I'm not arguing with that. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think it has been conclusively proved that being able to exercise that freedom leads to a better society, and it is that end we should be thinking about, not the means.

> decide that you'd rather prize political freedom over wealth

Long term, if political freedom doesn't bring wealth, then what is the bloody point?

"Well, the company didn't make any profits, can't pay its bills and the building is falling down around it, but at least the workers all had a say!"

I'm not quoting that at you to be self-righteous. I'm using it to illustrate that most people in the world seem to believe that political freedom is considered a good in and of itself. At least in the US, anyway- it's in our mission statement. It's not just a good thing, but one of The Good Things, that's worthy of being pursued independent of wealth.

You seem to consider liberty as a means to an end. That's a perfectly fine viewpoint, but I think you should recognize that you're not debating about singapore, but about that underlying assumption.

Seriously? You think that everything a government should strive to guarantee is a means where the end is wealth? You don't think that equality, freedom to criticize questionable government practices (even those that improve GDP), or anything else should be a goal in itself?

An overused example: Fascism has at times lead to incredible economic growth, creating wealth that did measurable good in most citizen's lives (by ending terrible depressions). But there was more that came along with that, which mostly wasn't cutting into the country's wealth (maybe it squanders some human capital, but so does 30% unemployment, which the Nazis completely reversed in around 5 years). Despite the positive implications of fascism on "wealth", there's a lot that the Nazis did that most would be inclined to call bad.

On the other hand, Scandanavian socialist democracy may not be optimal for wealth creation, but it has a lot of benefits that help people lead enjoyable lives that are free from the risk of various kinds of terrible suffering (eg. homelessness).

There are no universal goods, but when pushed, very few people are actually willing to eschew all goods except wealth. And if you are, what's so special about wealth that makes it a good you're willing to quasi-universalize?

But I did say long term - long term the Nazi "wealth" turned to ash. For that matter the nordic social experiment cannot be said to have succeeded yet. Really, none of this has been around long enough to make any final conclusions about anything.

Anyway. Instead of "wealth" you might want to read "social wealth" - the ability of a society to provide good jobs, education, social mobility, health care, long term satisfaction, security of state and person, those kinds things.

Mercedes is still doing quite well, actually. Germany is the exporting powerhouse of Europe.

But just to be clear, you would be ok with the whole holocaust thing if Germany now had the GDP (or whatever metric you want to use for "social wealth") of the US as a result?

I think you meant Volkswagen Group, created in 1937 by the Nazis and backed by Hitler to create the Type 1 (a.k.a Beetle).

Today, Volkswagen owns Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, Bugatti, Porsche, Ducati, Seat, Skoda, and has a majority of shares in Suzuki.

Mercedes is small fry compared do VG.

To tell someone that their beliefs are wrong simply because of where they originated is rather arrogant. You have no idea the OP's background and how deeply they have questioned their own beliefs. It is perfectly fine to disagree with this opinion. However, you must argue against the actual opinion, dismissing it due to where or how it is taught provides nothing to the discussion.

P.S. - Sorry everyone for feeding the trolls.

I simply argued to the parent post that is there is no such thing as universal morals, and our morals, ideals, goals are all framed around an end we want to achieve. And that end, whatever is, can be arbitrarily defined... so morals therefore are also arbitrarily defined. Believing in universal morals is stating that your morals are better than others because you believe in it. It's just like nationalism. You'll believe your country is better because you were born in it, just as you might believe your morals are better than others (universal) simply because you've been indoctrinated by them.

Just as your school isn't necessarily right when indoctrinating you with morals, your country's founding fathers may not be right either. It might have been right for the purposes of the country, but you really do have to see things from other perspectives.

I hope people reading this also take note of the subtle name calling oillio just committed (calling me a troll). If life were that simple we could just dismiss every opposing viewpoint as a troll, just as in minesweeper marking everything a flag... but it doesn't work that way.

Constitutional democracy is not a denial that people have different morals - it's based on that fact.

Naturally, if society was a crude free-for-all, we'd have things that resemble Somalia, or the Mexican drug cartels, or North Korea (along with things like The United States). In these examples of political structures, we have the most powerful taking control of whatever they can take control of. Then they hold it there with whatever means they can for as long as they can.

Democracy is like this but all the people say "hey, let's try giving everyone the same amount of power so we can normalize this game called life and control this experiment for longer-term goals."

Basically I'm saying that power supersedes even democracy oh the moral pyramid. There is one level even beyond democracy and here you'll find it in the company of authoritarianism, communism, etc. Power is at the top level of this pyramid. It is based on survival of the fittest. Power is the only universal moral because it is a fundamental law of nature. Democracy is not a fundamental law of nature. It is a construct of a specific subgroup of humans. It was conceived and designed to achieve a specific goal. And because there is a goal, and all goals are different, it is a subjective end. Therefore democracy is arbitrary and subjective—not a universal moral.

As much as you'd like to believe in inalienable rights, if I have a gun to your head, you can bet I can alienate your "natural" rights. Yes, you'll always have the choice of death or obedience, but once you're dead, you're irrelevant. But if you have a bigger gun, then I can no longer "alienate" your rights! You can "alienate" mine! That's power. Democracy is abstracted into laws which are ultimately enforced with power (guns, police... head) Because of this, democracy is not fundamental. It is human-designed construct and therefore it is not a universal thing.

Another way to think of it is like this: we have a 10 x 10 grid and we have 100 people. Democracy assigns each person a square. Power lets people take whatever squares they can defend. The end result of these two philosophies will look different, but democracy was specifically designed to artificially treat each person as equal so we can achieve the end goal of giving people a chance to succeed. Supposedly this will help society be better off, but this goal is still an arbitrary goal (though most people would agree on this) and democracy is just the means. The natural outcome is to give spaces to those who can defend it. If you can't defend the space, you don't deserve to own it. Democracy is human manipulation of this system to try to achieve better results.

I will fully disclose that I am a firm supporter of democracy (because of the way it normalizes society), but I want to make it clear that it's because it's the best method so far, not because it's inherently right.

Incidentally, why would you think that a universal moral ideal would be something that happens by itself? Isn't it abundantly clear that humans never fulfil any of their ideals?

> Incidentally, why would you think that a universal moral ideal would be something that happens by itself? Isn't it abundantly clear that humans never fulfil any of their ideals?

Legal equality isn't an ideal. It's not something we strive for because we already have it. A universal moral has to be something that happens automatically because otherwise (like democracy) it can only happen with human intervention. And if it requires human intervention, it is no longer universal. It is an artificial construct of man. And like all things men create, it's subjective and designed to serve the specific goals of its creator. A system like a free-for-all survival of the fittest is universal because it was not created by man to serve a purpose—it just is. Therefore it is universal because everything in the universe abides by it, whereas democracy is only abided by those who subscribe to it voluntarily.

Freedom is not free. Democracy is not free and it requires upkeep. Basically those who have power have used it to provide equal power to those under its jurisdiction. But it is made possible by the more universal law of power, and without the benevolent power holders we wouldn't have a free equal (under the law) society in the West.

And no I don't believe democracy is fundamentally "right", I believe it is the safest option we currently have because the people who want to be in control are often dangerous. How dangerous they can be is dependent on how much power they have. Show me anywhere in the history of the world where not having the right to criticize the government turned out well in the long term.

There is a problem with centralised political power, and that's that if a nastier, more corrupt and less tolerant clique gets hold of that power there is absolutely nothing that can stop your pleasant and prosperous one party state from becoming an oppressive and dystopian one. That is the problem. In fact it's a historical truism that absolute power eventually does corrupt absolutely, or at least that eventually the absolutely corrupt will gravitate to that position of power.

Simon Hibbs

Well yes, of course. Even the laziest student of history knows that. I am not trying to advocate for that extreme end of the range of political possibilities.

The elephant in the room, though, is that the other extreme - our hyper-egalitarianism; giving everyone, by birth, no matter how uninformed, no matter how disinterested, an unchallenged vote does not seem to be working too well. Especially when one throws such "freedoms" into the mix as the ability for the incumbent ruling class to massively amplify their own voices by the mass media. So "there is a problem" with what we have, too.

You say that there's a problem with centralised political power, and I agree wholeheartedly, but we certainly do have a problem because that centralised power is in every lounge room, car radio and news stand in the land. At least with communism you knew who was pulling the strings!

Democracy isn't the problem in itself, flawed as it may be, but US democracy suffers from special self-inflicted problems: it's a government created by people who were suspicious of government AND democracy, so it's unmanageable by design. To be fair, democracy was an untried idea at the time, but the US is stuck with ridiculous artifacts of those early doubts.

We have a right to bear arms that cannot easily be undone or moderated but no right to, say, transportation, communication, or health care. Our abortion laws were magically derived from some other inferred right rather than designed by legislators with reference to experts (which is how abortion laws everywhere else work) so it's literally a war between people who think a pregnant mother has no rights over her own body until the child is born and other people who think she should be able to kill the baby right up until it's born. In Australia (IIRC) it's twelve weeks or to save the mother's life. No other democracy has this problem.

There is no centralised power controlling news media in the democratic developed world. I can walk out on to the street in the UK and buy publications supporting any political viewpoint with enough people interested in it to make selling such a publication viable. Hop on to the internet, and you can push whatever agenda you like, and I note that that's exactly what you and I are doing. The problem with totalitarianism is that if they decide they don't like what you're saying, you get censored. Those strings get pulled on you, immediately. See the censorship situation for social media in China for details. This conversation would be practically impossible.

If you really want to see an incumbent ruling class pulling no punches and using all the tools available to it to pull those strings as tight as possible, there are several nations out there doing that right now. My wife's family live in one.

There is nothing inherently wrong with your point of view, and I have many friends who live in singapore, dubai, etc who do not have issues with rules such as the above.

However, I also know many people who value personal freedom above all, and do not think that being guaranteed money supersedes these freedoms. (FWIW I count myself in this group).

I know I'm stretching this a bit, but if you've watched the Matrix, this is the difference between the protagonists who wish freedom from the machines, and Cypher (Joe Pantoliano) who thinks the illusion of a good life is just fine with him: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAsgavFvohI

He does have a point, but most of us identified with the protagonists, right?

I'm talking from the perspective of a (leftist) German who wanted to relocate to Singapore (Wife said no) and lived in Tel Aviv. I've never been to the States, because quite frankly I feel the trip would cost me more 'freedom' than I'm comfortable to part with.

Note that I comment on things I know only online/through the news/from talks with friends. That said, I wonder how many critics of Singapore have actually stayed there for some time..

I know the US gets a bad rap as far as personal freedom is concerned (high incarceration rate, capital punishment, etc) and this is indeed an issue in some other places in the US where I've lived, but I love it here in the bay area.

You should try it for a bit and see what you think. Interestingly, I'm planning to move to Europe, most likely Germany :) and live there for a bit to see what that's like.

No one is sentenced to anal rape in the US.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_rape_in_the_United_State...

I don't have a good answer as to what I would consider "just punishment" by the state for things like robbery, etc. However, throwing someone in jail for littering is certainly extreme.

Now it's possible that they will make some good decisions, and create wealth and raise living standards for a while.

But eventually, they will either make some bad decisions, or die. And when that happens...then what? Often the answer (as we have seen recently) is violent chaos.

Political freedoms allow a society to reinvent itself without chaotic bloodshed. When leaders make bad decisions, everyone else can talk about it, figure out a better way to go, and vote that into effect.

The power of this approach is ably demonstrated by the U.S., which is the richest, and one of the most stable, nations on Earth, despite having among the strongest protections for free expression.

To put it another way: Singapore uses strong central government to achieve the same kinds of effects Americans will cheerfully use other means (e.g. Disneyland, gated communities, giant shopping malls) to achieve.

This is not true. His exact words were "I find Singapore to be the scariest dystopia in the world today".

> Singaporeans (or at least the ones who are left) happen to be willing to accept less freedoms in exchange for economic success

This is bullshit. What a sweeping generalisation to make of all the citizens of a country.

> willing to accept less freedoms

What are these "less freedoms" exactly?

> in exchange for economic success

At least the original comment also conceded "low crime, clean streets, and a wonderfully healthy economy"

You know, free elections, the right to arm yourself, the right to buy chewing gum.

Singapore is pretty creepy under the surface and reeks of covert oppression, at least to my American eye. It seems to work for them, but I wouldn't want to live in a place like that, clean streets or not.

It is easier to get chewing gum in Singapore than it is to buy kinder eggs in America.

Additionally, the reason for banning chewing gum was a whole lot more reasonable (it makes the streets dirty & jammed train doors).

>I wouldn't want to live in a place like that, clean streets or not.

And I wouldn't want to live in America either. I'm happily trading chewing gum and semi-automatic pistols for affordable healthcare, summer every day and clean streets.

That's ironic, you being an American and all.

> the right to arm yourself

This is rich.

a) that in the USA you are _legally_ allowed to kill others and to pollute?

or

b) that no, the USA doesn't legally allow that, but in practice it does (any stats on how many guilty people got off the hook?)

or what?

Contrast this with the USA, whose laws are (supposedly -- it has been much more complex since the Great Depression) based on principle, on a Western logic that, I believe, still holds strong. It is beautiful, as many writers have shown. In past years I have been a great appreciator of this, having held strong libertarian and even anarcho-capitalist values (not a part of the Ayn Rand hype train, I assure you).

But politico-economic systems are much more complex, human nature so rich, that logic and rhetoric cannot fully capture, perhaps ever. As of late I've read a bit more into histories of Communism in the last 100 years, looked at alternative systems of government. And I just don't think the victory and purity of Western idealism -- that it is the One Way, the Only Way -- is as valid as most of us think. There is that banal idea that "Communism works on paper, but not in reality", but I am gradually leaning towards replacing "Communism" with Capitalism.

I know we cannot really compare the Nordic models of governance with Singapore, but I think they, like Singapore, also incorporate many political ideas based on empirical observation, rather than stubborn insistence of value systems.

Unfortunately even the USA isn't so pure. There are so many systems of principles now, that clash all the time -- and they themselves have changed drastically from the USA of 100 years ago. Thus the Libertarian argument still stands. I think the question is, does that Argument even matter?

The expats are happy enough (and the locals I know), but according to surveys, people aren't all that happy. Rather numb, in fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand-your-ground_law

In San Francisco it is unlawful to use used underwear to wipe off cars in a car wash.

So what?

Many (native) singaporean are too poor to leave the country.

Absolute power can scale up to a certain point. At the end of the day, the dictator-for-life can drive around and see things in his city that need fixing. He can also limit rivals to the throne by centralizing authority.

In a larger country, you can't scale up the dictatorial machine as effectively... you're dependent on the bureaucracy or governors/viceroys to run things in the provinces, which creates a raft of other problems.

For migrant workers?

For gay people?

Then there's the caning, censorship, draconian drug laws etc. - doesn't seem like that nice a place to live if I'm honest.

Right, I dont want to contemplate that.

So what?

That said, I thought Singapore has repealed the chewing-gum ban already.

And also, what's the big deal of banning chewing gum? :)