Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

What kind of society do we want to be?

Singaporeans have been described as “economic digits” —living and working for the sake of the betterment of the economy. This description is outmoded.

Singaporeans have been described as “economic digits” —living and working for the sake of the betterment of the economy. This description is outmoded.

Singaporeans of today and tomorrow want their lives to be more than just about work.

This is not unreasonable and it is to be expected of a well-educated populace, where many have the means to travel and study abroad. Even for those of limited means, the Internet has brought the world into the palm of their hands.

Singaporeans also want to have greater peace of mind about the pressures of life. They want to have retirement adequacy, affordable healthcare, and housing and educational opportunities.

We also have a strengthening social conscience. We want to see the less well-off do better, the disabled cared for, the elderly tended to and the troubled assisted. We do not want us or our fellow citizens to struggle alone in a competitive economy; we want to find ways to collaborate to make our society a more compassionate one.

So we want more — and we want to be more.

To date, predictably, the attention was been focused on what the Government can and should do about all of these admirable intentions. To its credit, the Government has introduced a slew of policy imperatives across a range of areas to match the desires of Singaporeans.

And there may well be more that it can do.

There are weighty questions demanding our attention: What is the efficacy of a minimum wage? What should be the distribution of the tax burden to support higher spending? How do we manage the tension between the egalitarian ideal and the inequity that results from differences in effort and ability? How can we find the balance of responsibility for the country between the triangulate of the individual, the society and the government?

 

THINKING ‘US’ OR ‘ME’?

 

To find satisfactory answers to these important questions, three conditions need to be in place.

First, we have to be invested in the process of finding the answers to these difficult questions. This means getting informed, participating in the discourse and accepting that even competing ideas may have legitimacy.

Second, we need to understand that we live in a world of trade-offs. All and any solutions will come with costs — either direct or opportunity costs, or both.

We will have to challenge ourselves to think in terms of country and not just self alone.

This not only means thinking about the greater good, but also thinking about the impact of decisions that extend beyond our lifetime. A country, unlike a company, cannot shut down or be liquidated. We need to keep this country going indefinitely. That means our choices have to be sustainable over the long term.

Third, we need to understand that working our way to the answers is a protracted process. In this process, it is okay to disagree; and it is just fine to demand better explanations from the Government or from public intellectuals.

What we need to keep in mind is that we can have our differences without suffering divides, and that we can have disagreement without incurring disputes.

And that most of all, even where we may have uncommon views as individuals or groups, we have a common destiny as a citizenry and a country.

 

TAKE OWNERSHIP OF OUR FUTURE

 

To do all this is within our control. We may not have much choice about our fate as a small country. What matters is that we do have the choice about how we want to go about meeting the emerging challenges.

We may be a test-tube country, but we are growing in maturity and expertise in the sophistication that we apply to reconstituting ourselves with each experiment. The political and policy changes in recent years are a demonstration that our political and social feedback loops are working. It is the responsibility of the elected government to provide leadership for the country’s future. But it is the responsibility of all Singaporeans to take ownership of the country’s future.

Determining who we are as Singaporeans, and what kind of society we want Singapore to be, are appropriate questions to occupy us as we advance to our 50th year of independence. Let us do so without being ignorant of our past, small-minded about our present or blinkered as to the rich possibilities of our future.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Devadas Krishnadas is the Managing Director of Future-Moves, a strategic risk consultancy. This commentary is adapted from a chapter in his new book, Sensing Singapore: Reflections in a Time of Change, available in all major bookstores.

* For Part 1 of Singapore at 50: Handling change has always been a part of the Singaporean DNA go to http://tdy.sg/dna4feb

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.