It’s all about Populism

I had the honour of listening to one of our ministers speak on the theme of “Singapore in 2008 & the Way Forward” during one of the school events I attended today.

While generally informative, I could not help but pick up on a point raised by the minister. The point in question was put forth by the minister in response to a question by a student on whether the government has been adequate in its efforts to help the poor in our society deal with rapidly rising costs of living. Admittedly, it was one that is rather cliched and belaboured, but I think it’d be appropriate for me to address it here in order for me to bring out my stand on the greater issue.

Essentially, the minister argued that a welfare state is not the way to go for Singapore. To demonstrate what he means, he gave the example of USA; and the minister claimed that despite increased government spending over the past 20 years or so by the US government, it’d not be fair for us to say that the USA of now is anywhere better than the USA of 20 years ago. The minister then moved on to raise examples of how the Singapore government tries to help the poor in our society – for instance, the poor do not pay any income tax at all, and they only pay tax in the form of GST.

As usual, the minister also warned against the detriments of a welfare state – lower productivity, lower growth, lower incentive. And to prove this point, the minister gave the example of the Northern European countries (in essence, the Scandinavian countries), where he claims that teenagers in these countries are fully satisfied with their lives as it is now, and that they lack the drive to improve and to progress; because these teenagers are cognizant of the fact that if anything happens, they have the state to fall back on. 

I am rather ambivalent on the pros and cons of a welfare state in general. One could easily argue both sides of the coin, and it’d be difficult to arrive at a conclusive evaluation at the end of the day.

However, in the context of Singapore, I feel that the government could perhaps take up a larger role in assuring citizens of their basic welfare. This is not to say that Singapore should institute a welfare state. This is to say that the government could increase government spending in terms of helping the lowest strata of society, i.e. the poor, the elderly, etc.

The government’s budget for FY2008 sets aside $91.4 million for the needy, $86.1 million for juvenile delinquents and vulnerable families, and $44.5 million for the elderly and the disabled. Out of a budget amounting up to $39.84 billion dollars, the Singapore government intends to spend some $222.3 million dollars on the needy, the juvenile delinquents and vulnerable families, and the elderly and the disabled. In other words, the Singapore government spends 0.005% of the FY2008 budget on welfare schemes aimed at helping the needy and the poor in society.

Just to clarify, I do not fully trust that the above statistics are wholly representative of the full scope of the government’s efforts (I am sure I’ve missed some other things out); nonetheless, I think we can generally agree that the government adopts a rather minimalist approach when it comes to protecting the welfare of its citizens, especially when compared with Western liberal democracies.

Fair enough, the government has various schemes in place, the most representative of them all should be the CPF. But I am saying something stronger than just legislating citizens to channel a certain proportion of their income into funds meant for their retirement and medical treatment in the future. I am saying that the government should take the initiative in providing a greater level minimal welfare, probably in the form of monetary assistance, to the poor in our society.

Let’s face it. With the costs of living increasing so sharply, I think it is only fair that the government ups the amount it spends on helping the poor such that the poor receives sufficient assistance to ensure basic survival despite high costs of living. After all, given that the government’s purpose in spending money on welfare schemes is  to help the poor and needy in society, if the government truly wishes to help this group of people in society, then it’d only make sense that the government adjusts its spending on related schemes in response to the costs of living rocketing.

Furthermore, I don’t think it’s fair to claim that the poor bear a lesser burden of taxes since the government doesn’t mandate that they pay income tax and they only have to pay GST, so the government has actually done enough to help the poor and needy in society. Any person versed in the fundamentals of macroeconomics would tell you that the GST is a regressive tax, and it harms the poor more so than the rich. If you think about it carefully, the poor would tend to spend a greater proportion of their income paying GST, as compared to the rich, especially if you consider that the poor are only able to afford basic necessities for which the GST is not absorbed, whereas the rich are able to afford luxuries for which the GST is usually absorbed.

These are only the rudimentary points which I can really come up with, and it’d be possible for one to go on and on with an endless list of criticisms which can be thrown at the government for not doing enough to help the lower strata in society.

For me, however, the issue of whether the government is doing enough to help the poor and needy in society fleshes out a larger issue at hand – does populism have any place in our society? I suppose when considering the extent to which the government should provide for the lower strata of society; I conceive a possible scenario in which we could witness significant differences between “the people” in the lower social classes and “the elites” in the higher social classes.

This is a question that I’ve been considering for a long while now. I’ve settled on a reasonable conclusion, which would be that populism is enjoying a greater role in our society. What do I mean?

If you simply consider the phenomenon of elitism in our society, populism can claim a even greater role in our society than ever before. Putting aside the debate on the causes of elitism in our society, the perception that the formation of an elite class is on-going is likely to create the image of a polarised society, where we have, on one end, “the people” versus “the elite” at the other end. By typifying certain groups of individuals in our society as “the elite”, I suppose the rest of society, which would probably consist of the lower middle class, the lower class and the working class, is able to reinforce the idea that there actually exists a class of elites in society. This creates a positive environment for the seeds of populism to be sown, and for the flowers of populism to bloom. It does not help either that our society has been experiencing increasingly severe disparity in incomes between different social classes, and this has probably contributed to a general atmosphere of discontentment and disillusionment amongst “the people” with “the elites”.Already, we see tensions between the so-called “people” and “the elites” in our society, particularly in the Wee Shu Min saga which was particularly publicised.

It is my opinion that the government has no interest in fostering any sort of populism in society. After all, go out on the street today and the lay man would tell you that he or she sees the government as part of “the elite”. Perhaps not so much in the past, but in the aftermath of the ministerial pay raise, I would think that more and more people are beginning to see the government as an “elite” institution. To promote populism in our society could be the equivalent of political suicide for the government. If the government were to indeed adopt a more populist tone, it would only harm their chances for re-election especially when “the people” become more cognizant that the government belongs to the class of “elites” and that “the people” would not want a group of “elites” to rule them.

Furthermore, a greater populism in society by the government would encourage the opposition to adopt a more populist tone to seek out popular support by “the people” against “the elites”. In this case, it could even be possible that greater populism in the Singapore society would encourage greater political vibrancy and diversity.

Of course, I do not believe that we should practice an extreme version of populism that perhaps suggests a violent revolution or coup. I do believe, however, that a measured degree of populism would do more good than harm for the Singapore society.

For one, I think greater populism would involve more of the lower strata of society to be more engaged in politics. When political parties make themselves out to be representative of the interests of the working class, I think it would be in the interests of the working class to listen to what these parties have to say and to decided on which parties to vote for keeping in mind the various policies advocated by the different political parties. You could even say that when political parties adopt a more populist tone, the group of individuals in society which see themselves as “the people” could find a sense of belonging to a common cause, and this is a good thing because a democracy is a functional one when it manages to involve the diverse interests and perspectives of the people. This is what I’ve mentioned above when I pointed out that greater populism could make politics in Singapore more exciting.

I suppose a greater populism could also create the incentive for the government to adhere more closely to the wishes of the people. Keeping in mind that a democracy is “by the people, of the people, for the people”, it only seems fair that a democratically elected government should do its utmost best in representing and pushing for the interests of the people. I think it’s fair to point out that the Singapore government has never shown itself to be afraid to diverge from the demands of the people when it deems such action necessary for the long-term interests of Singapore. Not that I find anything wrong with the government willing to bite the bullet when it’s really the best way forward; but I suppose that a greater populism would encourage the government not to recklessly opt for the unpopular but efficient way to do things and to take the wishes of the people more seriously. This would be a good thing for both the people and the government in general – the people get what they want, and the government has a better shot at being re-elected into power during the next elections.

The above two are only two such benefits, and I am sure there are more benefits that could be brought about by a greater populism in Singapore, but I have not had the time to think carefully about them. Perhaps I could raise them in a future post.

Ultimately, I suppose a greater populism is an inevitable reality that our society faces. The question then is this: do we embrace it or do we reject it? My stand is that we should embrace a measured degree of populism, because I believe that it would bring about greater benefits than detriments.

Ontological Concerns

I think I am quite undecided when it comes to describing my ontological position, in general.

On one hand, I cannot deny the influence that existentialism, as a philosophical doctrine regarding the metaphysics of existence, has held over various views I’ve held about life and existence in general.

For one, I agree with the existentialists that humans are born into this world truly free. By this, I mean to say that humans are free in the sense that they are able to create and accord meaning for their existence in this world. I would hate to imagine a world in which our destinies are all pre-ordained and where humans are shackled by the chains of fate.

However, I would deny the existentialists’ axiom that existence precedes essence. My stand on this issue is that neither precedes the other. I think that both existence and essence come into being at the same moment; at that one point in time when something is conceived into this world, it exists because it possesses essence; it possesses essence because it exists. This may sound wholly illogical, but I do not see any necessity in placing one above the other. I view the two – namely existence and essence – as equally important, and thus I would accord both the same status.

My idea about existence is this: when humans come into being, we exist and we have essence. This is what I’ve mentioned above. Both are conceived simultaneously. In this case, I still stand by my position that humans are born into this world truly free. We possess the capacity to construct purpose for ourselves in our lives. Nothing is pre-destined and the future is in constant flux and it is to be determined by a prior chain of unbroken occurrences. However, this does seem to be at odds with my denial of the existentialists’ claim that existence precedes essence. It may seem contradictory that on the one hand I claim that we are able to create meaning for our existence, which implies a lack of meaning in the first place; yet, on the other, I claim that we come into this world in possession of meaning and essence.

I intend to resolve this conflict by introducing the idea that there exists a rift between the human capacity to grasp the essence of our existence and the objective essence of our existence. In other words, I am saying that humans fall short of comprehending this essence with which we come into being already in possession of ever since the moment of us coming into being into this world. This would mean that we humans do retain the capacity to accord meaning to our own lives, because we suffer from the impression that our existence precedes our essence even though we do possess some objective degree of essence which we are unable to comprehend and understand.

What does this mean for us as humans then? I would submit that we are still able to achieve what I would term as “practical happiness” when we create a meaning for ourselves in our lives which is divergent from the objective essence which we come into being into this world already in possession of. However, I would also submit that we would be able to achieve a far greater degree of happiness, what I would term “metaphysical happiness”, if the meaning we create for ourselves in our own lives, in one way or another, is congruent with this objective essence that we’ve always possessed. This is not to say that true “metaphysical happiness” can only be achieved through a game of chance and probability. I would submit to you then, that our capacity to match our constructed meaning with our objective essence is through the human capacity to be rational beings. The more rational we are, the closer we come to achieving “metaphysical happiness”.

Palin: A Wise Choice?

To be honest, I wasn’t really excited about the choice of candidate for Vice-President by the Republicans.

The Democrats, on the other hand, possessed a greater degree of drama and suspense. After all, the question everyone was asking before the commencement of the Democratic National Convention was: will it be Clinton?

The reasons in favour of Obama choosing Clinton to be his Vice-President candidate were apparent: Clinton could help shore up support for Obama by certain groups of voters which Clinton was better able to appeal to as compared to Obama, such as the blue collar workers and women.

In the end, as we know it now, Obama chose Biden over Clinton. I can understand why Obama made such a choice. Biden provides strong credentials and experience in the field of foreign policies for Obama’s bid for the White House, and it was a clever move to reduce the impact of McCain’s attacks on Obama’s relative inexperience, especially in foreign policies.

On the other hand, when the Republican National Convention took place, I was very much surprised by McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as the VP candidate. The first big question I had was: who is Sarah Palin? I’ve never heard of the name Sarah Palin before, much less say as a likely choice for the Republican VP candidate. Nonetheless, this was quickly remedied by a quick reading of the Wikipedia entry on Sarah Palin.

The second big question I had then was: why Sarah Palin? I could think of two main reasons why McCain chose to put Palin on his presidential ticket.

Firstly, Palin is a woman. I suppose McCain’s choice of Palin was meant as a move to counter Clinton’s appeal to the female population if she had been chosen by Obama to run for Vice-Presidency. It would seem that McCain’s plan had worked far more effectively than he had expected. Instead of placing Clinton on the Democratic presidential ticket, Obama chose Biden, who is evidently not a woman. So it would seem now that McCain has the upper-hand over Obama when it comes to courting female voters.

Secondly, Palin was seen as capable of rallying support by Christian conservative voters for McCain. McCain isn’t your typical Republican rooted in modern American conservatism; he is more of a maverick figure, and this has led to distrust of McCain by many conservative Republican voters. Palin, however, holds a political position which conservative Republican voters typically identify with: yes to private ownership of firearms, no to abortion, no to same-sex marriage.

However, keeping in mind recent events which have transpired, questions are being asked of McCain’s decision to place Palin on the Republican presidential ticket: is she more of a strategic asset or more of a strategic liability?

As of now, I would think that Palin is more of a liability for McCain in his bid for the White House. I have a few reasons to think this way.

Firstly, Palin exposes McCain’s to a whole new angle of attack. By this, I mean the lack of experience which Palin brings with her onto the Republican presidential ticket.

Before the Republican National Convention, McCain could be attacked on multiple counts, but inexperience was never one of them. In fact, McCain’s favourite attack on Obama was the Illinois Senator’s relative inexperience. I would think that it was the most advantageous angle of attack that McCain can mount on Obama, even up till this point in time. It is because experience is often seen as a pre-requisite for a President to act competently and effectively in his capacity as the Commander-in-Chief. By attacking Obama for his lack of experience, McCain would be able to play on the Republicans’ traditional strength in the areas of national security of foreign policies.

Sadly, with the inclusion of Palin on the Republican presidential ticket, McCain is now deprived of this angle of attack, because McCain cannot attack Obama for being inexperienced since Obama now has Biden on his ticket, but also because McCain would seem hypocritical if he were to rail against Obama for his inexperience when Palin, who is even less experienced than Obama, is his VP candidate.

After all, it was Palin who asked “What exactly does the VP do everyday?”. Obama never did ask the same question about the responsibilities of the President.

Secondly, possibly due to a fear of exposing Palin to attacks on her inexperience (which is a presumably a result of her being the most inexperienced amongst all nominees), the Republican presidential ticket has decided to insulate Palin from the media and place her in some sort of a media access vacuum. Since the official nomination of Palin as the Republican VP candidate, Palin has only agreed to three one-on-one interviews and no press conferences thus far. Over the same period of time, Palin’s Democratic counterpart Biden has given “more than 89 national and local interviews”.

It will never be known what would have happened if the Republican campaign decided to expose Palin to the media. But as of now, this strategy of a media blackout seems to be backfiring. The lack of contact between the national audience and Palin through the media would probably undermine the public’s image and understanding of Palin, and, by extension, the Republican presidential ticket at large. As Paul Dimock, associate director of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for People and the Press, puts it, “The lack of access is potentially damaging in the eyes of the voter, because they are trying to get to know the candidate.” Keeping in mind that McCain, Obama and Biden are all more well-known than Palin, the lack of information provided to voters about Palin by media interviews is not helping voters to make a fully informed choice on who to vote for when it comes to Elections Day. And it is definitely not helping the Republican presidential ticket.

In fact, during the rare instances when Palin is allowed to speak to the media, she has hardly done herself any favours. The best example being her most recent interview with Katie Couric of CBS News, during which she demonstrated an alarming lack of knowledge on topics, such as the current financial crisis which has plagued the American economy.

Ultimately, I would not deny the positive buzz that Palin has brought to the Republican presidential ticket. Voter turnouts at rallies and fundraising events have been consistently high because Palin brings to the ticket verve and energy.

However, despite all these, Palin seems to be increasingly casting greater doubt on the Republican bid to hold on to the White House, instead of illuminating it with her folksy and down-to-earth image.

Palin? Maybe not such a wise choice after all.

Meritocracy and its flaw

I consider meritocracy a “sacred cow” of the Singapore society. For the sake of clarity, allow me to define meritocracy as a system under which people are differentiated by their individual abilities. And by “abilities”, I refer to skills and characteristics displayed by an individual which are considered to be useful and beneficial by the ruling strata in society.

Undeniably, meritocracy accounts for a key component of what we can lay claim to as the “Singaporean identity”. As the conceptual underpinning of various institutions and mechanisms in society (such as the educational system, scholarships, the civil service, etc), it has provided some semblance of fairness and equality for all Singaporeans. The maxim for the defenders of meritocracy would be “equal opportunity for all”.

Over the course of this essay, I seek to highlight a flaw of meritocracy, particularly in the context of Singapore. However, before I begin, allow me to clarify that I do not deny that meritocracy does have its own merits too. As a scholar (albeit a poor one), I am a beneficiary of this system of meritocracy too. Nonetheless, I stand by my position that meritocracy is flawed, and while such flaws may appear to be insignificant as of now, if we allow these failings of the system to persist, they would eventually culminate in severe social inequity, which is particularly ironic, seeing as that the purpose of meritocracy is to level the playing field in society.

The main contention that I can post against meritocracy in Singapore would be what I’d term an “ideological gap”. What do I mean by this?

I would give that meritocracy ensures equal opportunity to all. A system of meritocracy is able to provide the same testing ground to all, regardless of your family background, your wealth, etc. In other words, a system of meritocracy only assesses an individual based on his or her skills and abilities. This is, after all, a common sense conception of what we know by “meritocracy”. So, in this case, meritocracy seems to arrive at its end goal of ensuring social equity, since society only rewards people based on their demonstration of certain traits and competencies and ignores all other irrelevant factors. Through meritocracy, both a rich and poor person stand equal chances of being rewarded by society if they are able to show that they deserve it, and society would reward the poor person if the poor person proves worthy. Similarly, society would not hesitate to reward the rich person if the rich person proves worthy too.

It would almost seem as if meritocracy is the best answer to other flawed systems, such as nepotism, autocracy, plutocracy. Perhaps it is. But allow me to first highlight a crucial weakness in meritocracy.

I would first point out that “equal opportunities for all” is insufficient to ensure social equity. The dogma “equal opportunities for all” falls short of what it claims to achieve. Consider the case where you have a poor person and a rich person, and society would proclaim that it offers a job in the civil service to both the rich and the poor; and the job would be rewarded to whoever proves himself to be more competent for that job. This seems consistent with the meritocracy that we claim to practise.

However, what if we postulate further conditions: what if the poor was helping out at his parents’ hawker store and does not hear of this supposed “equal opportunity”? Or what if this piece of news was announced through televised media, and the poor person is unable to afford a television? The poor person would not even know of this opportunity, much less say be able to enjoy this supposed “equal opportunity for all”.

Let’s assume further that this poor person is as skilled and competent as the rich. It would seem then, given that this poor person lacks access to this “equal opportunity”, meritocracy fails because even though the poor person is as worthy of the job as the rich person, the rich person got the job, not because the rich person was more worthy of it, but simply because the rich person was better able to access this opportunity.

The reason for this is that in order for equal opportunities to be ensured for all in society, the pre-requisite would be that people in society enjoy equal access to these opportunities. And this is what I term the “ideological gap”.

To put it down in more concrete terms, what do I mean by “equal access”? It simply means that people are able to receive information of opportunities provided by meritocratic institutions and mechanisms, and they are able to then act on these information using the same methods.

My position then is that equality of access is an unfulfilled pre-requisite for the Singaporean version of meritocracy. The implications of not ensuring equality of access while providing supposed “equal opportunities for all” is that those who are better positioned will have an advantage in accessing and making use of these opportunities. To put it more bluntly, those who come from a wealthier and richer family benefit more from a system of meritocracy than those who come from a poorer background. This is a self-defeating flaw in this system of meritocracy, because then, meritocracy is no longer blind to the family background of each individual and it would seem that the benefits one reaps from a system of meritocracy has a positive correlation with the wealth one’s family possesses.

And I think it is only reasonable that we realise that this problem of an ideological gap eventually leads to a problem of elitism, of class stratification, which is, as I write this out, still a persistent talking point in our society. The inequality in access advantages the rich over the poor, which would eventually lead to the consolidation of power in the hands of the rich. I suppose this is what we are witnessing in our society of today.

In our pursuit of equal opportunities for all, I think we have also forgotten that opportunities do not come to people on magically levitating plates; people need to know and people need to be able to act on these opportunities in order for these opportunities to be considered equal.

However, this is not to say that we should redistribute wealth in society to the extent that no single person is richer or poorer than the other. It wouldn’t be realistic, and personally, I am averse to degenerative egalitarianism of this sort. I am, however, of the opinion that we need to be cognizant of the fact that meritocracy may not work out the way we often want it to be. And I am saying that this is not an one-off occurrence or a fluke accident; I am saying that mistakes of this sort happen on a consistent basis and it the result of an ideological gap which we need to patch up because we are not cognizant of its very existence.

Nonetheless, I still place a certain premium on meritocracy. By far, it’s the fairest system that we could possibly implement. But that does not excuse us from wilfully ignoring the flaws with it. Just because we can’t ensure equal access for all, doesn’t mean we don’t try.