as it moved me

.sides of divides

There are so many sides to Singapore that I am blind to. Most of the 22 years that I’ve lived and grown up in Singapore have been spent in a bubble of familiarity and affinity – largely the same people, same places and same perspectives. The remaining 4 years I spent overseas at university. As you'd imagine, Singaporeans who made it overseas were not the most diverse lot. So although the stint broadened my mind, my interactions with fellow countryfolk added little to my perspective of Singapore. Looking back, our occasional debates about ‘life’ in Singapore as we knew of it were, on balance, myopic; almost subconsciously glazing over the fact that life in Singapore is anything but unitary.

I am ashamed to say that I have very limited awareness and appreciation of the larger set of diverse experiences that constitute life in Singapore beyond this bubble. What are the aspirations and concerns of the wizened old man I oft see pushing his battered cart outside of Chinatown Complex? Did he arrive from China? Where does he live? How has his world changed now that we’ve embarked on a renewal of Singapore? Or the aspirations and concerns of the newly arrived couple from China I saw crossing Racecourse Road carrying what looked like their life’s possessions on their backs? Why are they here? What are their plans? How about the young bus captain who nods and smiles every time I board his bus for the trip to work? Has he and his family benefited from the ‘bumper’ economic growth of the past few years? What about the aspirations and concerns of the growing numbers of migrant workers from the Philippines and the Indian sub-continent? How are they settling into Singapore society? How are they influencing its dynamics, texture and content? One cannot but wonder if policy is keeping up with this proliferation of divides; be they real or perceived. Do the sides of these divides have an adequate voice in proceedings which impact them?

Every society has its divides, for instance between old and young; legacy and change; rich and poor; citizens and aspirants; not to mention those of race, religion and creed. Each society, however, differs in the maturity of how they deal with these potential fault-lines. Constant engagement and communication across divides, be they real or perceived, are key to each side understanding the other and respecting the principles that underlie their different points of view. This mutual understanding and respect softens these divides, facilitates convergence and provides the grounds upon which an inclusive civil society can take root and grow. This civil society, drawn from participants across its parts, is fundamental to maintaining the cohesiveness and resilience of the whole. It is civil society that works to ensure the peaceful façade observed on the outside continues to be buttressed internally by strong mutual relations between groups, even as times change.

Formal channels notwithstanding, I think that in Singapore we have scant engagement across divides and consequently a civil society that struggles to take root. This is not surprising as discourse, both public and private, shies away from acknowledging these increasing divides that criss-cross our society. And acknowledgement is, crucially, a preceding and necessary step to constructive dialogue. Such acknowledgement seems to be inhibited by the tendency of the public sphere to stress the perpetual existence of a nebulous ‘harmony’ between constituent parts of our society. This public mantra been largely effective in shaping private attitudes; most are convinced that the current state of affairs constitutes 'harmony' regardless of the fact that it detracts from the true meaning of the term. I agree that there were combustible times in our history where an imposition of 'harmony' - through propaganda and more forceful means - was, perhaps, necessary for stability. And to give credit where it is due, this stability then become the foundation for progress and development. The historical conditions which justified this top-down approach have, however, largely given way to a much more mature society.

In my opinion, a term that is closer to reality than ‘harmony’ is a ‘cordial co-existence’ of sides; be they from old divides or newly minted ones. After the initial acute turbulence, sustained economic growth has cosseted this cordial state of affairs; providing more than ample breathing room for each side to conduct their day-to-day affairs largely independently of others, with relations between sides adequately brokered through community and public leaders. There is, however, no guarantee whatsoever that our small and open economy will enjoy such favourable economic conditions indefinitely, despite our Herculean efforts to groom the best and brightest for public office. Should we not be using these times of plenty to bring about a more mature discourse, substantively bridging divides at a grassroots level to build social resilience for a future that may not be as comfortable as today?

- 30th Oct 2008

.has spectacular command growth sown its own seeds of decline?

Manufacturing, FDI, and Dependent Development. At independence, Singapore had a GNP per capita of US$320, a literacy rate of only 65% and of all the adult population only 7-10% possessed secondary (or higher) education. Mass unemployment post-British withdrawal, communist insurgency and racial riots. 1965, Government decided on export-led growth, revamped the Economic Development Board to attract FDI in labour intensive manufacturing industries; massive infrastructure investment in industrial parks, transportation and communication. Educational system overhaul, with goals of literacy and manufacturing skills. Mid 1970’s focus on attracting capital intensive manufacturing industries, 1980’s onwards – movement up the manufacturing value-chain with an emphasis on product and process engineering. Suggestion of Dependent Development – reliance on foreign entrepreneurship and capital (emphasis on attracting established global MNCs, crowding out indigenous investment and enterprise), education system tailored to produce wage-workers for MNCs.

Government Linked Companies (GLCs). In addition to relying on foreign capital and enterprise, active and comprehensive government enterprise funded by compulsory savings fuelled growth. Public ventures included the port, airport, national airline, national telecommunications operator, national savings bank, shipbuilding and petrochemical engineering, and the national press amongst others. Most have been privatised, and those which have been listed dominate the local equity market.

Human Capital Hording. Direct management by the government and civil service in the two aforementioned areas was fundamental to Singapore’s ‘take-off’; and initial success bred more intrusive intervention. The education system has been progressively refined to channel the most intellectually able into the civil service. Human capital development has been stunted by distorted incentives and the increasingly narrow focus of the education system where success for many equates to securing a government scholarship at age 17, and subsequent employment in the civil service. Reducing pre-mature specialisation of human capital and less unfair hording of human capital in the public sector (much higher marginal productivity in the private sector) should greatly enhance the quality and efficiency of human capital.

Growth by accumulation, low or absent TFP growth. Young (1992): by the late 1980s Singapore's investment as a share of GDP was more than 40%, Singapore's return on capital, which in the early 1960s had been 40%, by the late 1980s had fallen to 11-12%, one of the lowest rates in the world. Over the two decades after 1970, Singapore's total factor productivity fell by 6%. This suggests that Singapore has been extremely efficient at attracting FDI, enforcing compulsory savings and allocating savings to GLCs which undertook inefficient capital accumulation in progressively higher-valued manufacturing industries to increase GDP.

key macroeconomic challenges: competitiveness, volatility and future growth

Squeeze on competitive advantage due to structural inefficiency at technology frontier. By the 1990’s, the conduct of rapid accumulative command growth was highly efficient with a disciplined workforce, educational, labour market, FDI institutions all optimised to respond to government investment directions (a lurching economy?). Institutional efficiency and command structures perhaps a liability now that the technology frontier has been reached; exponential increase in risk associated with centralised decision-making; dependent risk-averse population with poor ability to gauge risk. Low quality and quantity of new private local entrepreneurship and missed opportunities.

Over-reliance on manufacturing and dependence on external trade conditions. Embedded institutions and the stifling effect of these on the quality and flexibility of human capital inhibit transition beyond manufacturing; government has attempted to tweak the education system to produce more inventors and entrepreneurs (unsurprisingly with little success) given that it continues to dominate entrepreneurial opportunities. Scant success with progressing beyond manufacturing resulted in the recent biotechnology, pharmaceutical and service initiatives. At the technology frontier (no more leaders to follow) there are few low risk opportunities available for the government to direct the economy towards, and there are extremely high costs of command failure. This together with export demand uncertainty and increasing competition points to increasing volatility of future growth for Singapore.

Future growth. Singapore is still almost entirely dependent on the government and external factors for its future growth – on successful government direction, the formers success in attracting foreign capital, entrepreneurship, management skills, even manual labourers, and on prevailing demand from external markets. The lack of local private invention and entrepreneurship is both the result of direct government management of the economy over the past four decades which produced rapid command growth (of dubious investment efficiency), and the reason (and excuse) for the persistence of direct government economic intervention today. It is a government monopoly that has worked so well historically, and the trusting and contented populace are in no rush to assume additional responsibility. Oblivious that the odds of systemic failure and its costs are steadily increasing, perhaps only failure itself will infuse new life into Singapore’s economy.

- short essay from undergraduate days

.we are all power rangers now society reaps in the future what it sows in the present. it's all quite scary really. do you have a kid? well i don't but i do have 2 younger brothers and frankly, they're all power rangers now. splendid. in pink, blue, white and what-ever-else-colours there may be. and like every brainless episode they do the same stuff over and over and over and over again. week in week out - school, math tuition, piano lessons, tv, science tution, speech class, computer games, dreaded chinese tuition, more tv. ditto. a kid's life has changed so much over the past decade and a half, but not for the better i'd reckon. in a strict material sense they definitely have more than we did. but as always there's a tradeoff and i fear that some of the most important non-material influences have been overtly sacrificed - relationships, warmth, care, concern, surprises, fun. there are only 24 hrs in any day. and it doesn't help that parents are, 1. ever more caught up in making that extra buck, 2. ever more resigned that more tution, tv and computer games are the natural order of a kid's day. my guess is that 1. and 2. feed on each other, justifying and reinforcing a cycle of increasing disengagement. commoditisation pervades a kid's life, so much so that even he himself has become reduced to a mere object, albeit one with a huge recurrent price tag attached. 'tell it to go there, ask it to do this, we have no time for what it wants, this is all for it's own good, i'm too tired for it, leave it with the maid, why is it's your score so low?'. i'm a firm believer that the adult is a product of his experiences as a kid, his disposition, outlook towards life, how comfortable he is with people, temprement, drive. teenagerhood and beyond accentuates these rather than alters them at base. how many in the power ranger generation have caught fishes in drains? and have fallen into them? played police and thief with his neighbours? cites enid blyton as his favourite author and sesame street as his favourite program? a minority i'd think. not to say the list above is much to shout about, or that my generation had it great - leave that for another time. what i'm highlighting is that things have taken a good few steps in the wrong direction since. they're all power rangers now. in due time, we will all be power rangers now. after that, the teletubbies?

.hear cesaria evora - nha cancera ka tem medida (deep forest single version), duncan sheik - daylight (album), the streets - weak become heroes (ashley beedle's love bug vocal mix)

- Monday, January 13, 2003

.the fourth estate the popular press, being popular press, tends to indulge in broad but selective reporting, systematically discounting the extent of the bad karma abound. and popular press, in fulfilling its role as ubiquitous friendly information provider to the proletariat, also inductively sets most the agenda of what is discussed amongst the masses and hence, through the incredible democratic apparatus, what is of concern to politicians and their all-important ratings. correspondents thrive on sudden shifts (drama), not ebbs nor status quos (no drama). the problem is that not everything of real value is exciting as say, the psycadelic shape-shifting chameleon that is american foreign policy, or kim jong il and his totally out-of-this-world haircut. As a result the coverage, though geographically diverse, is but detailed information about peaks, troughs and notable steep gradients, with much of the baseflow discounted. prolonged ethnic strife, shortage of food, chronic disease in africa and the third-world, social wastage elsewhere, are all very much part of reality. but since they have been reported before and not much has changed since, then we shall keep it in the dog-eared 'others' folio till, if ever, the fireworks begin. it's akin to sitting on death row in california, when it happens you die, au reviour dude, if not you just waste away bit by bit, statistic by statistic, in line, unseen and forgotten. unlike death row though, the under-current of vice and suffering does not waste away, rather it grows. and grows. slowly but with gathering destructive potential. it is a practice of great folly to ignore or give mere token mention to these baseflows, in a bid to cover even more of what i term 'big bang happenings' - obvious peaks, troughs and steep in-betweens, involving events that have already occured, or will occur in the inelastic short term, of which a relatively little can be done. not that i'm suggesting that we abandon these, only that there is much that can be done to seek a better balance incorporating a greater forward perspective, searching and illuminating ticking time bombs, obvious and not so obvious, and profiling their projected adverse consequences. a self-confessed backstage melancholic, i brood in gloom and doom in a bid to add my weight, little as it may be, to the end of the scale that tips toward greater reflection and caution. not that this is the panacea toward eliminating the evils of the world. perfect information we will never possess. but greater and more relevant information will go a long way to preempting and providing relief to this world's ills.

- Friday, January 17, 2003

.aside time exists in the plurality of ones thoughts. why do we not get stuck on one thought alone? imperfection drives the world. perfection is absolute, imperfection is relative. imperfection drives the passage of time. time thus does not apply to he who is perfect. we strive for perfection but perfection does not exist within our nature of being. we are linear. we find equilibria and we optimise. perfection implies oneness. are we all one and the same? is perfection the absence of imperfection or...? if something encompassed all, never began and will never end, is it not perfect in itself? it is all than can exist, thus whatever form it takes it is perfect since there is no alternative conception.

- Thursday, January 30, 2003

.excerpt from laws of human resource management for corporations rule #1: make people work 9-5 or longer infront of 85hz computer screens worshipping powerpoint and excel in the midst of photocopiers printers fax machines in stale airconditioning that smells of chalk in cubicles that are square or rectangle with at the most two pale colours with doors that make loud beeping noises whenever they are unclocked because it makes the people most productive and builds greatest long-term shareholder value.

- Friday, September 24, 2004