From: frissell@panix.com
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 10:08:19 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Singapore
In-Reply-To: <01bd026d$85c8c4a0$06060606@russell>
Message-ID: <3.0.2.32.19971207205827.03c68eb8@panix.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



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At 05:07 PM 12/7/97 +0800, Harish Pillay wrote:

>I am a Singaporean and have lived most of my life in Singapore.  I am no
>lapdog of the government (thank you) nor do I agree with everything the 
>government does.  If it is of any interest to you, you can go to my home 
>page for information on dirt that I have posted about the SG govt.  You 
>can also go to many other sites all over (both within Singapore and outside) 

>that discuss a wide array of issues, (www.sintercom.org) for example.

It should be obvious to those who have read my stuff over the years that I am 
not a fan of Singapore's government.  As an anarchist, that would be 
ridiculous in any case.  All that I ever said was that Singapore was freer 
than lots of other countries that don't get so much bad press.  I mentioned 
Germany and I could have mentioned France.

Liberty is commutative as is tyrrany.  You can add up the restrictions and 
arrive at a total.  You can't analyze a human institution with mathematical 
perfection but you can do better than relying purely on emotional 
stereotypes.  

I think that many of us ("We Are All Liberals Now" -- The Economist, 1997) 
ignore economic liberty when comparing regimes.  

It was this failing in the Freedom House (http://www.freedomhouse.org/) 
survey "Freedom in the World" (http://www.freedomhouse.org/Political/toc.htm) 
published since 1981 that led to two competing surveys being published by 
CATO and Heritage Foundation (as mentioned in an earlier post).  

Freedom House then retaliated with "World Survey of Economic Freedom" 
(http://www.freedomhouse.org/Econ/TOC.HTM) which is vague (both Germans and 
Americans are assigned equal "right to earn a living" scores of 3 even though 
Germans are much more restricted in that endeavor than Americans).  Their 
survey also totally ignores the "takings issue".  A country with a 100% 
income tax could rank perfectly on their scales.  

There are bound to be differences of opinion about living conditions in 
different countries and different weights that individuals would assign to 
different factors.  I was never trying to convince anyone that Singapore is a 
capitalist paradise and everyone should emulate them.  In fact Hong Kong has 
had a better growth rate recently and was a nicer place to live prior to its 
late unpleasantness.

Personally, I prefer Europe's winner in the economic liberty sweepstakes -- 
Switzerland -- or the anarchist paradise where they have many laws but no one 
obeys them -- Northern Italy -- or the US where it remains easy to avoid most 
of the unpleasant restrictions that our rulers attempt to impose on us.

I also am sure that not even the promoters of "Asian Values" can resist the 
transformative effects of the cash and the personal empowerment that 
accompany the growth of MarketEarth.

DCF 

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