About

Why have I called my blog “Reinventing the  rice bowl ?”   Well,  the term “iron rice bowl” was first used to describe the Communist Party in China’s system for providing for its citizens . The analogy was an apt one linking to the term ‘Iron Curtain‘ which was used to describe  Soviet Russia. The Iron rice bowl, with its connotations of unshakable strength, also became an analogy used to explain The Communist Party’s grip on power.  The theory was that  the state provided a job, basic housing, enough to eat and medical care in return for the citizen’s acquiescence in their absolute power over their public and personal lives.

Here, as we know, the PAP eschews any type of  Welfare State system.  In fact they claim to have given Singaporeans something much better than an everlasting iron rice bowl. They have given us  a “porcelain rice bowl” and being made of porcelain it can be easily broken if you do not  take proper care of it. The porcelain rice bowl  is something precious and valuable such as your HDB flat and the idea is that you are lucky to have been gifted it by the  wise PAP. Left to your own devices, and being ‘daft’ , you would be eating out of a soggy paper carton.

Of course you and your parents and even grandparents have probably worked their fingers to the bone to quarry the raw clay and fire the furnaces that  provided the porcelain bowl. Far from being a gift you earned that bowl and yet due to its fragile nature you must constantly keep your noses to the grindstone , with the aid of a spur in your side , and work the longest and least productive hours of many an advanced nation.  Ironically, unlike an ancient Chinese rice bowl your investment will not become more valuable over the years. In fact in the case of  your HDB it can be a bubble waiting to burst and in the best case scenario has  a built in obsolescence of 99 years.  Furthermore, 87%  of you are locked out of ownership of land, a right something that citizens in Communist China and even Cuba now have.

Sometimes the ricebowl slips from our fingers and cracks or breaks through sheer ill luck. There will be precious little sympathy for you in a porcelain rice bowl State should you be foolish enough to be retrenched, to have elderly parents, a chronic or terminal illness, a child with special needs or to be caring for a mentally or physically challenged dependant. In my community outreach I was shocked to meet citizens like the diabetes induced amputee trapped in his HDB flat  because he lived on a floor without  a lift. What happened to his ricebowl?

This is not  a political blog.  Elsewhere in my public life I can discuss my partisan, liberal, political stance.  In my first public speech at Hong Lim Park  (for a  JBJ memorial  before I entered politics) I spoke about the Faustian pact that Singaporeans have made with our government. This  is what James Gomez refers to as self censorship.   In this pact we give up freedom in return for security and the appearance of prosperity. There is no need for this. In fact it works the other way. Without freedom there can be no prosperity and the richest countries in the world are always the freest.  So for me  the concepts of freedom and human rights are inextricably linked to the economic concepts concerning  prosperity or the cost of living.

Here  in my blog I will stick to economic theories for scrutinising the rice bowl. I called this blog re-inventing the rice bowl because I want to examine, with you my readers,  the dichotomy between the iron rice bowl and the porcelain one. I want to look to see if there is not  a new rice bowl theory  we can invent – a middle way.  Why not a rice bowl made of  a sustainable material such as bamboo or a ricebowl that bounces back in hard times such as rubber?  So, I am daring to imagine, if you like, a new rice bowl for an advanced Asian nation.

These are complex issues that cannot be reduced to sound bites. When  I explain my ideas to journalists in the Main Stream Media it is like trying to reduce War and Peace to a Japanese haiku. Actually since  the campaigning period of GE 2011,  our Nation’s Media have put  a blanket ban on mentioning my name .  The very last response of mine that they reproduced was quoted as, ” ……………….., someone in the Reform Party said”.   Are my ideas truly that threatening?   Decide for yourself.

Here I will  propose solutions to some of the problems that confront us today. I will highlight the problems and debunk some outmoded concepts, trying always to replace  myth with fact. My aim is not to provide a definitive answer but to get a debate going in which you all join and vigorously challenge what I have written.  I want to put forward my ideas about changing the Singapore Model so that we can have a better future. Equally importantly via the comments section and the Guest  blog spot,  I want to hear your ideas too.

Everything I write here is my personal view. Firstly as a Singaporean, secondly as a Keynesian based, largely free-market ( albeit with interventions) economist and lastly as a liberal. I will not only be writing about economic issues but also contribute autobiographical stories and commentaries on other issues of interest.

Ultimately I hope to help drive an agenda of freedom and fairness for our people. I don’t pretend to know at what point a word  turns into action. I just hope that I make a small change and trust Margaret Atwood  the author when she says,

“A word after a word after a word is power”.