He was no Mandela or Gandhi. But Lee Kuan Yew, dead at 91, will be remembered for lifting millions out of poverty — even if that meant micromanaging their lives.
Most autocrats drive their nations into the ground. Lee did the opposite. For three decades as Singapore’s prime minister, starting in 1959, he oversaw one of the most successful social engineering feats in human history.
Lee turned a chaotic and malaria-ridden harbor in Southeast Asia into a gleaming city state where the per capita GDP exceeds that in the US.
He accomplished this through his signature style of authoritarianism lite. His government is notorious for banning chewing gum — one of many rules designed to keep Singapore from becoming like Beijing, where spitting and littering is rampant.
Singapore is an anomaly. It’s a metropolis dominated by ethnic Chinese who all speak English. Its sinks pump clean water and the cops don’t take bribes — no minor feat in Southeast Asia.
Much of this success is credited to Lee’s vision and policies. But in return for prosperity, its citizens have had to submit to a government that, despite occasional elections, functions as one-party state with little tolerance of dissent. Full story...
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Most autocrats drive their nations into the ground. Lee did the opposite. For three decades as Singapore’s prime minister, starting in 1959, he oversaw one of the most successful social engineering feats in human history.
Lee turned a chaotic and malaria-ridden harbor in Southeast Asia into a gleaming city state where the per capita GDP exceeds that in the US.
He accomplished this through his signature style of authoritarianism lite. His government is notorious for banning chewing gum — one of many rules designed to keep Singapore from becoming like Beijing, where spitting and littering is rampant.
Singapore is an anomaly. It’s a metropolis dominated by ethnic Chinese who all speak English. Its sinks pump clean water and the cops don’t take bribes — no minor feat in Southeast Asia.
Much of this success is credited to Lee’s vision and policies. But in return for prosperity, its citizens have had to submit to a government that, despite occasional elections, functions as one-party state with little tolerance of dissent. Full story...
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- Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew was "a big frog in a small pond", says Mahathir...
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