The intangibles behind Singapore's success

The intangibles behind Singapore's success

The spirit of idealism that sustained Singapore in its early
years as an independent state should be rekindled amid its
people's more vigorous pursuit of material things, says Kwok
Kian Woon

Politics and vision go together. Where there is an exhaustion
of vision, there too is an impoverishment of politics. Where
politics cannot rise above the play of power interests, political
vision degenerates into ideological dogmatism. Where a vision is
lacking or floundering, no longer coherent or compelling,
citizens have little basis to develop the civic life they share
in common, to deliberate with each other about the national good,
and to shape a shared destiny.

This is true in old and new nation-states, especially during
periods of economic change. The fragmentation of political vision
and the demoralization of civic life accompany, for example, the
economic decline of Western democracies and the market
transformation of post-communist states. But there is no
guarantee that this would not happen in nations which experience
sustained economic growth.

Singapore's success story is well-known. Something, however,
must be said about the way in which the story is often told: the
relentless pursuit of economic growth by an ever vigilant and
pragmatic government. With economic success, the struggle for
survival continues at a higher level in a new era of increasing
global competition.

The country's economic architect, Dr. Goh Keng Swee, in an
interview published recently in Melanie Chew's Leaders of
Singapore, was asked: "Would you say that your political
belief and economic theory is "the primacy of economic growth?"
Came the pithy reply: "Yes! Unless you have economic growth, you
die."

Nobody should deny or take for granted the importance of
economic growth, especially when so many developing countries
cannot break out of conditions of poverty. But economic growth is
not a phenomenon that is independent of social processes. In his
1970 budget, Dr. Goh, then minister for finance, recounted wide-
ranging statistics on the significant economic progress in the
first decade since self-government in 1959, only to add that
statistical information "does not and cannot describe the
qualitative and non-numerical improvements" that were evident in
Singapore.

Dr. Goh said: "There is greater social cohesion, more social
discipline and self-reliance, pride in performance and
achievement in the face of adversity. These are the intangible
yet supremely important factors for the progress of any society.
By our common endeavors and achievements, we are slowly acquiring
an identity of purpose and in this way building up a sense of
belonging and nationhood."

Indeed, he even noted a change in social values: "The
rootless, migrant and parvenu values with each out for himself,
attitudes so prevalent at the beginning of the last decade, are
giving way to more positive group values...In the final analysis,
it is on the firm framework of these values than on steel and
concrete structures that economic progress is to be achieved."

The primacy of economic growth, in other words, rested on the
primacy of moral order. Tangible economic advancement and
intangible sociocultural development were two sides of the same
coin.

More than 25 years later, Singapore might read Dr. Goh's
analysis with a shock of recognition and perhaps more than a
touch of irony. For it might seem that throughout the 1970s and
1980s -- decades of impressive economic growth -- a rootless and
migrant people had been transformed into an active citizenry,
imbued with a sense of national identity and civic consciousness.

In the process, Singaporeans had found their roots in "Asian
values" and had become "communitarian" in their way of life. The
nation entered the 1990s with a clarification of what were its
"shared core values", one of which was "nation before community
and society above self."

As the country moves into the second half of the 1990s and
indeed into the new century, however, a more introspective
assessment of nation-building and civic life in Singapore is
emerging. As the ideological discourse on "East versus West"
loses currency in the international media, Singapore's political
leadership -- especially in the person of Prime Minister Goh Chok
Tong -- turns its attention to the actually existing moral order
at home. And the picture is less glorious and more complex than
that of Singapore as the exemplar of Asian communitarianism.

In a series of speeches during the past half-year, Mr. Goh has
re-emphasized his idea of developing a "gracious society",
appealing to citizens to "upgrade their social behavior". The new
millennium, he says, is "a time to think about non-tangible
aspects of life." In particular, Mr. Goh is at pains to emphasize
the building of "emotional bonds" and "social cohesion" among
Singaporeans, while having the aspirations of different echelons
of society met and without slower economic growth.

Cynics may say that all this is election-year rhetoric. But
Mr. Goh's effort at articulating the intangible aspects of
Singapore's development deserves critical attention. Suffice it
to say here that the vocabulary -- and the moral concerns --
recalls what had been discussed by Dr. Goh Keng Swee decades ago,
prompting new questions: How far has Singapore really come in the
achievement of the intangible? What are the social and cultural
contradictions at work in Singapore society? Does nationhood
really matter in an age of globalization which engenders new
forms of rootlessness? Can the state only play the role of
economic manager and arbitrator of competing interests among
citizens? How would Singapore deal with its unique paradox --
that the very achievement of economic growth is at the same time
corrosive of the sense of national purpose and social solidarity
that supports it? These are questions which require of citizens a
capacity to think beyond the strictly economic, to cultivate, in
the words of a local dramatist, "a sense of history, a humanistic
depth, a moral strength".

It is now conventional wisdom that the present era is
unconducive to ideas about self-sacrifice and idealism, and that
talent and service have to be bought at market rates. Politics is
the art of the possible. But, as Max Weber once said, history has
shown that human beings would not achieve the possible if they
stopped striving to grasp the impossible.

Today's Singapore would not have materialized if an earlier
generation of leaders had no sense of idealism and dedication to
a larger calling. It is the task of all citizens to envision
anew Singapore that they -- and their children -- want to live in
and live for.

Dr. Kwok Kian Woon is with the Department of Sociology,
National University of Singapore.