If we compare Singaporeans with Hong Kongers or Americans (who tend to be much more entrepreneurial), the difference in how they view the government is pretty stark. Ronald Reagan once said, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help." In contrast, most Singaporeans tend to start their proposed solutions with "The government should..." as in "The government should limit immigration", "the government should not ban some books", etc.
I have always wondered what is the cause for this. While I'm not entirely sure, I'm hazarding a guess that perhaps this comes from a degree of intellectual moral hazard.
Moral hazard
A foundation of Singapore's policy philosophy rests on the concept of "moral hazard", which sounds very complex and deep but is actually not. If I remember correctly (possibly from Connections the TV show or the column), the term came about as early insurance companies (after the Great Fire of London) noticed that homes with fire insurance had a higher probability of burning down.
A related concept is the idea of freeloading: everyone has probably experienced a freeloader at some point. The guy on your team who does no work but shares the credit? Yup. The footballer who doesn't do anything but is on the team that wins the world cup? Yup. And so on.
If one looks at the Singapore government policies, invariably the idea of moral hazard comes about. That's why no matter how much the Singapore government subsidises citizen services, there is always a payment of a nominal sum to ensure that there is no moral hazard: citizens have some skin-in-the-game as their money is in it, so to speak.
What not many policy owners realise, though, is that this has increasingly obvious down-sides:
1. By exchanging money, the state enters into a monetary transaction with its people. This creates a mindset of "I paid for the service", regardless of the degree of subsidisation.
2. There is also intellectual moral hazard: people no longer think for themselves or for the collective good, but they appear to have mentally outsourced thinking to the government.
Outsourced thinking
There are many dangers to this outsourcing mindset, not least "it's not my problem, it's the government's problem." This is perhaps the core reason why the Singapore political dialogue has become increasingly cynical and non-constructive: on the blogosphere, it's increasingly obvious that people are just venting their spleen and demanding accountability etc., without really thinking through.
The other thing about this type of outsourcing is the agent-principal problem (notice how few real estate agents buy property when they are urging all their clients to do so?).
Combine this with sycophancy (which happens wherever there are hierarchies) within the government, and there's a high chance that Singapore will end up making the wrong choices for our future.
Removing intellectual moral hazard
In the long term, this is a negative development, but I'm not sure how we can go about counteracting this.
One way is for the government to enable self-help groups & to encourage civil society. To their credit, this is something that the PAP has articulated previously. With more Singaporeans helping themselves, perhaps this will create less of a mental dependency on the government.
Another way is to re-structure Singapore politically, along the lines of what Cherian George had mentioned before (see here). In the longer-term, we need to see a greater vibrancy of market competition in the political sphere. How can we have such competition if there is an unfair market structure to begin with?
These are just two of my thoughts. What do you think of this? Happy to hear your comments.
I have always wondered what is the cause for this. While I'm not entirely sure, I'm hazarding a guess that perhaps this comes from a degree of intellectual moral hazard.
Moral hazard
A foundation of Singapore's policy philosophy rests on the concept of "moral hazard", which sounds very complex and deep but is actually not. If I remember correctly (possibly from Connections the TV show or the column), the term came about as early insurance companies (after the Great Fire of London) noticed that homes with fire insurance had a higher probability of burning down.
A related concept is the idea of freeloading: everyone has probably experienced a freeloader at some point. The guy on your team who does no work but shares the credit? Yup. The footballer who doesn't do anything but is on the team that wins the world cup? Yup. And so on.
If one looks at the Singapore government policies, invariably the idea of moral hazard comes about. That's why no matter how much the Singapore government subsidises citizen services, there is always a payment of a nominal sum to ensure that there is no moral hazard: citizens have some skin-in-the-game as their money is in it, so to speak.
What not many policy owners realise, though, is that this has increasingly obvious down-sides:
1. By exchanging money, the state enters into a monetary transaction with its people. This creates a mindset of "I paid for the service", regardless of the degree of subsidisation.
2. There is also intellectual moral hazard: people no longer think for themselves or for the collective good, but they appear to have mentally outsourced thinking to the government.
Outsourced thinking
There are many dangers to this outsourcing mindset, not least "it's not my problem, it's the government's problem." This is perhaps the core reason why the Singapore political dialogue has become increasingly cynical and non-constructive: on the blogosphere, it's increasingly obvious that people are just venting their spleen and demanding accountability etc., without really thinking through.
The other thing about this type of outsourcing is the agent-principal problem (notice how few real estate agents buy property when they are urging all their clients to do so?).
Combine this with sycophancy (which happens wherever there are hierarchies) within the government, and there's a high chance that Singapore will end up making the wrong choices for our future.
Removing intellectual moral hazard
In the long term, this is a negative development, but I'm not sure how we can go about counteracting this.
One way is for the government to enable self-help groups & to encourage civil society. To their credit, this is something that the PAP has articulated previously. With more Singaporeans helping themselves, perhaps this will create less of a mental dependency on the government.
Another way is to re-structure Singapore politically, along the lines of what Cherian George had mentioned before (see here). In the longer-term, we need to see a greater vibrancy of market competition in the political sphere. How can we have such competition if there is an unfair market structure to begin with?
These are just two of my thoughts. What do you think of this? Happy to hear your comments.
