical grounds, and in terms of a pragmatic view of things, such a problem would never have occurred if governments are not involved in business.
The difficulty with “foreign talent” is acknowledging that it is not, in fact, a free-market system. The problem arises from perception of value as opposed to intrinsic value itself.
Labour has some unique economic characteristics ascribed to it, the chief of which is the “sampling” problem. In short, you don’t really know what kind of labour you’re getting until you buy it. Unlike many other economic goods where mass production allows quality to be both generally true and specifically true within parameters, that’s almost impossible to do with labour. Just because Chinese are generally smart with numbers doesn’t mean each individual chinese dude is smart with numbers. Contrast that with a Big Mac - it’s equally horrible no matter which country you buy it from.
Now, with this fundamental premise in mind, I think that -all- immigration control based on any sort of “merit” is arbitrary and doomed to failure, for the sampling problem, which is something that the Singapore government has at least recognised somewhat in their immigration policies. What I think is absolutely stoopid is their inability to recognize the problems of perceptional bias. Their “foreign talent is our saviour” enhances this perceptional bias, and this has not been addressed AT ALL.
Further to this, I bring up a particularly pertinent aspect of “Asian Values” - xenophobia. I’m assuming here that Lee uses the phrase “Asian Values” as a proxy for “Chinese Values”. I dispute that this is even the case - I suspect that he uses the phrase as a proxy for “Chinese Values that are Expedient for Governing Singaporeans”.
I bring up xenophobia as a very specific example. Chinese history is rife with foreign invaders and it’s always been one of the highest expressions of Chinese values to kick foreign invaders back to where they belong, regardless of how much good/bad they bring China. It is, however, not socially expedient to incorporate this into “Asian Values” and it is therefore abandoned. So it’s not about Asian Values at all. It’s about shifting goalposts.
And with people like this letter writer (http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/forum/story/0,5562,388039,00.html?), who needs propaganda?:P
Star quote: “Just look at the other societies around us. Personal or group freedom prevails over national interest. The result is perpetual disruption to economic growth and social instability.”
Firstly, the ‘debate’ was staged as a mockery of open-ness. I would take serious regard of a debate if the participants were of a higher calibre. But we all know this will never happen.
Secondly, a key factor that enables human potential to be unlocked is the right habits of mind.
The world’s greatest wealth(in the holistic sense) creators set up systems that reward ‘intelligent’ behaviour (which arises from good habits of mind). But often, ‘intelligent’ behaviour also results in mavericks who think different and people who constantly challenge the system.
Singapore society - in particular, its vast civil service - are unable to react quick enough to this change, having been a product of the old industrial model.
This is the struggle that will take a generation of Singaporeans to overcome, and also why the younger generation need to acquire these habits to help them in a future that is uncertain.
Good one man! Clap clap. I like your articles. =)
Justin:
Hi Justin, thanks for your comment!