Dear The Real Singapore,
I had a chat with a friendly taxi driver the other day and we discussed health care. He told me that he admired the British health care system which is free. In the limited time I had riding his taxi, I tried to explain to him that Singaporeans actually has better health care than the British, according to the World Health Organization.
The British and other European health care systems actually spring from Socialst ideology. In 1947, the British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, introduced Socialism to Britain. See this link for more information on Clement Attlee:
Attlee nationalized Britain's major industries and introduced the National Health Serivice, which provides free health care. This is a major part of the British welfare state which was later expanded to include unemployment benefits, pensions and other things.
I think this had been a historical mistake by the British and Singapore should not follow their footsteps. For me to explain why, it is necessary to give a quick sketch of the history of Socialism.
The ideology of Socialism is widely regarded to have been started by Karl Marx in which the aim is equality. Socialism is regarded as a temporary stage prior to achieving Communism, an utopian society where everyone is happy to work for the common good and not for selfish reasons. There would be no private property. Everything will be communally owned. There are two main branches of Socialism.
The first branch is what I call revolutionary Socialism (or what many people mistakenly call Communism ). This branch remained true to Marx's original vision in which Socialism can only be implemented by revolution. Marx was inspired by events of the French revolution in which the ruling class of France was killed or driven into exile by the revolutionaries. In the same way, they believe that the capitalists (ie owners of businesses, employers) are the new ruling class who must be exterminated.
Mao, Lenin, Pol Pot and Castro all belong to this branch. They were violent and responsible for the deaths of nearly 100 million people, according to the Black Book of Communism. See this link for more details:
Not all the people were murdered. Many starved to death as a result of trying to implement Socialism. You see Socialist dogma calls for equality. They believe that if some have more than others, that is unfair. They believe that profits earned by owners of businesses are rightfully the property of the workers and are therefore stolen from them. Therefore all businesses, farms and factories should belong to the workers.
Their aim is expressed in a simple sentence:
“From each according to his ability. To each according to his needs. ”
See link for further information:
According to Socialist beliefs, once Communism is attained, everybody's need will be met by a productive state and everybody will work to his best ability for the common good. That's the fairy tale society they were working towards.
Mao certainly tried to achieve this when he set up the commune system. He seized land from landlords who were persecuted or even killed.
Instead of each farmer owning his own plot of land, large pieces of land will be shared by about 100 families. They worked the land collectively and shared in the food produced.
The intention was that those unproductive farmers will still be able to eat well thanks to the efforts of the more productive farmer who will toil selflessly “according to his ability”.
The result was disaster. The system meant that whether you work hard or not, you get the same amount of food. Under such conditions, people did not bother to work hard. Soon there was mass starvation. Tens of millions of Chinese died. More Chinese died as a result of trying to implement Socialism than were killed by the Japanese in the World War II.
While Mao and other leaders of the first branch of Socialism starved and murdered millions of people, the second branch of Socialism was more humane. It was called Social Democracy.
The father of Social Democracy was Eduard Bernstein, a disciple of Karl Marx. See this link for more information:
Bernstein believed that Socialism can be achieved democratically and peacefully. He was willing to work within the framework of parliamentary democracy, unlike people like Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin who did not believe in democracy.
Today's European parties that call themselves names like Social Democatic Party or Democratic Socialist Party or Socialist Party or Labour Party can claim to be intellectual descendents of Bernstein's ideology. They will try to achieve the same goals as their totalitarian counterparts in the Eastern bloc democratically.
When the British Labour Party won the 1945 elections, it set about to bring Socialism to Britain peacefully and democratically. The British Prime Minister Clement Attlee thus nationalized major British industries but compensated the owners instead of murdering or starving them. Killing and starving people was what Stalin did to the Kulaks (the better off farmers) who were deemed “class enemies” simply because their farms employed workers.
Under Socialist dogma, the owners of businesses (also called capitalists or bourgeoisie) were exploiting the workers. Thus in a more just society all businesses, factories and farms should be owned by the workers. In practice, the state owned these assets on behalf of the workers. But government control of assets of production is only one of two pillars of Socialism. The other is the welfare state where wealth is redistributed to ensure a more equal society.
Thus Attlee started the welfare state in the UK, as I mentioned earlier. This is done by increasing taxation progressively and spending the money on free health care, unemployment benefits etc so that all will have a more equal standard of living, regardless of ability. It was considered unfair by Socialists that some should have more than others.
So both sides of the Iron curtain were to varying degrees practicing Socialism. The Western side did it democratically and partially while the Eastern side practiced Socialism more fully and undemocratically. They called it the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, but in practice it was really dictatorship of the dictator. Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot and Castro were all dictators and mass murderers who killed millions.
Meanwhile, such Socialist ideas also spread to the newly independent countries in the 1950s and 1960s. Independence leaders like Nehru and Julius Nyerere were educated in British universities and were influenced by their stupid ideas. Nehru was a Fabian Socialist. See this link for information on Nehru's connection with Fabian Socialism and his friendship with playwright and fellow Fabian Socialist, George Bernard Shaw:
Also see this U tube video of the bloody views of George Bernard Shaw:
I must say that all the branches of Socialism – Shaw's Fabian Socialism, Hitler's National Socialism and revolutionary Socialism seem to produce bloody minded people for some reason. But I digress. Let's get back to my brief history of Socialism.
Nearly all of the newly minted countries were led by Socialist leaders after they got Independence from European colonial powers. Socialism was intellectually in fashion at that time. By the way, the PAP originally was supposed to be Socialist.
But to its credit, it soon changed its stripe. That is why Singapore prospered. Going against the political fashion at that time, it welcomed the businessmen and encouraged them to invest here. Instead of seeing them as exploiters of labour, it saw them as creators of jobs and trasnferors of technology. Soon we received investments from American, Japanese and European companies grateful for the welcome it received here as compared to an anti-capitalist attitude from most of the world at that time.
It required courage to go against the trend and it turned out to be the right decision. This speaks volume for the intellect of the men who led Singapore. They were years ahead of their time and could see that Socialism does not work. We practice meritocracy. This means that you will be paid according to how hard you work and according to your abilities. If you earn more money as a result, I don't see why it should be considered unfair. On the contrary, it is Socialism that is unfair because it robs you of the fruits of your labor and abilities.
Together with Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, Singapore prospered and these were the original tigers. Others, mired in Socialist dogma, like India, Tanzania, Burma and so many others sank into poverty.
Soon the failure of Socialism was plain to see. Chinese majority countries like Singapore and Hong Kong prospered while Socialist China was impoverished. Deng Xiao Ping visited Singapore and was impressed by our progress. He soon reformed China's economy and scrapped large chunks of Socialist practices. China began to prosper under a more capitalistic economy.
Over in Europe, the workers in Poland were discontented and formed the Solidarity Union. This is the supreme irony because Socialism is supposed to look after the workers and “protect” them from exploitation by the owners (also called capitalists). Solidarity was the first crack of the crumbling Socialist edifice created by revolutionary Socialists in the Eastern bloc. Soon the Soviet Union was no more and the Berlin Wall fell.
Over in the west, Margaret Thatcher waged war against the Labor Party and its Union allies, many of whom were sympathetic to the Soviet Union. After years of Socialist policies, Britain was declining. If you get paid by the state when you are not working, some people will refuse to work. Thatcher boldly reversed a major policy of Attlee. She privatized those companies that Attlee nationalized. These companies were inefficiently ran, lost money and had to be subsidized by the taxpayer.
After privatization, these soon became profitable and Britain prospered. But even the Iron Lady dared not undo the welfare state, the second pillar of Socialism. But soon after the success of her privatization, others began to follow her example. One major pillar of Socialism was dismantled all over the world. Instead of being shunned, the businessman now was welcomed in nearly all countries which was what Singapore did right from the start. See how stupid the world can be? At the same time, see how smart we are.
But today, Europe's welfare states are under seige. Welfare states are popular because people are easily deceived by their politicians into thinking that they are getting free things from the government. But that is a lie. Nothing is free in this world. The government will tax you to pay for the “free” stuff they promised you to win your vote. Free stuff is not free.
That is why taxes are so high in Europe. For example, the GST (which is sometimes called VAT) is absurdly high in most European countries. It is 20%, 19.6% and 19% in the UK, France and Germany respectively. (Essential items like food are usually taxed at a lower rate.) But despite the high tax rates (property, income, GST, capital gains), the tax revenue collected is not enough to keep up with the promises made by politicians.
That is why they have to borrow. As a result, most western countries are heavily in debt. The worst example is Greece which is now broke. Italy, Spain and Portugal are also in serious trouble. The Germans are helping the Southern Europeans by lending them money on condition that they cut spending.
The Americans are in similar trouble with a debt of $17 trillion! The net debt as a percentage of GDP is a high 88%, according to the IMF. See link:
Their solution is to print more $. The Germans, fearing inflation, refused to consider this option. Instead of allowing the European Central Bank (ECB) to print more Euros, they want to do it the hard way – get the spendthrift nations to cut spending. In my opinion, this is the responsible thing to do because printing money will debase the currency. At the rate the Americans are printing $, the US$ is in danger of becoming a “banana currency.” But cutting spending is unpopular. As a result, the crybabies in Europe, accustomed to free stuff, are not happy.
Singapore got its policies correct long ago. We avoided a welfare state where services such as health care are given away free. So the taxi driver is wrong to want us to imitate the British. Just because they have free health care does not mean that their health care is better than ours.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), our health care is better! See link for
WHO ranking of health care systems:
As you can see from the link, Singapore's health care is rated as 6th best in the world as compared to 18th best for the UK. The WHO's ranking was done some time ago. Here is a more recent ranking from Bloomberg. See link:
Bloomberg rated Singapore's health care as the second most efficient in the world. The UK is rated as the 14th most efficient. The ranking is based on the lifespan of the people of each country as compared to how much was spent on healthcare by both government and private sectors. The Americans are near the bottom of the list. Their health care is very expensive. They spend far, far more than we do but live shorter lives on average.
If you have been following the news, health care is a big topic in the USA right now. President Obama's attempt to reform the system has backfired and is now regarded as a joke. When he first proposed his reforms, there were many objections and some even suggested that he learn from Singapore! See link for this aptly named article from the Wall Street Journal - “What Singapore can teach the White House.”
I want to highlight the second last paragraph of the article:
In macro terms, that means Singaporeans spend only about 4% of GDP on health care—against 17% for the United States. At the same time, Singapore scores better than the U.S. on life expectancy, infant mortality, and other key international measures
This is for those of you who complain that our government does not spend enough on health care. The point here is that you do not need to spend more to get good health care. Our health care is already better than most western countries despite our low expenditures. Asking the government to spend more money is tantamount to asking them to tax us more. The money must come from your pockets. Do you want our GST to be at 20%?
Those of you who advocate Socialist policies are really behind the time. In the UK and other countries, they have long privatized major industries. Nationalism is one major pillar of Socialism. Now the second pillar of Socialism, the welfare state, is under seige because they no longer can afford them.
We all want to live well. To do that we must earn money to buy the things we want – such as good health care, a comfortable retirement etc. To earn money, we all have to work hard to sell a product or service that someone in the world wants to buy. Each nation competes with the rest of the world to sell their goods and services to earn money. You cannot live well by asking the government to provide free services. It will ultimately backfire on you in terms of high government debt, high interest rates, high unemployment and other problems.
The western countries are finding competition to be tougher now than in 1947 when the UK started its welfare state. That's because China has embraced capitalism (though it falsely claims that it is practicing Socialism with Chinese characteristics) and has thus emerged as a strong competitor. On top of that most European nations suffer from low birth rates making the welfare state even more non-viable.
Recently, the Dutch had a new King. He spoke about the end of the welfare state during his coronation. Please note that the King has no power. He was merely saying whatever his Prime Minster asked him to say. See link:
The west is learning what Singapore knew more than 50 years ago – Socialism does not work. Yet, I come across many people like that taxi driver who yearn for Socialist policies that the west adopted so long ago which have failed. We must avoid Socialism.
Cass Owary
TRS Contributor