Thread

1. laybak · 1790806804 · focus · HN ↗

   the Singaporean government is often described as having a "parental" approach. I guess this move would be on brand

   1. vovavili · 1790809717 · focus · HN ↗

      It's also known as being one of the very few countries actually capable of using state capacity to overcome serious social and economic problems. Godspeed.

      1. Barrin92 · 1790811203 · focus · HN ↗

         the kind of issues that Singapore has been fairly effective at, getting people to speak the same tongue or not spitting on the street, what you could put into a bucket of 'public discipline' measures I think is over-romanticized.

         The country has been effective at it but so was Prussia or England. Singapore has increasingly complex social issues you aren't going to solve with a cane, and government organized marriage likely will go as well as government cheese

         1. vovavili · 1790812807 · focus · HN ↗

            It has achieved the highest global GDP per capita is just a couple dozen of years, starting as a small bit of swamp forcibly kicked out Malaysia. I think it's unfair to say that people are over-romanticizing these sorts of accomplishments.

            1. motionlessveloc · 1790814644 · focus · HN ↗

               Starting out at the second richest city in Asia after Shanghai, you mean.

               The PAP likes its "fishing village in a swamp" trope, and post-war Singapore certainly had its share of problems, but it was already a wealthy trading entrepot long before Lee Kuan Yew came along.

               1. vovavili · 1790848142 · focus · HN ↗

                  Let's put it this way.

                  Singapore started from an unusually favorable, but still genuinely troubled, Asian starting position. Their government then proceeded to get a remarkable number of important things right, and turned it into one of the richest countries in the world. That achievement does not require pretending Singapore was a fishing village in a swamp in 1965. The more accurate story is impressive enough on its own: plenty of countries and cities with comparable or better initial advantages failed to achieve anything close to Singapore's subsequent trajectory. Look at how Western former great powers are doing, or even closer countries like Japan.

                  I'd argue the way Singapore uses state capacity deserves substantial credit for that.

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.