http://nabbedd.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/of-policies-contradictions/
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Of Policies & Contradictions
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I came across this foreign blog, and this comment by an expat made
me ponder:
“I’ve been in Singapore, had built a large company there and to
this day, am still a director and advisor to Singaporean businesses
and institutions. Singapore is one of the most uncreative places in
the world. Almost no innovations has come out of that island nation
jewel. Now that I’ve attracted the frowns from all our Singaporean
viewers, understand what it is I am saying. Stop and listen, and
open your eyes.
I do not consider myself anti-Singaporean, it’s just that I have
noticed and have pointed out to many Singaporeans that the price of
civil order in their nation has been high – at the price of
‘outside the box thinking’.
Years ago, the Singaporean consulate organized a number of
high-tech brain storming sessions in Canada. The consensus was that
Singapore would never be able to develop a made-in-Singapore
animation business because:
A. they lack innovation and creativity
B. their cost of labour is high
C. they’re too absorbed with themselves…with things like
status
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photo by 1Happysnapper
Gees. I’d like to say that it’s a refreshing perspective, but it’s
the painful truth.
A lot has been discussed of late about our ruling party’s policies
with regards to immigration and building human capital. Here’s my
take on it.
Contradiction Number 1: The use of civil service to spur
innovation
As a country a size of an island, we desperately need to transform
a labour intensive economy to a knowledge based one where human
capital is the pillar of growth. Thus far, we have open many doors
to attract the best brains in the pharmaceutical, bio sciences and
the media industry. But here’s the irony. While attracting foreign
brains, a high percentage of our local talents are emigrating to
greener pastures which causes a brain drain. This poses a paradox
that only our government can answer.
I always scoff whenever I read that our ministers are attempting to
create a culture of innovation and start-ups. Our government is
used to using power or its wealth to create the vision that they
want.
Double tourism figures? Spend millions and build world-class
casinos and resorts. Increase GDP figures? Open the floodgates via
loose immigration policies to lower labour cost and increase
competitiveness. Create a Silicon Valley? That my friend cannot be
built overnight.
The very fact that the foundations of our island is built on a
backbone of bureaucratic civil service of ruthless efficiency says
it all. To think of it, our civil service is placed in the centre
of everything. 80% of us live in such government housing, about 60%
of our GDP is produced by Government Linked Companies (GLC)s like
Singtel, Singapore Airlines and ST Engineering just to name a
few.The critics and detractors of such a system have been silenced
by the stellar and resilient economic figures of the past 2
decades. However when it comes to innovation and productivity, it
is another story altogether. As a country that comes up tops in
economic growth and wealth compared to other developed nations, it
is surprising that we have few homegrown private corporations that
have shaken the world. Besides Creative’s sound card, when was the
last well-known patent produced by us? Oh yes, we have the
Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system, which is the first in the
world, but even that is an invention from a government
entity.
The government sees this problem and has diverted a significant
amount of its funds to build innovative incubators like the
biopolis and fusionpolis where it can house the best researchers
and scientists in hope that knowledge can be harnessed and produce
a breakthrough in sciences. Every corner of the building, down to
the toilets are designed for the reason of promoting interaction so
that knowledge can be shared. I’ve been on a study trip there as
part of my Knowledge Management module back when I was in
university and our professor pointed out that despite the
infrastructure to promote interaction, the observation is that
these researchers or scientist still tend to stick to their own
ethnic group. That’s a challenge by itself. How typical of our
ruling party I thought then. Always assuming it can use means to
influence how it wants its people to think or act.
It is part of the culture shift that has to happen if we want to
create a knowledge based economy and we all know that it takes
shake ups of seismic proportions to change a culture that has been
ingrained in us ever since we’ve gained independence. The culture
of conformity and meritocracy, are culture traits that are not
really conducive to a creative, innovative society. The worrying
thing is, it cannot be changed overnight. Our general population,
imprisoned by its education system, is already conditioned in terms
of mindset and aspirations. Creative minds are not bounded by such
society norms. They cannot let financial burden or the stress of
society cloud their sense of freedom and individualism. This is
also the basis on why our very own local doctors, musicians,
researchers move overseas. These are people who are passionate
about their work, value individualism and do not want to be
burdened by the high cost of living here, so as to further pursue
their line of work. Many who have children are also disenchanted
with the one dimension education system here.
My take is this. Can imagination flourish in a society where people
can’t openly criticize the government? Imagination means thinking
outside the box, always asking, always probing. It is difficult to
have odd ideas about technology, without having odd ideas about
politics.
I applaud the many assistance given by the government when it comes
to funding and harnessing entrepreneurs through platforms like
SPRING Singapore. However, it must understand it’s top down
approach of running the country’s economy from its state-owned
enterprises is stifling innovation. What’s the point of issuing
scholarships to top local brains only to bond them to the public
sector? And will the use of tax payer’s money to fund budding
entrepreneurs be the best way forward? Certainly not for the long
run. The basic hallmarks of the civil service are efficiency,
discipline and execution. Whereas the entrepreneurial culture is
about challenging the norms, being rebellious and being different.
Thus, how is it possible for civil servants to lead the push for
innovation? An entire contradiction in values. The impetus for
economic growth must start coming more from the private sector and
it’s good to see that we are attracting more venture capitalist and
private equity firms to our shores. The government’s role should be
limited to funding universities start-ups and allow the private
sector to harness the potential from there on. It should also adopt
a hands off approach to various industries to allow them to
flourish by itself. The “nanny state” mentality has to go as it
breeds complacency and reduces the incentive to innovate. Case in
point, the many failed ventures and investments of our GLCs. (
Singtel-Virgin Mobile, Keppel Corp-Suzhou, ST
Engineering-Micropolis just to name a few)
Contradiction Number 2: Competitiveness in expense of innovation
and productivity
I am baffled by the recent lose immigration policies by our ruling
party. We were on the right track, I thought, entering the 21st
century, targeting to attract the top talents to our island as well
as nurture and educate our citizens. Basically attempting to shift
from exam meritocracy to talent meritocracy system. However, along
the way, I kind of felt we got lost. None of us will ever know how
they come up with decisions up there, but being too focus on
competitiveness has left innovation and productivity very much
wanting. We became addicted to GDP growth, the ruling party sensing
that it’s citizens are not reproducing and working hard enough took
the quick fix approach and open its floodgates to immigration.
People from all walks of life seeking a modern retreat and a
superior currency wage became one of us suddenly. It’s like
Stalin’s five-year industrialization plan for USSR in the 1930s
where the focus was on the mobilization of resources. Companies
were soon found competing on labour cost savings rather than
generic growth of intellectual capital internally. With no minimum
wage set, many citizens find it impossible to compete with cheaper
alternatives, despite going for the countless upgrading and
re-learning courses. This abundance of cheap labour can be
detrimental to productivity in the long run.
We are being led to think that Singapore is entering a golden era
of being the pride of the east, with Swiss living standards and
lifestyle of Monaco. However, my fear is whether we are able to
achieve our productivity goals in years to come, before we hit a
law of diminishing returns and cannot afford to immigrate our way
to remain competitive any longer. Many developing countries share
our same vision, aspiring to be global hubs and first world
countries. If our growth story last decade was merely through
accumulating of resources like labour, instead of the true essence
of human capital, we are leaving ourselves very vulnerable in the
near future, not having any competitive edge over other developing
countries.
As quickly as they arrive in throngs to attain permanent residency
and build a life in our island, they can just as easily relocate
once they find greener pastures else where. It is naive to think
that they are similar as immigrants of yesteryear, where they will
stay put indefinitely. We are living in a globalized world mind
you. By then, the truly talented breed of Singapore citizens have
been jaded by the lack of opportunities and ventured overseas, and
we will find ourselves alarmingly short of human capital to spur us
in the future. At least now we know why our ruling party is so keen
to integrate and appease our new residents…
