OUR SINGAPORE CONVERSATION

Time for a new ideology

First, there was socialism that works. Then there were pragmatism and communitarianism. What ideology will take Singapore society forward, keeping the capitalist verve but preventing the excesses of the market?

BY ASAD LATIF
For The Straits Times

SINGAPORE was born on the crest of an ideological wave. It might be opportune to revisit those times as Singaporeans imagine their country two decades hence.

The founding wave was democratic socialism. Caught between the late-colonial state and insurgent forces committed to its overthrow, the People's Action Party (PAP) offered the people of Singapore a vision of independence in which socialism would be achieved through parliamentary means. That offer came to be encapsulated neatly in the formula "Socialism That Works".

Those three words distinguished Singapore from socialist systems which stifled private enterprise and failed to meet human needs, and from capitalist systems where entrenched economic interests created unconscionable disparities of wealth, power and opportunity.

Democratic socialism released the energies of the market, but only under the watchful gaze of the state. The guardianship of the state reflected the democratic principle because people vote for governments, not for markets.

An invigorating era of legislative radicalism followed.

The Housing and Development Board was set up in 1960 to produce a home-owning population. The Women's Charter was passed in 1961 to protect the rights of half the population. The introduction of national service in 1967 laid the basis of a people's army. The scope of the Central Provident Fund, in place since 1955, was expanded to help citizens purchase their homes.

Singapore came of age in that adventurous ideological space.

Four decades later, an eerie ideological silence has descended on Singapore. Democratic socialism is hardly even whispered about. The second and third overlapping waves following it - economic pragmatism and communitarianism - have receded as well from public discourse.

Pragmatism was a way of making the most of the international economic space available to Singapore at any given time.

Communitarianism sought to hold society together beyond the ambit of the purely economic. Each was justified on its own grounds, but they could not find common ground. Growth had social costs that communitarianism could not meet.

Of course, Singapore has national values. Multi-racialism and meritocracy are two of them, and they are rightly celebrated, but they are not ideologies: They are ideological strategies, meant to achieve a larger end. What is that end?

The Singapore Conversation provides a good opportunity of listening for an answer. Ideology focuses the mind on defining issues. It allows citizens to look beyond the minutiae of changing policies and judge their objectives and results against an overarching and relatively durable social purpose. By creating mental horizons, however diverse, ideology provides a sense of direction, however contested.

What could a new ideology be?

How about "Capitalism That Works"?

'Capitalism That Works'

THIS is just a name. Whatever the name, there is an insistent need for a new ideology today. Many regions of everyday life have been privatised across the breadth of the neo-liberal global economy, dispossessing or marginalising entire communities. As a result, anti-globalisation - stemming from nationalist resistance to the global market - is gaining ground profoundly both in geography and mindshare.

Although Singapore is not in the dismal league of failed market economies, disparities here, if left unchecked, could calcify into embittered social categories and undermine the achievements of 1959, when Singapore gained self-government, and when the PAP came to power.

At a minimum, "Capitalism That Works" would tilt the balance of power in favour of those who have been left behind by the wild march of the market. The instrument of that rebalancing would be an activist state.

Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam suggested exactly this recently without naming an ideology when he declared that Singapore's social compact could not be left to market forces because they would widen disparities.

This is a valuable starting point that could gain firmer direction by focusing on the ideological implications of concrete issues.

For example, the repossession of HDB flats of those who cannot keep up with their mortgage payments is an entirely justified outcome in a market economy.

However, that outcome is ideologically difficult to accept if public housing is seen as a social good, as it has been viewed since the formative years of Singapore.

When an HDB family loses its home, the market loses nothing, but home-owning Singapore loses a small but irreplaceable part of its social self.

Society, protected by the state, will have to prevail over the market in the new ideology. What form that protection should take, how far it could go without promoting irresponsible economic behaviour, how to pay for it - these are genuine issues.

But the main, ideological question that has to be answered first is whether public goods (such as public housing) should be protected from the excesses of the market.

There is a caveat, however. No political system can move faster than the collective momentum of public opinion. Therefore, any idea of a working capitalism can work only if Singaporeans are prepared to accept a different standard of living in the short term as the price of living together in the long term.

If higher taxes are anathema to us because we cannot countenance paying them to take better care of our frailer compatriots; if we cannot accept old-age homes in our neighbourhoods because they will drive down the prices of our flats; if Singapore to us is nothing more than a market masquerading as a nation, then there is hardly any place for ideology in the Singapore Conversation.

The real danger would be for us to become so accustomed to inequality in our midst that we begin to believe it is natural and that nothing can be done about it. Once this happens, the ideological clock will begin to tick backwards.

Several years ago, a little boy stopped me and said: "Uncle, can you give to charity?"

I asked: "Which charity is this?"

He replied: "Me."

There was no one at home, and he was hungry.

My tiny Singapore comrade absolved me ideologically for $2.

History might not be so kind to us collectively.

The writer, a former Straits Times journalist, is a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

Opinion, The Straits Times, Tuesday, September 11, 2012 Pg A16