Friday, July 20, 2007

Negative aspects of Singapore system

The strengths of the Singapore system are:

* low corruption
* meritocracy
* economic development
* efficiency
* stable and good government.

These are also our weaknesses. Here are the negative aspects of these characteristics:

1. Low corruption. Many people are afraid to make decisions. They do not want to be accused of being corrupt. They like to define their area of responsibility clearly and to have clear guidlines. If they are not sure, they like to point to another person to decide. Or, they will give the "no" answer.

2. Meritocracy. To do well, we have to be better than the other person. We have to be top of the class. We look after our self interest and behave selfishly. We are not able to work well with other people in a team.

3. Economic development. There is too much emphasis on economic development, to the detriment of other important aspects of our life - i.e. social, art, culture, leisure.

4. Efficiency. We push efficiency to the extreme, with the aim of making more profits. Often, this is done at the expense of customer service. We compete too hard, and work on inadequate margins. Sometimes, we may adopt shady practices to make more profit.

5. Stable and good government. We leave too much matters to be decided by the government. We are not able to experiment with new ideas on our own.

The areas that make us strong, also contribute to our weakness. Some of the weaknesses of the "Singapore character" can be traced to these factors. This is just my view.
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

One more: Able to react and adapt to new situations quickly.

Everything can be micro-managed. There is no resistance to policies set by the main party, and the population is generally obedient.

The pros are evident --- just look at the economic progress, how the SARS incident was handled, and the kind of political stability it can offer to foreign investors.

However, such system relies critically on good central decision making. The effort to constantly nourish the command echelon indirectly creates several side-effects:

* Talents are drawn away from the other sectors such as the private (non-Temasek) enterprises
* Emphasis on talent screening cultivates a sense of elitism and a narrow view of meritocracy

The generic risks of having single-party government with Spartan citizens are well-known so I shall not elaborate. But I ought to say that obvious alternatives might not obviously work.

July 20, 2007 11:50 AM
Anonymous said...

I think because of this fear to tread
unknown ground this play safe or kiasee attitude came about.

July 20, 2007 12:38 PM
Anonymous said...

Singapore and China recently agreed to help finance Barclays' bid for ABN Amro. This is the quintessence of both the strength and the weakness of Singapore Inc.

A state-driven economy offers the flexibility of concerntrating financial resources to compete at the global level. However, such efforts may also sow ill-feelings in competitors and stateholders of investment targets:

* Some are worried if the scale of government funding would inundate private enterprises on unequal grounds. (See this article from the Washington Post.)

* Others are concerned about the ownership of sovereign assests by foreign nations. (For e.g., Temasek Holdings investments in telelcommunication companies of Thailand and Indonesia; See here.)

July 25, 2007 1:48 PM

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