SINGAPORE'S AUTHORITARIAN CAPITALISM Christopher Lingle, Edicions Sirocco $100 THERE'S an enormous irony about Singapore. The people of the city state seem obsessed with media, communications, and the movement of information, through broadcasting, publishing, the Internet and every other modern medium.
But at the same time, there is an astonishing lack of data about one subject: how the people of Singapore really feel about the way their community is run.
Boasts about the achievements of the city can be easily found, mainly from the mouths of the people in power. But there is an odd hollowness about the claims because they are never the considered result of healthy, vigorous debate.
No one dares to engage in searching discussion about relations between the governing class and the governed, despite the fact that many of the conclusions would be positive.
This is in sharp contrast with Hong Kong, where the media fiercely and cheerfully attacks the Government every day, despite the fact that our laissez-faire government is widely seen and emulated as one of the most efficient in the world, taking in less tax dollars and producing better results than virtually any other.
But is there really no debate in Singapore? At the grassroots level, the topic of government is aired constantly, and Singapore has few residents or visitors who have not had their ears bent by taxi-drivers or bar-flies who want to give their version of what is wrong with their hometown, just as you find in any other city.
