Just got back from Singapore - the first time since the late 70s when Singapore was newly independent (since 1965) and feeling vulnerable as it struggled to support and defend itself as a mostly Chinese enclave in an Indonesian-Malayan environment.  A small island-state of just 275 sq. miles, its most obvious asset was its geographical position as a major port. Its leaders identified an asset with even greater potential - the ingenuity and work ethic of its population.  They were determined to educate their people and give them incentives to create a more prosperous society with a better quality of living.  They were open to learning from the best in the world, which then meant the Americans and Japanese. In 1965, Singapore’s per capita GDP was ranked  # 42 in the world.  In comparison, the USA was # 2 and Canada was # 5.
Fast forward to 2009.  Singapore’s GDP per capita is now  within the global Top Ten, while the USA and Canada are definitely lower, probably outside the Top Ten..  Why did Singapore make a spectacular climb up the global prosperity charts while the USA and Canada (which under Harper apes the USA) slip downwards?  Here are a few possible reasons:

1. Pragmatics Vs Ideology.  Singapore is definitely a Capitalist society, but unlike the USA, it has not raised an unfettered, “pure” Free Market to the level of an ideology.  The government micro-manages and has imposed visionary (from which the Developed nations can learn) regulations concerning traffic, housing, education, drugs, the environment, corruption and more while at the same time offering financial and other incentives... a refined stick-and-carrot approach. To the West, these policies may seem “authoritarian”, but they have worked very well and have been supported by the electorate.  Below are excerpts from a CNN interview with Lee Kuan Yew (first Prime Minister of Singapore and still an influential force) by Fareed Zakaria:

 LKY: As an East Asian looking at America, I find attractive and unattractive features. I like, for example, the free, easy and open relations between people regardless of social status, ethnicity or religion. And the things that I have always admired about America, as against the communist system, I still do: a certain openness in argument about what is good or bad for society; the accountability of public officials; none of the secrecy and terror that's part and parcel of communist government.
But as a total system, I find parts of it totally unacceptable: guns, drugs, violent crime, vagrancy, unbecoming behavior in public -- in sum the breakdown of civil society. The expansion of the right of the individual to behave or misbehave as he pleases has come at the expense of orderly society. In the East the main object is to have a well-ordered society so that everybody can have maximum enjoyment of his freedoms…
Let me give you an example that encapsulates the whole difference between America and Singapore. America has a vicious drug problem. How does it solve it? It goes around the world helping other anti-narcotic agencies to try and stop the suppliers. It pays for helicopters, defoliating agents and so on. And when it is provoked, it captures the president of Panama and brings him to trial in Florida. Singapore does not have that option… What we can do is to pass a law which says that any customs officer or policeman who sees anybody in Singapore behaving suspiciously, leading him to suspect the person is under the influence of drugs, can require that man to have his urine tested. If the sample is found to contain drugs, the man immediately goes for treatment. In America if you did that it would be an invasion of the individual's rights and you would be sued.
FZ: Would it be fair to say that you admired America more 25 years ago? What, in your view, went wrong?
LKY: ..it has a lot to do with the erosion of the moral underpinnings of a society and the diminution of personal responsibility. The liberal, intellectual tradition that developed after World War II claimed that human beings had arrived at this perfect state where everybody would be better off if they were allowed to do their own thing and flourish. It has not worked out, and I doubt if it will. Certain basics about human nature do not change. Man needs a certain moral sense of right and wrong. There is such a thing called evil, and it is not the result of being a victim of society. You are just an evil man, prone to do evil things, and you have to be stopped from doing them. Westerners have abandoned an ethical basis for society, believing that all problems are solvable by a good government.

2. Morality, responsibility and family.   Singapore stresses these but in a much different way from America, wherein these terms have been hi-jacked by the Christian Right and narrowed down to certain arbitrary issues like gay marriage, abortion, celibacy, the right to carry guns and somehow, the unfettered Free Market.  These issues have become divisive within America but in Singapore have been channeled in a positive and healthy manner.

I believe that morality is an essential ingredient in any healthy society and that a higher form of morality depends on a higher/ deeper understanding and practice of spirituality.  Such a spirituality is not yet evident in Singapore, but Singapore has at least shown that morality and practical social and financial policies are not mutually exclusive.  What Singapore has in spades that the USA and Canada lack is effective, visionary leadership.  It’s not only individual personalities but the System, as LKY eloquently pointed out.

PS: Subsequent to this post, I discovered an article on Singapore in the January 2010 edition of National Geographic..along similar lines to my blog.