Front Row Bulletin #3 (Meritocracy, China, Singaporean Sandwich)

Hello friends,

Here are the three reads and one snippet for your upcoming week.

Snippet Of The Week

I had a chance to interview Professor Tan Tai Yong, the Dean of the Singapore University of the Social Sciences.

Interestingly, he is a historian by training and helped write a book about Singapore's 700-year history.

Here's a snippet of the book that explains the genesis of how the big-bang narrative of Singapore's existence came to be,

Singapore’s template as a British Empire port city that grew into the capital of British Malaya by 1919 came to be detailed by a generation of students trained by the History Department of the University of Malaya, established in 1949.

These students learnt that the histories of Malaya and Singapore that they were researching and writing had to be underpinned by the archived records of the British East India Company (EIC) and the Colonial Office. These records were the multigenerational product of colonial servants like Winstedt who hewed largely to their view of British rule.

Inevitably, these students described a Singapore that was incorporated within the EIC and the British Empire, and not as part of an Asian world.

This is a case-study of how potent path dependencies are.

Faulty information (biased samples) can persist and can affect the narratives you tell yourself.

Reads Of The Week

Meritocracy Rules by Sir Angus Deaton

Sir Angus highlights how meritocratic education systems can backfire, turning their perks into privileges that feel a lot like old-school inherited wealth.

What’s worse?

If you don’t make the cut, it’s no longer “Oh, you were just dealt a tough hand in life.”

Now it’s, “You didn’t try hard enough.”

Here, he explains in greater detail- how the insidiousness of entitlement creeps in and can destabilise a society:

The philosopher Michael Sandel notes that the winners attribute their success to their own merit — it’s a meritocracy after all — and have little sympathy for those who have not succeeded. They can come to believe that they know what is good for the less talented, that their technocratic skills replace any need for democracy.

Naturally, those who have made it will do their utmost best to make sure their children become talents.

These parents will tutor, coach and sometimes, cheat for their kids.

But, for those who don't make it, what happens to them?

in the new dispensation, those excluded are led to blame, not the accident of their birth nor their parents’ failure to get rich, but what they are told is their own lack of talent.

If you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, governments that believe in the efficacy of meritocracy (like ours) must cover this gap.

Keyu Jin on Why China's Economy Needs To Change by Andrew Peaple

Professor Jin argues that China needs to enter a new era of political transformation.

(Perhaps akin to the scale that Deng implemented when he took over office)

Prof Jin elegantly explains the paradox of China's growth story. China is a country with strong state capacity but weak institutions. Yet, it could still grow rapidly! How?

This is a problem for all developing countries to a different extent.

Weak institutions include things like incomplete legal frameworks, a lack of IP protection, bad corporate governance — most evidently in the financial system — and also the prevalence of red tape that has tripped up many private businesses.

Institutions take time to build, to strengthen, and to mature. In the early stages, I would argue that the Chinese state was strong enough to partly overcome some of these institutional weaknesses: the state was able to help entrepreneurs overcome a lot of initial barriers. There are a lot of competitive mechanisms embedded in the political economy, such as local ‘mayors’ [local government leaders] competing with each other, that actually prevents China from becoming a state with exploitative powers. 

Read the full interview.

It's densely packed with insight.

Why A Leftover Sandwich is like Singapore? by Ha-Joon Chang

This essay hits me, right in the stomach.

What is the best way to explain Singapore's government policy approach?

Professor Chang takes the view that it's not Keynes nor Schumpeter that can explain our story.

A leftover sandwich is a better analogy.

You are trying to make a delicious sandwich with whatever you have.

So with random ingredients and some imagination, experience and what it takes to make this combination work, you make do with what you have

What Singapore did was essentially use leftover traditions from other countries to create our sandwich.

Just like the Singapore government realising that in general they want to have a less regulated economy but when it comes to land they are so constrained that there’s no way they can let the private sector decide on it. They lack the local entrepreneurial skills so they’ll invite multi-national companies but don’t have to completely cede control of their economy so they’ll set up state-owned enterprises in key sectors – even though they are not a socialist country.

Hey, you can still make a good sandwich with what you have.

But, it's worth noting, there are just some constraints we have to deal with for eternity.

After all, no matter how well you make your sandwich, it's highly unlikely it will taste as good as a grass-fed, organic ribeye steak.

May the sun shine upon your face,

Keith