American democracy, in his view, is good because it has worked — not that it works because it is good.


Right. In fact, Aristotle said words such as democracy and monarchy are not definitions of an ideal type but merely “described different ways of deciding practical questions.”


He would differentiate his view from that of the Russian political concept of a “sovereign democracy” by pointing to results. You can postulate the need for strong state control and the elimination of true political pluralism in the name of development and stability, if you want. But then you have to deliver the goods. If you don’t, all you’ve done is to seize power.


His goal was not to stay in power for its own sake and loot, as with some Third World despot, but to deploy that power to improve Singapore dramatically and impress on neighbors how it can be done. He was often in a rush. Failures slammed progress into reverse. So what he could not tolerate was ineffectiveness, especially cloaked in ideological purity. Ideological arguments were for professors of the academic and arcane.


Our test was: does it work? Does it bring benefits to the people?… The prevailing theory then was that multinationals were exploiters of cheap labor and cheap raw materials and would suck a country dry… Nobody else wanted to exploit the labor. So why not, if they want to exploit our labor? They are welcome to it… We were learning how to do a job from them, which we would never have learnt… We were part of the process that disproved the theory of the development economics school, that this was exploitation. We were in no position to be fussy about high-minded principles.


If history is on their side, that liberal democracy is inevitable, then just ignore me. Do not give me publicity. Right? I do not believe that because a theory sounds good, looks logical on paper, or is presented logically, therefore that is the way it will work out. The final test is life. What happens in real life, what happens with people working in a society.


Good governance is not associated with any single political system or ideology. It is associated with the willingness and ability of the government to develop economic, social and administrative systems that are resilient enough to handle the challenges brought about in the new economic era we are moving into. China provides a good living example of this. Its leaders are not looking for the perfect political system in theory. They are searching daily for pragmatic solutions to keep their society moving forward. The population support this pragmatism, for they too feel that it is time for China to catch up. Traditionally, the Chinese have looked for good government, not minimal government. They can recognize good governance when they experience it. The fact that Japan — which is in Western eyes the most liberal and democratic East Asian society — has had great difficulties adapting to the new economic environment demonstrates that political openness is not the key variable to look at.


Spencer felt that a moral code which could not meet the tests of natural selection and the struggle for existence, was from the beginning doomed to lipservice and futility. Conduct, like anything else, should be called good or bad as it is well adapted, or maladapted, to the ends of life; “the highest conduct is that which conduces to the greatest length, breadth, and completeness of life.” Or, in terms of the evolution formula, conduct is moral according as it makes the individual or the group more integrated and coherent in the midst of a heterogeneity of ends. Morality, like art, is the achievement of unity in diversity; the highest type of man is he who effectively unites in himself the widest variety, complexity, and completeness of life.