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Comment by pydry | Hacker News Reader

The housing program was explicitly socialist. LKY hated the communists (and socialists) but he recognized that he had to accede to some of their more popular demands before tossing them in prison - part of that siege mentality you refered to.

They similarly reduced their class sizes in the 90s under democratic pressure from an opposition party that was later torn apart.

Despite being a one party state run by thugs, Singapore experiences stronger democratic/anticorruption pressures than a lot of places because of the close proximity of people to leaders (there are studies on this - Brazil/Myanmar are at the other end of the spectrum with very remote capitals).

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Agreed, but LYK had ulterior motives with HDBs - he was very worried about creating a Singaporean identity. And believed that home ownership was a key part of that identity (“my home is Singapore”). He also acknowledged that a large part of the population living in kampungs didn’t foster political stability.

So yes, a massive public housing system is socialist in nature, but I’d agree it was entirely a politically practical initiative for Singapore.

And that’s what is so interesting. LYK mentioned his admiration for Deng Xiaopeng - an eminently practical leader. Capitalist, socialist, whatever, if it works it works and Singapore is willing to leverage it.

But it makes for an odd political scene. PAP will admit failure, as long as it’s not politically damaging. Otherwise they quietly take the pulse of the electorate and try to stay ahead of any issues.

It’s a very reactive semi-authoritarian system. They are concerned about losing legitimacy so work hard to stay popular.

> Otherwise they quietly take the pulse of the electorate and try to stay ahead of any issues. It’s a very reactive semi-authoritarian system. They are concerned about losing legitimacy so work hard to stay popular.

Wouldn’t that be proactive rather than reactive?

Well in this case I’m defining proactive as “giving the people what they want before they know they want it” versus reactive which is “giving the people what they want before they vote us out of office”.

So proactive in the “re-election” sense, but reactive in the political strategy sense.

Taking pulse and staying on top of things is generally the very definition of proactive, so it’s confusing to say they are very reactive in the next sentence. The PAP despite all of their other flaws seems to be great at planning, at least they wouldn’t deserve the “very” modifier if they are being called out as reactive.

#1 He was trying to avoid another race riot. Forced mixing of Malays and Chinese was supposed to prevent that (even today there are strict rules on % of races in HDBs).

#2 is another way of saying "those fucking commies".

It would be equally politically practical to have a similar program in most countries but we don't. Indeed many (especially younger people) are screaming for a program like this. Yet public housing programs tend to be watered down and dismantled instead.

LKY lacking in ideology (other than fervent anticommunism) isnt especially interesting. It's very normal for people to chase power without much in the way of ideology. Boris Johnson is similarly lacking in ideology but the last thing he'd do is build some council houses.

What IS interesting is how the material circumstances of Singapore managed to keep him on a tight leash.

I think it's absurd we are still talking politics based on ideology, as if it's some religion. It isn't, and it shouldn't be. Most of the countries in the world today have some government-subsidized program, and also have a market. The truth is ideological fanatics don't really have a place in today's world, but somehow that's the easiest way to reason and rally the population. I believe in free market, I believe in socialism, but there is always a lot more to a policy than those seemingly two sides of a coin, and much work need to be done, perhaps that's the kind of thing that most people can easily understand, therefore more slogan-ish than useful.

Ideology isn't religion.

Like it or not (evidently you do not), most politics is practiced within an ideological framework. Calling out ~80% of the world as fanatics for acting as such seems a little... extreme?

In any case, the interesting part of this story is how two leaders (Boris and LKY) can lack overriding ideology and only seek power and yet one builds housing for people to live in while the other doesn't.

There isn't a government that don't allow free market at all or offer no public program at all, at least most aren't. Of course ideology isn't religion, but there are people treating it like one. Practiced within an ideological framework is a lot different from what I'm describing here, framework is a vague word, and implies a mix of positions.

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