There's an extremely low fertility rate paired with a rapidly aging population. When I visited there were endless advertisements for geriatric type care / end-of-life type planning / etc, and a notably older population working quite low wage jobs in a place where everything was crazy expensive, especially relative to its northern neighbor. It felt depressing.
It seems like one of those places that is probably quite nice if you're loaded, but it seems like a pretty rough place if you're not already well off. I was also surprised that many of the stereotypes about 'one fine city' were not quite on the mark. Jaywalking, crossing against a cross-walk light, and various other little infractions were ever-present which left me feeling a bit odd as when in Rome do what the Romans do, but yeah... not gonna risk that.
Your commentary has me reflecting on my own hometown. I grew up in a wealthy resort and retirement island, the kind of place that is now so expensive I could not afford real estate anywhere on or even near to.
Very aged population relative to the rest of the nation and so during the Great Recession a wave of retirees found themselves owning a home but otherwise impoverished and working service jobs out of desperation. Always was a sad interaction, and working alongside them was often worse. You would never hear the end of their misery, understandable bitterness, and regret.
Nowadays, thanks to the same demographic shifts, those jobs are back in the hands of the youth. Except now it’s all folks who grew up on the island that seemingly will live at home with their parents for the rest of their lives working those jobs. They otherwise would not be able to live anywhere close.
I have to ponder what the next shift in staffing there will look like.
TIL detention without trial is a thing in Singapore [^1], ministers love to brag about increasing the severity of detention without trial [^2], and that the longest someone was held in detention without trial in Singapore was 23+9 years [^3]. That person was never charged.
Policing SOPs in East Asia (incl. Singapore) is different than policing SOPs in the west. Typically people are warned, often multiple times, that they are in danger of experiencing the less kind side of local law. Once the switch is flipped, this gentle hand becomes an iron fist.
I will bet dollars to donuts that the person who was held without charge for decades (mentioned above) was completely not surprised that they were severely punished. They may not have liked the punishment, they may not have agreed with the opaque process, but they almost certainly can’t say that they didn’t know it was coming.
Well, to get the death penalty you have to be charged. I actually think Singapore laws on what could get you the death penalty are pretty clear, and you'd be stupid to violate them. Being detained without trial seems scarier imo
That's one of my favorite pieces of writing by Gibson, because he cites Neal Stephenson's "burbclave" concept. Which, to me, is like the literary equivalent of those times when a famous musician or band (including but not limited to the Barenaked Ladies and Don McLean) performed the Weird Al version of their own song.
after reading the wiki article I'm quite certain he was saved and kept alive to continue his work. someone was out for his head but didn't have enough reach.
but that's just an assumption based on stories in the good old Soviet Union.
Detention without trial is also a thing in the UK. Legally limited to 6 months but extended in practice if you are Irish or advocate against the genocide in Palestine. Ask the people of Palestine Action UK.
With the growing fascism all over the world we will see that kind of thing more often.
> This trial marks the first attempt in Britain to treat political property damage as equivalent to terrorism - an unprecedented and dangerous expansion of state power. Under the current Labour government, many defendants will have spent nearly two years behind bars before even standing trial.
Trial delays and court backlogs in the UK are indeed terrible, as few people here would disagree. They are not without court oversight (remand hearings, etc). They affect many people – rape victims being a notable example – and I do not believe that these systemic problems are politically motivated.
Everyone in this thread is conflating/misunderstanding various things and seems a little misinformed.
"Detention without trial" is a thing in the UK, as well as the US, Canada, and many (most?) other countries, even those considered non-authoritarian or whatever, for lots of crimes, not just politically convenient ones. This isn't a new thing because of growing fascism, it's literally the distinction between "jail" and "prison", or what the bail system is for. Court systems don't have the capacity to try everyone immediately upon arrest, and in various ways, look to balance that with the right to a speedy trial, the right to a presumption of innocence, justice, and public safety.
(I'm not making any judgement on the balance Britain is striking in this particular case, which sounds bad!)
But what OP is pointing out as problematic in Singapore's case is 1) detention without even being charged with a crime, which is what the UK government website linked above says is forbidden beyond a relatively short time frame and 2) the absence of any kind of a right to a speedy trial.
I think Singapore's immigration policy is still interesting and relevant to western countries, but it's true it's also kind of similar to the UAE.
Essentially it's (relatively) easy to get work visas for areas where there's a genuine shortage but difficult to get permanent residency and almost impossible to get citizenship.
That's still a very different policy to what most western countries have right now.
The UAE has the most extreme version of this so the milder Singaporean version is less interesting as an example.
I agree, without even talking about gay rights, I think both the UAE and Qatar have a legal system and an immigration system I wouldn't want to be subjected to.
Generally true for most of the world outside of the West
There aren't any examples for Dubai (afaik), on record.
In the UAE, 2015 was the last execution for homosexuality.
There was a deportation in 2017 for maybe cross dressing?
Either way, I would consider the UAE an exceptionally unsafe place to visit.
[1]: I mean, in my book consensual trade between two grown up people is closer to consensual sex between two grown up people than it is to murder. That said, there is still some difference.
Singapore was never "cool" as long as I remember in Asian expat circles since 90s. It's like the nice clean manicured places where boring expats who enjoys boiled potatoes and chicken breasts without spice settle. Dubai without all the high quality sin.
Tame Orchard towers and four floors of whores never produced dubai chocolate tier of memes. Singapore is Disney with death penalty. Dubai is Disney with Minnie Mouse scat play. Hilariously, both great places to raise kids if you stick to the main attractions.
I think you're (understandably) interpreting "technocrat" differently than what the author intends and what it's historically meant.
Technocrats form the foundation of the so-called "deep state" that Trump rails against: unelected bureaucrats - scientists, economists, doctors, researchers, engineers, statisticians - controlling low-level government policy (ideally) on the basis of data and knowledge of their particular field.
What it doesn't mean is "a government run on the insane whims of coked-up techno-utopian billionaire tech CEOs", which is what the current right seems to be interested in.
I think the UAE point is crucial - in many things, including freedom and basic rights, they are worse than Singapore. Now that most of the west (as the article says) treats civil rights and press freedom more like Singapore does, the right shifts right. I am not in the US so can't comment on the immigration point but I perceive it exactly the other way around with heavy handed immigration enforcement being worse than most expected.
> Singapore is a much more democratic country than most outsiders realize
Yeah no.
In Singapore you have a single party which has used it's constitution, laws, courts and media control to enforce a defacto one-party state for 60 years.
Singapore citizens can (and do) vote but those votes have absolutely zero chance of changing anything.
Is it technically democracy? Well they vote so yes? Is there any chance at all of peaceful regime change through voting? Technically yes, in practice? Probably not. I would expect extreme suppression and HK style riot crushing. They have been doing it quietly for decades, targeting and legally destroying/bankrupting any opposition to the PAP.
So the only real difference vs say China is that while both are authoritarian regimes the Chinese didn't bother with a mechanism to pretend you can throw them out.
To be clear, I don't object to their form of government. I think it works for them and thus it's completely ok. If anything I find Singapore a really safe and efficient place and visit frequently.
I do object to people pretending it's somehow a liberal democracy though, that just ain't the truth.
People also voted in USSR. DPRK has a 99,9% voter turnout that modern OECD countries could only dream about.
Voting is only a part of the democratic process, but is meaningless taken alone.
To add to what you say, Singapore is not a democracy, Lee Kuan Yew's son ruled the country for 20 years after his death, and his successor was chosen by him.
OP's critique feels like a celebrity economist's variant of those travel magazine pieces that tell us why Zermatt, Phuket or Nantucket is no longer a "cool" vacation spot. On some sort of momentary buzz meter, sure.
But the factors that help Singapore be an Asian or often global hub in so many respects are still running strong, no? Worrying about whether a couple dozen X/Twitter legends are hyping you today feels silly.
Think it's more looking at the trend for Very Serious Political/Economic Commentators to suggest it as a model to emulate in long form articles than the Twitterati, but yeah, it's explicitly asking about opinions rather than whether there's anything about it that's actually broken down. Which is, relatively speaking, a nice place to be as a country.
Cowen is focused mostly on the US commenteriat, but the trend is similar in the UK, where "we should totally be like Singapore" peaked around Brexit, under the delusion idea that all we needed to do to emulated the success of the city state that founded ASEAN two years after declaring independence was leave the EU.
Meanwhile HN generally forms its opinion from a decades-old William Gibson article lamenting that it wasn't cool enough to write cyberpunk about :)
That is what MarginalRevolution is. It's fairly heterodox by most standards, but not in the good way.
> the factors that help Singapore be an Asian or often global hub in so many respects are still running strong, no
Nope.
If I can now IPO in China or India with Singapore level valuations and attract Singapore level deal sizes, why would I as a Chinese or Indian want to dedicate significant capital in Singapore beyond what is needed to build an operating shell to interface with western capital markets?
Similarly, if I'm GS, JPMC, Citadel, etc and I'm seeing significant dealflows in China and India, I should concentrate on building an organization within their borders as much as possible - which is what they have been doing since the mid-2010s.
Singapore will remain a major financial hub, but it is losing it's relative advantage to other hubs within Asia.
India and China don't have the low tax stable capitalist system thing that Singapore has. In some ways it's advantage has increased now Hong Kong is part of China.
> low tax stable capitalist system thing that Singapore has
I can say from personal professional experience that historically businesses are domiciled in Singapore primarily for us investors in Western capital markets to enter China, India, and ASEAN.
For capital that is already located in China, India, and parts of ASEAN (primarily Vietnam), that becomes less attractive, especially because China, India, and Vietnam all operate SEZs that have aligned with western corporate law or have BITs signed with major western financial hubs (eg. Pudong SEZ, GIFT City SEZ), so we don't need to route via SG to the same degree we did 20 years ago.
Additionally, if we want to exit our investments in China or India, we have no choice but to list on a Chinese (including Hong Kong) or Indian stock exchange because no other Asian market has comparable trade volume, which makes exits difficult.
Finally, what differentiates Singapore from the Dubai or London? Depending on where you are investing in Asia, you may end up getting much more preferential access from either of those two instead of Singapore.
This is why Singapore has lost it's mojo - it can't differentiate itself as a financial services center and Singapore never really had a strong innovation sector.
> Singapore’s free speech restrictions, whatever you think of them, no longer seem so far outside the box. Trump is suing plenty of people. The UK is sending police to knock on people’s doors for social media posts, and so on. That too makes Singapore more of a “normal country"
That seems like it should make Singapore _more_ cool, at least my personal theory is that this changed a lot of perception of China (at least in some parts of gen z social media, "it's a very Chinese time").
What a strange premise. Aside from the brief period of infamy around the Michael Fay case (mid-90s, a teenager caned for acts of petty vandalism), when were Americans ever paying attention to Singapore?
The author keeps referring to "right-wing" this and that, so presumably he is buried too deep in some weird political subculture to realize that his question makes little sense to the rest of us.
Tyler Cowen used to blog about Singapore monthly, and now he does not. He reflected on why he doesn't. He admitted that he doesn't because its not cool to people in power. I find that a funny admission because I long suspected that academia's basic function is to suck up to power and justify whatever decisions the elite make.
I think it is due to China. I remember Singapore was a large financial center for Asia, but China's rapid growth overshadowed Singapore.
I also think Hong Kong is going through the same thing, plus I believe China is trying to make Shanghai into its main Finance Center, letting Hong Kong's center fade away.
Look at the map, all ocean travel between East Asia and India/Europe basically has to go past Singapore. They've been a trade and financial center with a substantial chinese population for a long time.
SG's value-add was as a door into China (and India and ASEAN). China has strict capital controls so it makes FDI risky.
During the 1990s when there were open questions about HK's status, a lot of the business community (and at least 10% of HKers) immigrated to SG to operate there.
During the 2000s, the PRC made some good faith attempts at assuaging investor sentiment in HK, and that slowed the business and financial services outflow from HK to SG as HK had added linkages to Mainland China that SG would never have.
Now that I can IPO or M&A in China and India with Singapore level valuations, I have no incentive to retain more than a minimal operational presence in Singapore in order to act as a capital funnel to the others.
By 2019, if you were a Chinese company that only intends to operate within China, you had no reason not to move legal and leadership operations to Shanghai.
On the other han, I'd you were a foreign investor, HK de facto become "yet another Chinese territory" which meant it's not a good hedge for an ExChina/China+One strategy which is executed in ASEAN or India, which made Singapore become somewhat attractive.
Basically, the only loser was HK.
That said, this is all business and financial services - no one was actually dedicating serious effort building sustained R&D capacity in either HK or SG when you can hire the people who you would have had to apply PRs (no one who is worth hiring would accept a work visa when they could work for an American company and L1/2 to America) for directly in China, India, and increasingly Vietnam.
> If you were a Chinese company that only intended to operate within China, you had no reason not to move legal and leadership operations to Shanghai.
Where's the example where you're a Chinese company with most revenue in China (for now) but do sell elsewhere and anyhow, there are lots of reasons to not 100% stick to China,
e.g. gaming companies have moved to Singapore in masses (at least some capacity) due to time and time of gaming crackdowns and censorship
Gaming and Social Media in China is slightly different given how significant western capital was in the sector in the 2000s and 2010s compared to other portions of the Chinese tech industry.
For example, the whole ByteDance/TikTok imbroligo is due to Susquehanna trying to exit it's Chinese investments which are locked within China.
During the 2019-23 period, boards in startups that had Western investors increasingly demanded that either Chinese investors buy them out or that they shift domicile so an alternative path to exit could be found.
SH onshore, HK offshore still. PRC bigger economy than entire region SG serves, if PRC wills HK to be finance hub larger than SG then that's what HK will be, on mainland volumes alone. One thing Singapore has over HK is it's land endowments though pathetic is slightly less meagre, SG managed to carve out nice industrial sector for 20-25% of GDP, something HK couldn't compete with PRC and IMO heavy reliance on finance fucked it over. Hence HK being integrated into greater pearl river after NSL slap down cowed all the nativists.
Hong Kong has been in a different spot since 2023 when the Chinese government targeted some of the biggest due diligence companies and shut them down, substantially disrupting all contract driven commerce at that time. Avoiding random corruption driven crackdowns like that is one of the main reasons companies prefer alternatives like Singapore.
It hasn't been cool for a long time. My dad was offered Singaporean citizenship in the 1990s despite then being an Indian national but decided to immigrate to the US to work in tech in Silicon Valley instead and raise us. This is a pretty common story among Bay Area Chinese and Indian Americans who immigrated during that era.
In the 90s and 2000s, Singapore's value add was that it could act as a door into China, India, and ASEAN due to expansive trade and investment treaties, but why would I want to build an R&D center in Changi staffed with PRCs and Indians when I could just hire them directly in Shenzhen or Bangalore.
After China committed to being hands-off on HK business and contract law in the 2000s, SG lost some value as it didn't have the same connections that HK had legally speaking to enter the Chinese market.
SG continues to remain the best place to incorporate a business in Asia, but just because your lawyers and holding company is in SG it doesn't mean your operations, operational headcount, and capital expenditures is there.
For the average HKer - absolutely. Most of my HK native friends and colleagues who could immigrated to London, SG, NYC as a result.
For a business - it depends on how dependent they are on ExChina capital markets or customers.
If you were a company that was primarily and overwhelmingly operating within China, after the changes there was no incentive not to shift most of your operational and executive staff to Shanghai.
If you weren't one of those, then shifting to Singapore makes sense.
The issue for Singapore is Indian companies have started making the same decisions as those China First companies, so Singapore has lost it's comparative advantage within Asia, as Western FDI remains prominent but is increasingly either routed directly or (in India's case) through challengers like the UAE or London.
While the ugliness of Taiwanese justice (or lack thereof) makes it unappealing to me, from the other issues mentioned in these threads and the recent 3 year sentence for killing a little girl - https://jakartaglobe.id/news/sixyearold-indonesian-girl-kill..., I'm not sure it rises to the most troubling qualities of NK. eg The population doesn't starve en masse, no familial dynasty, and there is no alternate-fictional history.
many chinese people, it's kind of joke but still..also true on many levels.
> I'm not sure it rises to the most troubling qualities of NK
its run by a dictator from the begining, with many strange laws to tell the people not to do this and not to do that. the major difference is that Singapore is pro-west (and pretend to be neutral) so no trash talk from the western media and its portrayed as a 'democracy'
This is the "dictator" that you're allowed to run for election against and the "no chewing gum" bylaws Singaporeans sell T-shirts joking about the system to foreigners, right?
There are many ways to keep yourself (and your son, after, like in SG). You can use arbitrary force and secret police, as it is the case in DPRK or China.
Or you can use the fact that you basically own the State to pit everything against your political opponents. There are various ways to do this, and at different intensities. SG's PAP is famous for using lawfare against political bloggers, newspapers and political opponents who question their rule.
Western democracies, where the selectorate is currently fearing for a populist takeover has started to do the same: German politicians filed more than 4,000 defamation cases, vague "hate speech laws" allow to selectively try your opponents, the State funds compliant press and NGOs, and so on. The EU functions in a way that democratic oversight and popular will is so dilluted that it isn't a real constraint, while keeping the "democratic" varnish and some legitimacy.
At least in SG, DPRK or China, things are clear and not hypocritical, maybe it's better for everyone.
Trump tried to reverse the election last time he lost and enjoys suppressing protests with military units. But yeah, he isn't literally a dictator, just would like to be
i failed to understand the enthusiasm for politics memes.. it's a good point, i just dont undertand the fuss. in the end, you want to something changes in your life, not only something like 'i can joke about our system'. if it can change the system and the policy, i totally support them. but i dont see many cases. If i have to choose one, i will always choose the gum.
i read so many pepople complain the ICE on rednote and on reddit complain Trump and jokes about him, i just don't see the changes. Does Trump retreat any of his major polices? If not, are people just lives in the bubbles?
ah shit.. i foget the essence of free world and free speech: you can speak and express, but we can make sure nobody hears you and your voice doens't matter..
you win! this website must make a huge diffrenece for the people all over the world or the western world so people think of singapore as non-democracy sometimes.
There's an extremely low fertility rate paired with a rapidly aging population. When I visited there were endless advertisements for geriatric type care / end-of-life type planning / etc, and a notably older population working quite low wage jobs in a place where everything was crazy expensive, especially relative to its northern neighbor. It felt depressing.
It seems like one of those places that is probably quite nice if you're loaded, but it seems like a pretty rough place if you're not already well off. I was also surprised that many of the stereotypes about 'one fine city' were not quite on the mark. Jaywalking, crossing against a cross-walk light, and various other little infractions were ever-present which left me feeling a bit odd as when in Rome do what the Romans do, but yeah... not gonna risk that.
Your commentary has me reflecting on my own hometown. I grew up in a wealthy resort and retirement island, the kind of place that is now so expensive I could not afford real estate anywhere on or even near to.
Very aged population relative to the rest of the nation and so during the Great Recession a wave of retirees found themselves owning a home but otherwise impoverished and working service jobs out of desperation. Always was a sad interaction, and working alongside them was often worse. You would never hear the end of their misery, understandable bitterness, and regret.
Nowadays, thanks to the same demographic shifts, those jobs are back in the hands of the youth. Except now it’s all folks who grew up on the island that seemingly will live at home with their parents for the rest of their lives working those jobs. They otherwise would not be able to live anywhere close.
I have to ponder what the next shift in staffing there will look like.
TIL detention without trial is a thing in Singapore [^1], ministers love to brag about increasing the severity of detention without trial [^2], and that the longest someone was held in detention without trial in Singapore was 23+9 years [^3]. That person was never charged.
[^1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Law_(Temporary_Provis...
[^2]: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/politics/my-views-on-...
[^3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chia_Thye_Poh
There’s a reason William Gibson called it “Disneyland with the Death Penalty”
https://www.wired.com/1993/04/gibson-2/
Yes and whenever I see anyone gushing about Singapore that's the first place my mind goes.
You can keep your 1000 different Instagrammable spots, I'd rather go some place that is a little more into democracy and reasonable policing.
> reasonable policing
Policing SOPs in East Asia (incl. Singapore) is different than policing SOPs in the west. Typically people are warned, often multiple times, that they are in danger of experiencing the less kind side of local law. Once the switch is flipped, this gentle hand becomes an iron fist.
I will bet dollars to donuts that the person who was held without charge for decades (mentioned above) was completely not surprised that they were severely punished. They may not have liked the punishment, they may not have agreed with the opaque process, but they almost certainly can’t say that they didn’t know it was coming.
Well, to get the death penalty you have to be charged. I actually think Singapore laws on what could get you the death penalty are pretty clear, and you'd be stupid to violate them. Being detained without trial seems scarier imo
That's one of my favorite pieces of writing by Gibson, because he cites Neal Stephenson's "burbclave" concept. Which, to me, is like the literary equivalent of those times when a famous musician or band (including but not limited to the Barenaked Ladies and Don McLean) performed the Weird Al version of their own song.
Yes, and it’s probably why I often misremember it as being written by Stephenson.
after reading the wiki article I'm quite certain he was saved and kept alive to continue his work. someone was out for his head but didn't have enough reach.
but that's just an assumption based on stories in the good old Soviet Union.
Detention without trial is also a thing in the UK. Legally limited to 6 months but extended in practice if you are Irish or advocate against the genocide in Palestine. Ask the people of Palestine Action UK.
With the growing fascism all over the world we will see that kind of thing more often.
https://www.gov.uk/arrested-your-rights/how-long-you-can-be-...
Reality:
> This trial marks the first attempt in Britain to treat political property damage as equivalent to terrorism - an unprecedented and dangerous expansion of state power. Under the current Labour government, many defendants will have spent nearly two years behind bars before even standing trial.
https://www.cage.ngo/articles/trial-begins-for-first-six-of-...
Trial delays and court backlogs in the UK are indeed terrible, as few people here would disagree. They are not without court oversight (remand hearings, etc). They affect many people – rape victims being a notable example – and I do not believe that these systemic problems are politically motivated.
Everyone in this thread is conflating/misunderstanding various things and seems a little misinformed.
"Detention without trial" is a thing in the UK, as well as the US, Canada, and many (most?) other countries, even those considered non-authoritarian or whatever, for lots of crimes, not just politically convenient ones. This isn't a new thing because of growing fascism, it's literally the distinction between "jail" and "prison", or what the bail system is for. Court systems don't have the capacity to try everyone immediately upon arrest, and in various ways, look to balance that with the right to a speedy trial, the right to a presumption of innocence, justice, and public safety.
(I'm not making any judgement on the balance Britain is striking in this particular case, which sounds bad!)
But what OP is pointing out as problematic in Singapore's case is 1) detention without even being charged with a crime, which is what the UK government website linked above says is forbidden beyond a relatively short time frame and 2) the absence of any kind of a right to a speedy trial.
[flagged]
I think Singapore's immigration policy is still interesting and relevant to western countries, but it's true it's also kind of similar to the UAE.
Essentially it's (relatively) easy to get work visas for areas where there's a genuine shortage but difficult to get permanent residency and almost impossible to get citizenship.
That's still a very different policy to what most western countries have right now.
The UAE has the most extreme version of this so the milder Singaporean version is less interesting as an example.
Do they get to vote? Also in general elections? Are they typically organised in unions?
The UAE still murders gay men just for beeing gay. Besides the lack of morality this affects 7 % of all men worldwide.
Im not sure if UAE really be an exciting place and thus would someone migrate to it if you care about culture and stuff.
All gulf states have abysmal gay rights, but are you sure they are executing gay men?
I'll checked it and you are right. It is just law and practical not done.
But what is worse: Law which does not matter, because the elite will ignore it anyway or threatening gay men to kill them but currently not doing tit.
anyway, not a place a emigrate.
I agree, without even talking about gay rights, I think both the UAE and Qatar have a legal system and an immigration system I wouldn't want to be subjected to.
Generally true for most of the world outside of the West
Any real recent examples of this, specifically in Abu Dhabi or Dubai?
There aren't any examples for Dubai (afaik), on record. In the UAE, 2015 was the last execution for homosexuality. There was a deportation in 2017 for maybe cross dressing?
Either way, I would consider the UAE an exceptionally unsafe place to visit.
Any source for the 2015 case? All I found was executions of pedophile rapists
I think you're right. While the UAE doesn't execute people for pedophilia, per se, the homosexuality element was what allowed for it.
Yes, Singapore will execute people for different reasons, not for being gay.
Yes, mostly for drug trafficking and murder. You could in theory argue that drug trafficking is kinda comparable to being gay [1], but the capital punishment is only for huge amounts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Singapor...
[1]: I mean, in my book consensual trade between two grown up people is closer to consensual sex between two grown up people than it is to murder. That said, there is still some difference.
Singapore was never "cool" as long as I remember in Asian expat circles since 90s. It's like the nice clean manicured places where boring expats who enjoys boiled potatoes and chicken breasts without spice settle. Dubai without all the high quality sin.
I thought Dubai was Dubai without all the high quality sin.
Tame Orchard towers and four floors of whores never produced dubai chocolate tier of memes. Singapore is Disney with death penalty. Dubai is Disney with Minnie Mouse scat play. Hilariously, both great places to raise kids if you stick to the main attractions.
>Yet today’s American political right is not very interested in technocracy.
That is a deeply weird statement to make in 2026.
I think you're (understandably) interpreting "technocrat" differently than what the author intends and what it's historically meant.
Technocrats form the foundation of the so-called "deep state" that Trump rails against: unelected bureaucrats - scientists, economists, doctors, researchers, engineers, statisticians - controlling low-level government policy (ideally) on the basis of data and knowledge of their particular field.
What it doesn't mean is "a government run on the insane whims of coked-up techno-utopian billionaire tech CEOs", which is what the current right seems to be interested in.
“Disneyland with the death penalty” [1]
—William Gibson
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disneyland_with_the_Death_Pena...
I think the UAE point is crucial - in many things, including freedom and basic rights, they are worse than Singapore. Now that most of the west (as the article says) treats civil rights and press freedom more like Singapore does, the right shifts right. I am not in the US so can't comment on the immigration point but I perceive it exactly the other way around with heavy handed immigration enforcement being worse than most expected.
> Singapore is a much more democratic country than most outsiders realize
Yeah no.
In Singapore you have a single party which has used it's constitution, laws, courts and media control to enforce a defacto one-party state for 60 years. Singapore citizens can (and do) vote but those votes have absolutely zero chance of changing anything.
Is it technically democracy? Well they vote so yes? Is there any chance at all of peaceful regime change through voting? Technically yes, in practice? Probably not. I would expect extreme suppression and HK style riot crushing. They have been doing it quietly for decades, targeting and legally destroying/bankrupting any opposition to the PAP.
So the only real difference vs say China is that while both are authoritarian regimes the Chinese didn't bother with a mechanism to pretend you can throw them out.
To be clear, I don't object to their form of government. I think it works for them and thus it's completely ok. If anything I find Singapore a really safe and efficient place and visit frequently.
I do object to people pretending it's somehow a liberal democracy though, that just ain't the truth.
People also voted in USSR. DPRK has a 99,9% voter turnout that modern OECD countries could only dream about.
Voting is only a part of the democratic process, but is meaningless taken alone.
To add to what you say, Singapore is not a democracy, Lee Kuan Yew's son ruled the country for 20 years after his death, and his successor was chosen by him.
OP's critique feels like a celebrity economist's variant of those travel magazine pieces that tell us why Zermatt, Phuket or Nantucket is no longer a "cool" vacation spot. On some sort of momentary buzz meter, sure.
But the factors that help Singapore be an Asian or often global hub in so many respects are still running strong, no? Worrying about whether a couple dozen X/Twitter legends are hyping you today feels silly.
Think it's more looking at the trend for Very Serious Political/Economic Commentators to suggest it as a model to emulate in long form articles than the Twitterati, but yeah, it's explicitly asking about opinions rather than whether there's anything about it that's actually broken down. Which is, relatively speaking, a nice place to be as a country.
Cowen is focused mostly on the US commenteriat, but the trend is similar in the UK, where "we should totally be like Singapore" peaked around Brexit, under the delusion idea that all we needed to do to emulated the success of the city state that founded ASEAN two years after declaring independence was leave the EU.
Meanwhile HN generally forms its opinion from a decades-old William Gibson article lamenting that it wasn't cool enough to write cyberpunk about :)
> celebrity economist's
That is what MarginalRevolution is. It's fairly heterodox by most standards, but not in the good way.
> the factors that help Singapore be an Asian or often global hub in so many respects are still running strong, no
Nope.
If I can now IPO in China or India with Singapore level valuations and attract Singapore level deal sizes, why would I as a Chinese or Indian want to dedicate significant capital in Singapore beyond what is needed to build an operating shell to interface with western capital markets?
Similarly, if I'm GS, JPMC, Citadel, etc and I'm seeing significant dealflows in China and India, I should concentrate on building an organization within their borders as much as possible - which is what they have been doing since the mid-2010s.
Singapore will remain a major financial hub, but it is losing it's relative advantage to other hubs within Asia.
India and China don't have the low tax stable capitalist system thing that Singapore has. In some ways it's advantage has increased now Hong Kong is part of China.
> low tax stable capitalist system thing that Singapore has
I can say from personal professional experience that historically businesses are domiciled in Singapore primarily for us investors in Western capital markets to enter China, India, and ASEAN.
For capital that is already located in China, India, and parts of ASEAN (primarily Vietnam), that becomes less attractive, especially because China, India, and Vietnam all operate SEZs that have aligned with western corporate law or have BITs signed with major western financial hubs (eg. Pudong SEZ, GIFT City SEZ), so we don't need to route via SG to the same degree we did 20 years ago.
Additionally, if we want to exit our investments in China or India, we have no choice but to list on a Chinese (including Hong Kong) or Indian stock exchange because no other Asian market has comparable trade volume, which makes exits difficult.
Finally, what differentiates Singapore from the Dubai or London? Depending on where you are investing in Asia, you may end up getting much more preferential access from either of those two instead of Singapore.
This is why Singapore has lost it's mojo - it can't differentiate itself as a financial services center and Singapore never really had a strong innovation sector.
> Singapore’s free speech restrictions, whatever you think of them, no longer seem so far outside the box. Trump is suing plenty of people. The UK is sending police to knock on people’s doors for social media posts, and so on. That too makes Singapore more of a “normal country"
That seems like it should make Singapore _more_ cool, at least my personal theory is that this changed a lot of perception of China (at least in some parts of gen z social media, "it's a very Chinese time").
What a strange premise. Aside from the brief period of infamy around the Michael Fay case (mid-90s, a teenager caned for acts of petty vandalism), when were Americans ever paying attention to Singapore?
The author keeps referring to "right-wing" this and that, so presumably he is buried too deep in some weird political subculture to realize that his question makes little sense to the rest of us.
Tyler Cowen used to blog about Singapore monthly, and now he does not. He reflected on why he doesn't. He admitted that he doesn't because its not cool to people in power. I find that a funny admission because I long suspected that academia's basic function is to suck up to power and justify whatever decisions the elite make.
Singapore was never cool, they were always the most authoritarian place on Earth without an actual dictator in charge.
Cool? Out of all the major world commercial hubs, wasn't it always the hottest and muggiest?
Everywhere you need to be is air conditioned, which is pretty cool I guess...
(Humidity's high but peak temperatures aren't particularly extreme; it's just never cold)
That's just south east asia in general.
Ironically, UAE and Qatar have nicer weather in the winter than Singapore.
Singapore is on the equator, so winter is not even a well-defined concept there.
I think it is due to China. I remember Singapore was a large financial center for Asia, but China's rapid growth overshadowed Singapore.
I also think Hong Kong is going through the same thing, plus I believe China is trying to make Shanghai into its main Finance Center, letting Hong Kong's center fade away.
It's hilarious that we think of Singapore as competing with China where China has 1000x more people.
Singapore is pretty impressive.
Look at the map, all ocean travel between East Asia and India/Europe basically has to go past Singapore. They've been a trade and financial center with a substantial chinese population for a long time.
Well, 230x.
well, ok, less impressive
SG's value-add was as a door into China (and India and ASEAN). China has strict capital controls so it makes FDI risky.
During the 1990s when there were open questions about HK's status, a lot of the business community (and at least 10% of HKers) immigrated to SG to operate there.
During the 2000s, the PRC made some good faith attempts at assuaging investor sentiment in HK, and that slowed the business and financial services outflow from HK to SG as HK had added linkages to Mainland China that SG would never have.
Now that I can IPO or M&A in China and India with Singapore level valuations, I have no incentive to retain more than a minimal operational presence in Singapore in order to act as a capital funnel to the others.
And during the 2010s-2020s the flow from HK moved back to SG since China started their major changes in HK.
I'd say it went 50-50 Mainland-Singapore.
By 2019, if you were a Chinese company that only intends to operate within China, you had no reason not to move legal and leadership operations to Shanghai.
On the other han, I'd you were a foreign investor, HK de facto become "yet another Chinese territory" which meant it's not a good hedge for an ExChina/China+One strategy which is executed in ASEAN or India, which made Singapore become somewhat attractive.
Basically, the only loser was HK.
That said, this is all business and financial services - no one was actually dedicating serious effort building sustained R&D capacity in either HK or SG when you can hire the people who you would have had to apply PRs (no one who is worth hiring would accept a work visa when they could work for an American company and L1/2 to America) for directly in China, India, and increasingly Vietnam.
> If you were a Chinese company that only intended to operate within China, you had no reason not to move legal and leadership operations to Shanghai.
Where's the example where you're a Chinese company with most revenue in China (for now) but do sell elsewhere and anyhow, there are lots of reasons to not 100% stick to China,
e.g. gaming companies have moved to Singapore in masses (at least some capacity) due to time and time of gaming crackdowns and censorship
Gaming and Social Media in China is slightly different given how significant western capital was in the sector in the 2000s and 2010s compared to other portions of the Chinese tech industry.
For example, the whole ByteDance/TikTok imbroligo is due to Susquehanna trying to exit it's Chinese investments which are locked within China.
During the 2019-23 period, boards in startups that had Western investors increasingly demanded that either Chinese investors buy them out or that they shift domicile so an alternative path to exit could be found.
SH onshore, HK offshore still. PRC bigger economy than entire region SG serves, if PRC wills HK to be finance hub larger than SG then that's what HK will be, on mainland volumes alone. One thing Singapore has over HK is it's land endowments though pathetic is slightly less meagre, SG managed to carve out nice industrial sector for 20-25% of GDP, something HK couldn't compete with PRC and IMO heavy reliance on finance fucked it over. Hence HK being integrated into greater pearl river after NSL slap down cowed all the nativists.
Hong Kong has been in a different spot since 2023 when the Chinese government targeted some of the biggest due diligence companies and shut them down, substantially disrupting all contract driven commerce at that time. Avoiding random corruption driven crackdowns like that is one of the main reasons companies prefer alternatives like Singapore.
It hasn't been cool for a long time. My dad was offered Singaporean citizenship in the 1990s despite then being an Indian national but decided to immigrate to the US to work in tech in Silicon Valley instead and raise us. This is a pretty common story among Bay Area Chinese and Indian Americans who immigrated during that era.
In the 90s and 2000s, Singapore's value add was that it could act as a door into China, India, and ASEAN due to expansive trade and investment treaties, but why would I want to build an R&D center in Changi staffed with PRCs and Indians when I could just hire them directly in Shenzhen or Bangalore.
After China committed to being hands-off on HK business and contract law in the 2000s, SG lost some value as it didn't have the same connections that HK had legally speaking to enter the Chinese market.
SG continues to remain the best place to incorporate a business in Asia, but just because your lawyers and holding company is in SG it doesn't mean your operations, operational headcount, and capital expenditures is there.
This changed back to the advantage of Singapore when China cracked down on HK.
For the average HKer - absolutely. Most of my HK native friends and colleagues who could immigrated to London, SG, NYC as a result.
For a business - it depends on how dependent they are on ExChina capital markets or customers.
If you were a company that was primarily and overwhelmingly operating within China, after the changes there was no incentive not to shift most of your operational and executive staff to Shanghai.
If you weren't one of those, then shifting to Singapore makes sense.
The issue for Singapore is Indian companies have started making the same decisions as those China First companies, so Singapore has lost it's comparative advantage within Asia, as Western FDI remains prominent but is increasingly either routed directly or (in India's case) through challengers like the UAE or London.
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Yoghurt will not give you a decade in prison for littering or chewing gum.
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Man, imagine the biggest complaint that people can come up with re: a country is that you don't like the local english pidgin's politeness marker.
this kinda comment damn jialat sia. come outside settle
we call it the rich version of north korean
Who is "we"?
While the ugliness of Taiwanese justice (or lack thereof) makes it unappealing to me, from the other issues mentioned in these threads and the recent 3 year sentence for killing a little girl - https://jakartaglobe.id/news/sixyearold-indonesian-girl-kill..., I'm not sure it rises to the most troubling qualities of NK. eg The population doesn't starve en masse, no familial dynasty, and there is no alternate-fictional history.
> Who is "we"?
many chinese people, it's kind of joke but still..also true on many levels.
> I'm not sure it rises to the most troubling qualities of NK
its run by a dictator from the begining, with many strange laws to tell the people not to do this and not to do that. the major difference is that Singapore is pro-west (and pretend to be neutral) so no trash talk from the western media and its portrayed as a 'democracy'
This is the "dictator" that you're allowed to run for election against and the "no chewing gum" bylaws Singaporeans sell T-shirts joking about the system to foreigners, right?
Try doing that in mainland China...
There are many ways to keep yourself (and your son, after, like in SG). You can use arbitrary force and secret police, as it is the case in DPRK or China.
Or you can use the fact that you basically own the State to pit everything against your political opponents. There are various ways to do this, and at different intensities. SG's PAP is famous for using lawfare against political bloggers, newspapers and political opponents who question their rule.
Western democracies, where the selectorate is currently fearing for a populist takeover has started to do the same: German politicians filed more than 4,000 defamation cases, vague "hate speech laws" allow to selectively try your opponents, the State funds compliant press and NGOs, and so on. The EU functions in a way that democratic oversight and popular will is so dilluted that it isn't a real constraint, while keeping the "democratic" varnish and some legitimacy.
At least in SG, DPRK or China, things are clear and not hypocritical, maybe it's better for everyone.
so is USA and Trump, why people call Trump a dictator?
Trump tried to reverse the election last time he lost and enjoys suppressing protests with military units. But yeah, he isn't literally a dictator, just would like to be
i failed to understand the enthusiasm for politics memes.. it's a good point, i just dont undertand the fuss. in the end, you want to something changes in your life, not only something like 'i can joke about our system'. if it can change the system and the policy, i totally support them. but i dont see many cases. If i have to choose one, i will always choose the gum.
i read so many pepople complain the ICE on rednote and on reddit complain Trump and jokes about him, i just don't see the changes. Does Trump retreat any of his major polices? If not, are people just lives in the bubbles?
" so no trash talk from the western media and its portrayed as a 'democracy' "
Please provide sources
please give me a link said singpore is not democary and its run by a dictator
https://freedomhouse.org/country/singapore
Now your turn
ah shit.. i foget the essence of free world and free speech: you can speak and express, but we can make sure nobody hears you and your voice doens't matter..
you win! this website must make a huge diffrenece for the people all over the world or the western world so people think of singapore as non-democracy sometimes.
I'll take "begging the question" for $500.