I don't usually write about politics. To all my surprised friends, I mean it. Just because I often talk about it doesn't mean I commit my views to writing.
But a combination of the fact that my computer's Picture Manager is spoilt (making the posting of photos very difficult)and the fact that I have been buffetted left, right and centre by friends and strangers keen on making their views known (as opposed to really hearing mine) has led me to give my two cents worth on this issue (and only because I have a free pocket of time in the office where anything extraneous of work is preferrably done at my desk - and innocuously).
I also have the misfortune of writing this after Jac posted here comments on her blog, which means that a lot of what I say will sound repetitive, and worse, copied. But still....
ENDEAVOUR
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I am a great fan of endeavour. I was brought up to believe that grit and hard work will have a very direct correlation with one's success and station in life. When I was 12, my Dad said this to me, "Son, we are a poor family, I can't give you the things that a lot of your friends have, like trips to Europe, the latest computer or a bigger house. If you want all that, you have to grow up, go out and get it yourself. But I promise you this - that I will work myself to death in order to give you every opportunity to get all those things that you can only dream of now."
Those words rang in my ears for many more years (before I became slack, fat, jaundiced and disillusioned). When I did well in my exams and went to the top schools, when I won medals in my races, when I obtained scholarships, it was because of what Dad said. Looking back, I think that ironically, it was the helplessness in his words which actually served to empower me. He was telling me that because of his history, he was constrained - but I was not. He was telling me that disadvantages were a fact of life, but by no means insurmountable. But more importantly, he made me believe that the only way one could catch up with those we perceived to be more privileged was by working twice as hard, not by sitting back and lamenting our lot.
What has this got to do with the GE?
Welfarism
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I will start off by saying that I am against a culture of welfarism. I am against anything that creates a disincentive to work or do one's best for a better life. When I studied economics in Junior College and listened to my tutor Mr Jaime Reeves (yup, the ESPN football presenter) speak about how a lot of people in Britain would collect their generous unemployment benefits, go and buy beer and cigarettes before plonking themselves down in front of the television, I cringed and wondered what would happen if such an attitude became prevalent in a small country such as mine?
Poverty Line
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I am all for helping the poor and underprivileged but I think it is very dangerous to focus on a relative poverty line (let's help the bottom 10% of society) as opposed to an absolute poverty line (nobody should go hungry and everybody should have a roof over their heads). That is because as society progresses, living standards on the whole improve and even the bottom crust of society would have access to amenities which were rare even to those at the upper end of society in earlier years - think handphones, television and computers. There is a danger that in blindly doling out cash to, say, the bottom 10% of society, a real disincentive to enterprise and endeavour is created as the benefits are used to pay for 'necessities' which only a few decades ago were regarded as luxuries.
I think the attitude of the powers-that-be thus far has been:- "If you are able-bodied but refuse to work, you will get (1) a roof over your head (2) a meal which would enable you to subsist and (3) Nothing more". Callous as it may sound, I think that is about correct. Of course, if one is not able-bodied and/or unable to work, then he or she deserves a lot more sympathy and help in order to live the most fulfilling life possible. But if one simply does not want to do something to help himself, then I think it is far from wrong if compassion is in short supply. Television, alcohol, cigarettes, radios and handphones are not necessities, no matter how many people have them, no matter that the bottom 1% of society have them. One should not crave for them if one can work for them but simply finds it too troublesome to.
Competition
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I have never believed in protectionism. My father instilled in me since young a belief that inequality was endemic and, if properly managed, beneficial. It made people believe that if they worked hard and excelled, they could get ahead in life and enjoy the just fruits of their labour. It served as an incentive and inspiration for people - "if he can do it, so can I". It encouraged innovation, risk-taking and healthy compeition, resulting in benefits and progress for society.
I have never believed in reserving places in universities for locals. Malaysia did it and commentaries now abound on how their universities are uncompetitive and how all that is intelligent and good (and not Malay) runs off to Singapore.
While it may have been possible to cocoon ourselves in the past, in the modern world where communications and transport are so much more efficient, technology so advanced, labour so much more mobile, a failure of Singapore, a country with no natural resources, to have a competitive economy and/or labour force, could be fatal.
My attitude towards foreigners who have been accused of coming in to take our jobs and our places in schools has always been, "Bring it on. I am up for the challenge. And more importantly, in trying to be better than me, you will make me better."
A lot of our fathers and our forefathers had next to nothing and were forced by circumstances to work day and night to eke out a living. If my future children, with their computers and PDAs and e-books and air-conditioned rooms, are beaten by foreign students who, despite being in a strange country, work twice as hard as them, then so be it.
But is there another side of the coin?
EQUALITY
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Oppportunities
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In the same conversation when my Dad said those words which changed my early life, I had asked, "But is it so easy to rise to the top, Dad?"
And he replied, "No, but our system at least allows it. If you get 4 A-stars for your PSLE, you can go to Raffles Institution. Because of the Singapore system of meritocracy, you will be in the foremost secondary school of Singapore, no worse of than any rich kid. Your school fees will be only $14 a month, which we can well afford. There may be inequality of income but opportunities are quite equal. So before you say the challenge is daunting, why don't you get your 4 A-stars first?"
I did get my 4 A-stars and I did go to Raffles Institution where, despite seeing a lot of behaviours and attitudes which I didn't approve of, I got a first class education. However, a year after my PSLE exams, Raffles Institution became an 'independent school', charging $200 a month for school fees. Though my parents heaved a sigh of relief having escaped the financial guillotine, I wonder how many younger bright students were not so lucky. And it is not as if there are a lot of alternatives. Most of all the premier schools nowadays are 'independent', with their own fee structure - Raffles Girls, Anglo-Chinese, Hwa Chong Institution to name a few.
Of course, scholarships abound but are they in such great number that every student who would have gone to a premier school if the fees were kept low would still find his or her way there? I think not. I have many older colleagues who say that they had wanted originally to send their kids to a particular premier school but sent them to a cheaper, but slightly less prestigious alternative. They are not all that poor such that their kids would qualify for a bursary but not that rich such that they could ignore all financial implications. And their kids were bright but not all that brilliant such that they could win scholarships.
Granted that my colleagues' kids still went to good schools, but the point is that where before entry to a secondary school was very much first-past-the-post, there are now more students who cannot go to the school of their choice purely based on financial considerations which were not there before.
My colleagues' frustration is made worse, so they say, by the fact that a lot of the places in these independent premier schools are now taken by foreign students, some of whom are extremely brilliant (they usually accept this), some of whom have parents to whom money is no object (they resent this) and yet others who, though smart are not as intelligent as their kids but have parents who make gargantuan donations to the schools (they are angry at this).
And all this, they say, is taking place at a time when we are told that we need more foreigners in the PMET (Professionals, Managers, Executives and Technicians) category and that we should embrace competition to excel in the global market place.
If what they say is true, then what about other local children from poorer families who are not brilliant but merely ordinary students? What help is given to the heartland youth who, despite less than stellar grades, can make it to a polytechnic or university but is forced to go out and work in order to support his family? What is done for the lower-median class who are not desperately poor (for those people would get subsidies and bursaries) or extremely brilliant (for those people would get scholarships) but for whom day-to-day expenses nonetheless are a major source of concern?
The Backwards Bending Curve
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I think that the first part of my article is permeated by two major ideas:-
1) That there should not be policies or benefits given which serve as a disincentive to endeavour;
2) That some form of inequality is acceptable and indeed, at times, often to be encouraged.
When then, does the equation fall apart? When does the lack of assistance become a disincentive to endeavour and when does inequality become unacceptable?
My humble view is that the inequality becomes unacceptable when the gap is so great that people become disillusioned and feel that no matter what they do, how hard they work, there can be no significant change in the quality of their life. The inequality becomes unacceptable when people feel that the priviliged class, already substantially advantaged, are given further unfair benefits which make the gap between the haves and the have-nots even greater. And this I feel, is a sentiment which permeates a large segement of the populace during this election.
Remember that earlier in my piece I said that blindly providing assistance and benefits to people leads to complacency and a disincentive to work? I think that the same situation occurs at the other extreme - that there is a palpable disincentive for endeavour and enterprise when the system is such that the individual feels that whatever efforts he makes to improve his lot will be futile.
The Nature Of Assistance
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I hope by now it is clear that I am not against the giving of assistance and/or benefits. It is just that I am against the providing of 'freebies' which makes people take things for granted and contented to rely on the state.
For years, I thought that preventing that circumstance would be a major challenge for Singapore. But in recent weeks, I have read about the lady who had to pay $17,000 for emergency surgery in a 'C class' ward and was then quickly told to go home because there were a shortage of beds. I read about the case of the elderly mother who was scolded for asking for $80 more to help pay her child's education expenses.
BALANCE
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Helping People Help Themselves
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Which brings me to the main thrust of my argument. That the issue is not to give or not to give - but how and what to give. It is about striking a balance between ensuring that the level of assistance and/or aid is not so inappropriate as to encourage sloth, lethargy and indolence but at the same time ensuring that everybody, if willing to work hard and put in effort, will have a chance of having a better tomorrow.
Coming back to an earlier point, a lot of it depends on the nature of assistance. While it is easy to see how blindly giving out unemployment benefits can serve as a disincentive to work, it is harder to say the same for, say, medical benefits. After all, few people want to fall ill or have a medical condition in the first place. Indeed, I have been told that with the current cost of healthcare, a serious illness can severely strain the resources of the the average heartland family to the point of desperation, and in many cases rend the fabric of the extended family as well. It is hard to see how the provision of more medical assistance can be a disincentive to endeavour.
Another area which I think needs to be looked at is education. I think there is a far smaller danger of there being a disinctive to endeavour in the case of educational assistance. Because a request and/or a desire for this assistance already prima facie shows a desire for improvement rather than inertia. I know that there already is a lot of emphasis on education and training, but I think a lot more can be done to make conditions more favourable for citizens. As I said, while I think it would be wrong to favour Singaporean citizens over clearly superior foreigners, we should do all we can to enable our citizens to compete with and even surpass foreign competition. To that end, perhaps more focus should be placed on not only the cost of education for poorer families but the opportunity cost - how do we enable poorer families to cope with the delayed entry into the workforce of one of their number who goes for extended schooling?
There are of course more contentious issues such as the cost of housing. Does cheaper housing result in people taking things for granted? Or does the lack thereof mean that a lot of people are too caught up with the daily fight for subsistence to think and plan for their long term future?
And foreigners? Do the benefits of having them here outweigh the disadvantages? Are they having too many privileges? Stories abound of how ambitious foreign nationals are merely making use of an education and/or job in Singapore as a stepping stone before moving on, of how easy it is for them to become PRs and then depart when the next better opportunity comes along, of how our sons have to spend two years doing National Service to defend the children of these nationals who will leave long before they have to do NS.
Of course, a lot of these stories may be isolated and/or generalisations. And of course, I do not have any concrete answers and or suggestions (which is why I am not in politics).
What I do believe is that Singapore will not succeed by pampering its citizens or refusing to co-opt outsiders who can contribute to our society and genuinely want to integrate and help Singapore progress. We will not succeed by shying away from the challenge posed by the brightest, the most hardworking and most enterprising foreigners, choosing instead to keep them out. I believe we will benefit far more from having them on our side, with us, than against.
But I also think that we must never forget the obligations we owe to our citizens, people who have been born here and who have, or whose parents have, made Singapore what it is today. And I believe that we must do all we can to ensure that priority is given to our citizens when it comes to equipping them with the skills and means to survive in the brutal modern world. While we must never deny entry to the best, we should do all we can to help our own become the best.
That is what the conversation with my Dad made me believe.
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