In Lieu of Ideology - An Intellectual Biography of Goh Keng Swee

Goh Keng Swee, one of the key personalities in the founding of Singapore, had passed away earlier this year. After reading Ngiam Tong Dow's depiction of GKS's towering intellect and many accomplishments, I had always wanted to find out more about the man and his ideas. This book came at an opportune time when I was also trying to learn and understand the Singapore Civil Service at a deeper level.

The book indeed gave me much insights into GKS's ideas, but I must say that I only got quite a one-dimensional picture of the man. Didn't seem to be able to glean his deeper beliefs and emotions from the book. Nonetheless, it is a rich repository of Singapore's history from an intellectual perspective, and here are some of the key learning points that I took from the book:

1. GKS's thinking is that a capitalist system suffers from two ailments - widening income inequality and the tendency to go through boom-bust cycles, which lead to significant wastage. In particular, the emergence of a wealthy class leads to economic "wastage" as significant economic resources are "invested" in status symbols rather than things that are of real social or economic benefit. However, a socialist system has even greater handicaps, not least is the difficulty to incentivise people to pursue excellence. Ultimately, GKS believes that the intelligence, energy and sympathy of the people determines the success of the system, rather than its form or ideology.
   
2. From the social angle, the book gave insights into how poor Singapore really was at one point in time (around 1950s to 1960s), when GKS conducted his census. An observation that was made at that time was that immigrants generally were more willing to work than the locals. I wonder if this is a scenario that is being (or will someday be) played out in Singapore.
   
3. GKS believed in the advantage of having a "ruling elite", and saw no inconsistency between having such an elite and democracy. Unfortunately, this was not explained in greater detail and I wasn't able to understand the thoughts behind this belief. However, it was stated that stability and consistency in the government allowed industries to prosper and social / welfare policies to develop (based on the income generated by the industries). A strong central government is also necessary for socialist policies to be implemented wisely.
   
4. He had a belief that the "modernisation of the traditional man" takes place in the city, which allowed traditional values to meet with and be amalgamated with global ideas.
5. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and defence was one of the top priorities for GKS. However, he believed that both the regimental (punishment and reward-based) and the ideological (almost akin to brainwashing) type of armies were not suitable for Singapore. The book was not clear in what he felt was the ideal model though, except that it would be similar to "Frederick the Great's". One point that he found to be missing in today's society is the absence of a desire in a people to want to defend themselves. In this respect, national service can help to build loyalty and national consciousness.
6. Tourism was a method through which wealth from the rich countries is distributed to the less well-endowed ones. Never thought of it before!
   
7. In terms of education, GKS had expressed his concern with the significant amount of effort and resources that went into studying for examinations, and the society's preoccupation with how much everyone had in the bank balance. This restricted the ability of the education system to deliver larger and more holistic (although he didn't really use this blaise term then) educational outcomes for our students.
8. How some of the older initiatives failed dramatically, in particular, the introduction of religious studies, which led to widespread proselytism as an unintended outcome. This is an important lesson - even really brilliant people can make some mistakes sometimes. So one can never be too humble in terms of viewing one's own capabilities and judgment.
   

Do hope to be able to put my mind to the greater benefit of the world or society someday, like GKS did. Would be really grateful if I can have even one-tenth of his list of contributions!