Singapore is a multi-culturial society and it is also known to be very safe and clean like Japan. You can definitely make people behave with top down rules, and eventually it just becomes 'culture'.
Authoritarianism has a bad connotation in Western societies based on individualism.
In Japan, the authority is the group and social norms. In Singapore, it’s the BDFL. This involve restricting individual freedoms for the greater good. This would never work in America.
If by people you mean the particular type of people that live in Singapore, who are known across the world to be supple and tame. Now try this logic in the United States with certain subpopulations who are chronically misbehaved and see where it gets you. Hint: it's been tried for a long time and it doesn't work.