Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.democrats.d
From: liuyh@vis.toronto.edu (Yuanhui Liu)
Subject: Re: Bush is a mother fucker
Keywords: significant words from a document used as an index to content
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
Date: 10 Sep 92 19:24:40 GMT

In article <BuDJrn.5Jz@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>In article <BuDA33.Hqw@news.cso.uiuc.edu> StarWatcher@uiuc.edu writes:
>>nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>>
>>:   Hold it, hold it . . . *I'm* the one around here who usually cites
>>:   Singapore, et al, as examples of successful Big Government economic
>>:   policy that most free-market fanatics on the net are blissfully ignorant
>>:   of.    Just for that, I'm going to mention a strong counterexample:
>>
>>But do you really _want_ to use Singapore as an example?
>
>  Oh, yes, absolutely . . . 
>
>>You know, that little country where there is a $500 penalty for not
>>flushing a public toilet, and where they (are reported to) have installed
>>cameras in, um, strategic locations to catch offenders.  :)
>
>  . . . not to mention strict penalties for leaving chewing gum on
>  subway seats.   Singapore is one of the most paternalistic nations
>  on earth.   It's really soft-core fascism.
>
>  The Economist ran a very interesting article on them and the other
>  "Pacific Tigers" earlier this year.  They represent a phenomenon
>  which is being *dangerously* ignored by conservatives, libertarians
>  and other free-market advocates and I'd like to prompt more dis-
>  cussion on it.
>
>  The official free-market line on the collapse of communism was 
>  that central planning doesn't work; people need/want individual
>  liberty; eventually they'll rise up and demand it.  
>
>  But what really killed communism was *poverty*.  The people could
>  see how materially well-off the west was and that they weren't.
>  What if you had a *prosperous* centrally-planned paternalistic
>  society?   This is what Singapore is.  Singapore has a high, and
>  rapidly growing standard of living.  They are currently installing
>  the most modern telecommunications infrastructure in the world.
>  They have a achieved remarkable peace between their formerly 
>  fractious ethnic groups.  And according to the Economist, they,
>  like other Asian Pacific rim nations consider the western pre-
>  occupation with individualism and liberty to be a kind of peculiar
>  affectation.  Even Japan is like this, just not quite as bad as
>  Singapore.
>
>  Free market advocates have been saying for years that this was not 
>  possible; innovation and progress can only happen with the kind
>  of individual freedom the west offers.  Now that is IS happening,
>  free-market enthusiasts tell us that it's doomed to collapse; it's
>  just a temporary aberration.  *Maybe* it is.  But if this bit of
>  faith is misplaced then liberty-loving people are in trouble, be-
>  cause nothing succeeds like success.  As the rest of the world
>  sees the growing poverty, strife, and unemployment in US and EC
>  and compares this with the growing prosperity of the Pacific
>  Tigers, it becomes a cultural as well as an economic choice.
>  
>
>---peter
>
>
I have to agree, South Korea and Taiwan more or less also developed
from the same model, that's 3 out of 4 of the "little dragons". 
Hong Kong prospered from being a duty-free port city.  Acturally
the mainland Chinese government's reform policies are close
to the singapore model also, the government keeps a lid on things
but at the same time let the people get rich.  

I don't know which model can succeed -- the "Democracy Now, get rich
later(perhaps)" one or "Get rich now, democracy later(maybe)" one.  
Russia and eastern europe are doing poorly, only Hungry seemed to be
fine, but we have to taken into account that Hungry had been quietly
"getting rich"  since the failed 1956 rebellion.  
I can't think of any modern healthy democracy without a solid  
middle class -- perhaps democracy cannot succeed without a middle 
class.    
>
>  
> 
>   
>