The same thing happened in many handling of external affairs -
self-centredness.
If the starting point in governing a country is self-centredness
based on what a person wants for himself or his entity to the
exclusion of other side's point of view, with legalistic wrangling
to get what he wants will such a leader or manager be able to
engage in win-win situations for himself and for the other
side.
Internally, self-centredness can be seen clearly in citizens for
years being taken for granted, deprived of many rights and freedoms
and not getting any better although in self-denial mode one can
still claim that he has built a first-world country from the third
world with all sorts of hypocrisy which do not benefit ordinary
citizens.
If Singapore wants to move forward it will have to recognise the
shortcomings of old policies attributable to such self-importance
and self-centredness resulting in stalemating progress due to
frequent squabbles with the masses or other entities. It is a
different world today where leaders have to overcome fears and
prejudices and win over opponents or people affected with win-win
solutions.
The self-centredness of man will lead to man's downfall as people
will become enemies and no one will be willing to cooperate with
one another to get better. Such past policies have got to change
including one-tracked taxing and recovering fullest costs to keep
more surpluses to look good for the ruling party.
There must be politicians who know better solutions than
one-tracked taxing and pressing down on people's rights and
freedoms to bring about win-win solutions to all.
IDR will suffer the same fate as the water issue due to personality
at work more than anything else the same way as citizens being the
losers due to one-tracked mindedness.