Currently, Singapore is going in the opposite direction of no
welfare,shrinking middle class, with rising prices and widening
income gap.
Safety nets are virtually non-existent.
But are safety nets,large middle class necessary for an innovative
and creative society? These two factors, i think, increases the
tolerance for failures. Or is just using money to attract talents
like Chelsea football club sufficient?
I ask this question because i read about the life journey of a very
talented composer Yuki Kajiura She
was working as an office administrator and pursuing her dream as a
singer. Her early years as a singer was a series of failures and
she supported herself as an office admin. Her break came ironically
not as a singer, but as a composer when she was asked write a theme
song for a Japanese drama. The song did well and she began her new
journey as a music composer. She never look back since and
continued to compose many hits for Anime soundtracks. The journey
for a talent sometimes is just not straight forward success.
Failure and experimentation are necessary.
But if she was born in Singapore, would she have taken such a big
gamble in pursuing music? Similarly, would another inventor,
programmer, or sportsman taken similar risks to pursue what they
believe in? Or if we want to rephrase in Singapore context, would
the parents allow their children to take such risks?
Singapore is not a country like Australia or Japan where there is a
larger middle class that even the waiters decently paid. You can
often hear parents saying that in Singapore, if you dont have the
"paper" you are nothing.The risks of failure are just much higher
when there are no safety nets.
