That Economist article on Lee Kuan Yew was really cool. An interesting concept to have a police state "so well run that there is rarely a cop in sight." That sounds good to me, and it seems like adopting meritocracy would be solid if he could be succeeded by more of himself! He failed to mention what exactly
Mr. Lee did to achieve such economic strength in the face of Malaysian and Idonesian belligerence, and a total absence of natural resources..
This is an incredibly important paragraph in particular. -- You might enjoy: https://hubski.com/pub?id=170527 -- Anyway: reasons for Singapore's growth, not mentioned in the article: 1) look at its location on a map, remember how many people there are in China, and think about how many things they ship to India, and through Suez, etc. Note that Singapore is also somewhat naturally protected from the negative weather in the area. 2) Singapore has probably the laws most conducive to business and profit in the entire world. That's their competitive advantage.And they blamed high levels of immigration for keeping their wages down and living costs up. This was a consequence of a unique failure among Mr Lee’s many campaigns to make Singaporeans change their ways. He succeeded in creating a nation of Mandarin speakers who are politer than they used to be and neither jaywalk nor chew gum; but he could not make them have more children. In the early 1980s he dropped his “stop at two” policy and started to encourage larger families among the better-educated. But, three decades later, Singaporean women have as low a fertility rate as any in the world.
Ah that makes sense, I guess the economic strength was a matter of molding policy to fit Singapore's circumstances, and Lee did an excellent job of that. Thanks!