“Singapore has no natural resources, and the only thing we have is people, therefore we must make full use of our human resource”

The use of the term “Malthusian” was directed at “human resource”, and has no bearing on your main point. What I was querying you about was the use of the term Malthusian, which I would like you to elaborate upon regarding its use in calling “human resource” a “Malthusian absurdity”.

My reply was not about your main point, but rather to clarify the use of certain economic terms.

When you say “treating population itself as a resource”, you have indicated to me that you have not understood the main thrust of my post.

My post is not about treating people as a resource: my point is about not treating people as anything at all.

We must move away from an instrumentalist view of what “resource” actually is, and recognise that only when people are allowed to truly determine for themselves what they want to do without some meddling bureaucrat meddling in their decisions, can human ingenuity and creativity truly flourish.

By your language, it suggests to me that you are still looking at the issue from the perspective of the government, when my point is about removing government from the picture altogether.

The Malthusian growth model suggests that population growth, which is exponential, would exceed that of the resources necessary to support it, its growth being linear, and would therefore place a limit on growth.

However, while the post is primarily about the latter, there is no mention of how it relates to population growth. Furthermore, some complications in using the term may arise in treating population itself as a resource.

Care to elaborate (could you just drop me a msg on my site to let me know you’ve replied, thanks)?

Go social democracy!

I still disagree with you that a free market in land would necessarily mean house prices beyond the reach of poor people. The fact that you acknowledge that there are gainers and losers in such expropriation also means that you see how redistrubtive actions always end up zero-sum in outcome: someone must lose in order for someone else to gain. Even worse, the State will always find some way to benefit at the people’s expense: your father might be able to afford to “buy” a HDB flat, but the fact is that it will never really be his, or your family’s.

I think the perspective should not be from one of obligations. In theory the State is obliged to do certain things, but in fact and practice that is seldom the case. Think of it this way: in a free market, participants people transact with each other out of free will, business only survive and prosper when they give people what they want, those which fail to do so will fail and disappear. Conversely, governments face no such constraints: States possess coercive power that no other private actors posses, they have the means to entrench their power, and the power to ensure their own continuity. Obligations without enforceability has no meaning.

I also thank perhaps you might not have seen my point about rational self-interest. Rational self-interest is about individuals, not governments nor any other organisations. Remember that a government’s only source of revenue is taxation. A rational government would tax people as far as possible to maximise revenue, while not too much to the extent where they kill their golden goose. As such, a rational government is anathema. We do not want a rational government, we want a government that would govern in our best interests.

How can that happen however? It can only happen when they are accountable to us. How can they be accountable to us? By the ballot box. The question however, is how can they be accountable to us by the ballot box, when they control the land we live on, the homes we live in, the amount of wages we are paid, the information we receive, etc etc almost every single thing in our lives?

I don’t know if I can get my point across to you, but I hope you see this. Democracy has no hope, and governments cannot be accountable, if private property rights are not safeguarded, and a free market be allowed to constrain the power of governments.

As you point out, economics is amoral. I too disagree with many State actions, but I have an even dimmer view of economics and the market as an amoral means of solving many social problems. Whereas, the State is at least obliged in theory to take into account social and equity concerns, the market has absolutely no such obligation.

Whether or not goivernments should act in the self interest or in the people’s interest, I believe an economist would agree that a government should act rationally, and I’m guessing that selling land at a subsidy or worse, giving it away cannot be considered rational (economically speaking) whether from a self-interest or people’s interest point of view. The economic thing to do must be to put land to the highest valued land use as determined by the highest offer for the land from a prospective buyer. The underlying rationale here is not profit, but efficiency.

I believe my version of history to be correct. As a British colony there was no registration system of land ownership (which was a later Australian innovation), and ownership was proven by title deeds, as you noted. What happens is that as much as EIC transacted freehold titles for consideration, any squatters living in the non-developed areas of Singapore were entitled to claim adverse possession against the EIC after living on that land for 12 years. And believe me, there were many many such families living in the ulu regions of Singapore. The few who were lucky enough to know the law, or have the advice of someone who did, successfuly claimed titles from the British colonial government.

I actually obtained my version of history by speaking to many old people. This is what i call “economics in the field”. Practical rather than abstract, you know?

Speaking of which, my ancestors actually were pig-farmers living in Jurong who had their land compulsorily acquired, and then bundled off to live in HDB. Keep in mind that the compulsory acquisition scheme did not compensate for the land in those days, only for fixtures built and any crop cultivation or livestock. That should answer your question as to whether they profited from the land.

The implication from your question clearly shows you to have a misunderstanding about economics. Economics is not about being evil or treating people badly. Economics is about “soft hearts, hard heads”. I care about people and society, I just disagree that state action is the way to solve problems. The reason why I believe in redistributing the land to the poor, and letting them transact freely, is because I find the notion of the government profiting from land sales to be repugnant. Rational self-interest should be the province of individuals, and not governments. If anything, governments should never be allowed make profits, nor to act in its self-interest.

As an aside, what puzzles me is why a hard-core econmic-minded person like yourself would approve of the State initially distributing land to the poor and fragmenting it in this way - why do you not advocate that the State do the economically rational thing and sell it to the highest international bidder?

We must have been learning a different history. I learnt that long ago, when Singapore became a British colony, the Crown owned all the land, but the East India Company was the de facto owner and started giving out (presumably for consideration) freehold titles. So if your ancestor was one of the first few settlors who bought the land cheap then sold it for a profit, good for you. But later migrants would not have been able to afford housing ownership if not for these compulsory acquisitions at below market values and subsequent setting aside for low-income housing.

I think we disagree on the mechanisms to achieve equitability. Your assertion is that government action will create just outcomes, whereas I believe that state action is inherently oppressive, and that only market forces will create just outcomes. On this point, I don’t think we can ever come to any agreement, as we have very different perspectives.
On the issue of home ownership however, I think we might have a little bit of common ground. I don’t actually think that there should be land set aside for the poor per se, as such restrictions on land use merely creates the same kinds of situation as state ownership of land. If poor people are not allowed to sell their homes for large amounts of money, then how will they ever capture the wealth from home ownership?

My argument is more along the lines of the INITIAL distribution of land should be apportioned from the State to the poor. And then thereafter, it would be up to the poor to decide for themselves how they wish to deal with the land: live in it, improve upon it, sell it or whatever they wish.

I would like to add that long ago before nationhood, much of the land in Singapore is privately owned, and majority of these owners were our poor ancestors who came here in search of a better life. They settled on unused or unowned land, lived on it, and cultivated it in their own way. The greatest travesty came when the State compulsorily acquired those lands at values below what they would have obtained from private transactions. After that, they were all bundled into leasehold HDB apartments.

This is the story of public housing.

OK, jsome clarification first. In the first paragraph of my earlier post, I was referring to your fondness for dismissing arguments (eg on entropy, and then on the Wikipedia entry ecological economics). I am merely noting that going by your stated reasons for rejecting such arguments, no one should take your views on economic issues seriously.

I think I’m also being misunderstood. To clarify my viewpoint. it’s not really about ownership in general, but how land use should be determined (and along with that also natural resource use) that I’m talking about. In particular, I am in favour of land use being decided through politcally accountable means rather than through market forces because although the market may allocate land use efficiently (in eoconomic terms), the market is blind to the equitability of the distribution whereas most democratic government should at least be better at being equitable and socially sensitive than markets. So even if the government owns the land, I still have a problem if it determines land use according to which is the highest economically valued land use rather than take social needs and the essential needs of the poor (eg basic housing) into consideration. The question then is which is a better way to determine land use, privately through open market, or publicly through politically accountable regulations.

The point about public housing is an example. If land use were determined by market forces, there would not be any housing for the poor whose need cannot be translated into effective market demand because they are too poor (this is what I mean by public housing - sorry if I confused you into thinking that I was referring to housing owned by the government) because while shelter is important, it is unlikely that the poor are going to be able to pay a higher price to buy the land from whoever owns the land if land use is determined purely by market forces (with no restriction on foreign ownership). You say that one of the great levellers of wealth is home ownership - I agree. But do you think that the poor would be able to own their homes in land scarce Singapore if land use were determined purely by market forces (with no exclusion of foreign ownership)? I suggest not. So I take it then, that you think it’s great that land should be set aside for home ownership for the very poor even there are economically more valuable uses to which the land can be put,