Would Singapore have turned out different under a different party? Economically and standard of living wise, probably. More or less freedom, hard to say. The government would like us to think that its rule was superior in all ways. The leftists would like us to think they would not have done all the bad things attributed to the government. I think though the issue is a lot more complex. The PAP and its rivals (not just the left, but also the conservatives) believed in similar things that cut across ideological differences in the 1950s and 1960s. The need for economic and social planning, for instance. The imperative to integrate individuals and groups into a nation (and therefore their losing social autonomy). Engineering citizen-workers (so that ones life is no longer their own business but the nations). Elevating certain languages above others. Inheriting the modern bureaucracy (which was British). The love of big social campaigns. Above all, the desire to become politically and economically modern. So would Singapore have been different under a left wing government? In some ways yes, not in all ways.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 06:16:12 +0000
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