“Book Review: From Third World to First, by Lee Kuan Yew [PART ONE]”, 2019-07-17 (; similar):
What happens when you give an honest, capable person absolute power?
In From Third World to First, Lee Kuan Yew, in characteristically blunt style, does his best to answer that question.
Lee Kuan Yew’s politics—and by extension Singapore’s, because he really did define the country—are often, I feel, mischaracterized. In “We Sail Tonight For Singapore”, for example, Scott Alexander characterizes it as reactionary. This is agreeable to the American left, because it’s run so differently to Western liberal ideals, and agreeable to reactionaries, because Singapore is preternaturally successful by almost any metric you care to use.
The only problem is that the claim reflects almost nothing about how Lee Kuan Yew actually ran the country or who he was.
I get the impression it’s a mistake to frame Singapore alongside a partisan political axis at all, because the second you do, half of what the country does will seem bizarre. Lee, personally, is open about his party’s aim to claim the middle ground, opposed by “only the extreme left and right.” (111) With that in mind, what works best to predict Lee’s choices? In his telling, he is guided continually by a sort of ruthless pragmatism. Will a policy increase the standard of living in the country? Will it make the citizens more self-sufficient, more capable, or safer? Ultimately, does it work? Oh, and does it make everybody furious?
Great, do that.
From Third World to First is the single most compelling political work I’ve read, and I’d like to capture as much of Lee’s style and ideology as possible. He divides the book (or at least the half I’m reviewing; I’ll leave his thoughts on world affairs alone because there’s so much to cover as is) into sections based on specific policy problems and how he approached them. I’ll focus my attention on a few:
Citizen welfare & development
Free speech & free press
Approach to political opposition
Handling of racial & cultural tensions