File Size: 496 KB
Print Length: 221 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press (February 1, 2013)
Publication Date: February 1, 2013
Sold by: Digital Services LLC
Language: English
ASIN: B00BFDLH3K
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray: Not Enabled
Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
Best Sellers Rank: #153,333 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store) #48 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > Asia > Southeast #144 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > International & World Politics > Relations #238 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Historical > Asia
Singapore has an airport like a movie set and home ownership for 95% of citizens, science and math scores higher than Japan's. Singapore's per capita GNP is now higher than that of its colonizer, Great Britain. It has the world's busiest port, is the third-largest oil refiner, the lowest cost of health care of any developed nation, and has become a major center of global manufacturing and service. In 1965 it ranked economically with Chile, Argentina and Mexico, now its per capita GNP is 4- 5X theirs, exceeding that in America. Lee was prime minister from independence in 1959 until 1990, when he allowed his hand-picked successor and now his eldest son to succeed; he's still 'Senior Minister' with enormous influence. Nixon speculated that, had Lee lived in another time and another place, he might have 'attained the world stature of a Churchill, a Disraeli, or a Gladstone.'On America, Lee likes the free and open argument about what is good or bad for society, and none of the secrecy and terror that's part of communist government. He also sees the focus on individual freedom as creating its leadership in innovation. Other parts are totally unacceptable - guns, drugs, violent crime, vagrancy, unbecoming behavior in public, symptoms of the breakdown of civil society. Freedom to have maximum enjoyment of one's freedoms can only exist in an ordered state - not contention and anarchy.America has a vicious drug problem. To solve it, it goes around the world helping other anti-narcotic agencies try and stop the suppliers. And when provoked, its captures the president of Panama and puts him on trial. In Singapore, any policeman who sees someone behaving suspiciously leading him to suspect the person is under the influence of drugs can require that person to have his urine tested.
I am a student with a casual interest in emerging international markets such as those of China, India and Singapore. I purchased this book hoping to learn something useful pertaining to that area. This book is a compilation of Lee Kuan Yew's (henceforth LKY) thoughts pertaining to 9 topics: the future of China, the United States, US-China relations, India, Islamic Extremism, National Economic Growth, Geopolitics and Globalization, and Democracy.The final topic is "How Lee Kuan Yew Thinks."This book's strengths are numerous. LKY is a personally interesting man with a lot of valuable experience leading Singapore. He has an unusual perspective, as Singapore's Prime Minister for 31 years. The topics chosen are generally of broad interest, such as the future of India, China, the US, etc. He also has a different perspective on the usefulness of democracy, which as an American reader I found interesting.That being said, when this book misses, it really misses. For example, take this statement about the future of the US: "Multiculturalism will destroy America. There is a danger that large numbers of Mexicans and others from South and Central America will continue to come to the U.S. and spread their culture across the whole of the country. If they breed faster than the WASPs [white Anglo-Saxon Protestants] and are living with them, whose culture will prevail?" This view, that large numbers of lazy immigrants are going to change American culture to one of dependency, is one that LKY returns to several times, and I do not find it to be credible. However, because this book is just a compilation of quotes, it is of course impossible for him to defend his assertions. There is nothing for the reader to do except keep going.
Years ago, after making some money, I thought, Why am I living in a cesspool like Detroit? Coincidentally, I began reading a long article about Singapore, which seemed like the antithesis of Detroit, so I subsequently vacationed there for two weeks with the intent of eventually emigrating, because Singapore seemed like paradise to me. Everything was clean (not one fly or mosquito), modern and pleasant, but it was nothing like the police state the American press had led me to expect. Good beer was sold outdoors on every street corner, and on the weekend there was dancing in the streets downtown. I felt safe at all times and in every neighborhood, and I observed the police in easy conversation with residents of the neighborhood they served. Most American periodicals were available at the Singapore newsstands.One of my conceits is that I know some history, but I can think of no precedent of a national transformation like that of Singapore. Within one generation, per capita income there rose from $400 a year to $50,000. Credit for this utopia must go to the late Lee Kuan Yew, so he is certainly someone worth listening to. Unfortunately, this is not the book of Lee's wisdom that it is touted to be. Most of the quotations from Lee are from speeches he made or recorded interviews, while very few are from Lee's writing, and imagine how wise the smartest person you know might sound if his or her ordinary conversation were recorded and transcribed.Addressing a general audience requires basic ideas drawn in broad strokes, so in the pages of this book Lee, at times, seems to dispense wisdom on a level with that of Polonius:"Technology and innovation have become more important factors for economic success.
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