Singapore's track record speaks for itself:
Just forty years ago Singapore was a war-battered British port on an island off the southern tip of Malaysia. It had a rapidly growing, poor, uneducated population living mostly in slums and houseboats. Singapore struggled along until 1965, when it became an independent nation with Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in firm control.
In the next twenty years Singapore's economy grew eightfold. Average income per capita rose more than fourfold. The percentage of families living in poverty dropped to 0.3% (in the U.S. it is near 20%). Singaporeans' average life expectancy is now 71 years. No one is homeless. Population has stabilized. Virtually everyone has a job. The place runs like a Swiss watch.
Lee Kuan Yew would appreciate that analogy. Switzerland is his model. Singapore Airlines aims to outdo Swissair. Singapore likes to list its statistics alongside Switzerland's (its divorce rate is one-third that of Switzerland, its per capita calorie supply is equal, its movie attendance rate is six times higher). Lee's chief economic goal is to reach the per capita GNP of Switzerland, which will happen in one more economic doubling -- about 10 years, if past growth rates continue.
To produce his economic miracle, Lee Kuan Yew has interfered with every aspect of Singaporean life. To control population growth he set up free family planning clinics. Then he mounted education campaigns ("Plan your family small") and decreed that women having third-or-more babies would get shorter maternity leave, higher hospital charges, and less income tax relief. There is a $5000 reward for mothers who agree to be sterilized after their second child. Sterilized parents get top priority for public housing, and their children get into desirable schools.
Singaporeans now accept that two is the right number of children. When I asked one woman how she felt about that, she told me she'd like to have three or four. "But," she said brightly, "I understand why I shouldn't have that many. We are a small, crowded island." In fact the birth rate has fallen so low among highly-educated women, that Lee now offers incentives to "educated mothers" to have three children or more.
Singapore requires all workers to save 25% of their salaries. Their employers match that amount (after the recession of 1985, the employers' share was cut to 10%). The workers can claim the money only after the age of 55. This enormous forced savings rate is one of the secrets of Singapore's incredible economic growth. The money goes into a Central Provident Fund, with which the government builds roads, schools, hospitals, and especially housing.
http://www.sustainabilityinstitute.org/dhm_archive/index.php?display_article=vn210singaporeed
We've been brainwashed to believe that only democracy can lead to freedom, justice, peace and prosperity. I'm inclined to support that viewpoint over the long term. But in the short term an intelligent benign dictatorship can be a more efficient way to achieve peace and prosperity. Singapore's criminal justice system is harsh, but fair. The people have fewer rights and freedoms. But for the last 47 years Singapore has benefited from the leadership of a wise dictator.
The problem is, what happens when the wise dictator dies and they are replaced by a cruel selfish dictator like the ones which have ruled Syria. So I don't think dictatorships are good over the long run, no matter how benevolent.
