PAP MP Inderjit Singh recently criticized the Singapore Government’s “growth-at-all-costs” model while speaking “in his personal capacity” at a seminar. Here are some highlights of his speech:

“As we brought in more and more people, many from India and China, not just at the top level of talent, but also at various levels including unskilled workers, we depressed wages of Singaporeans”

“Our costs continued to go up. So we caused a double whammy for Singaporeans who had no choice but to live with the high cost of living while having to accept lower wages”

He also brought up the idea of implementing a minimum wage law to protect low income earners – something that the Government had never been supportive of. Read this excellent commentary by TOC: PAP MP floats idea of minimum wage

I can understand why the Government was reluctant to implement a minimum wage law ten or twenty years ago when Singapore was still struggling to become a first world nation, pursuing a “growth-at-all-costs” model to propel the economy.

But look at Singapore’s economy today – in the global economic crisis, Singapore is the first Asian country to officially enter recession – and probably one of the worst hit because of our heavy reliance on trade partners such as the US.

Apparently the growth-at-all-costs model did not save us from being badly hit by the recession. Our growth has now become NEGATIVE growth, with projected contraction of 2 to 5%. Nor has the huge influx of foreign workers, which is supposed to help Singapore maintain it’s competitiveness, helped us to reduce the impact of the recession. Of course some people might say that we would have been worse off if there aren’t so many foreign workers around to keep cots low at such times – but I am not convinced.

In this recession, we are seeing Singaporeans being retrenched or unable to get jobs that can pay enough to support their families… while foreign workers get to keep their jobs because they can afford and are willing to accept the low wages that are not sufficient for long-term survival in Singapore but are enough for them to bring home to enjoy a relatively high quality of life compared to their counterparts back home.

What is the Government going to do now? The growth-at-all-costs model has ensured the survival of the fittest – afterall, investors and the wealthy are simply just less wealthy now… while on the other hand, low wage earners are going from earning little to much less, or even nothing.

Besides short term measures to help low income households, something ought to be done to ensure that Singapore moves away from being a “playground for the rich” and a “goldmine for foreign workers”, into a “Singapore made by Singaporeans, for Singaporeans”. I think the first thing that should be done is to review the elitist and pro-capitalist stance of the Government and how badly it has affected the people of Singapore – how it has channeled large amounts of wealth to the already wealthy plus the economies of India and China (through the savings remitted back by foreign workers), and managed to leave behind large numbers of less academically-inclined, intellectually capable and financially crippled Singaporeans.

These are people who are stuck in a vicious cycle of fighting for survival in an environment where it is impossible for them to pit themeselves against more intellectually capable and elitist Singaporeans on one side of the scale, while on the other side of the scale they are unable to compete against the ability of foreign workers to survive on low income (because they are not faced with the same long-term costs of living as Singaporeans are).

Having said all these, I must say that I am not implying that getting foreign workers into Singapore is an evil – it is certainly not. It certainly helps businesses to keep costs down. But there needs to be a balance between the need to keep capital costs down, and yet protect the welfare of low income Singaporeans.

When the economy goes back on track towards recovery, I hope the leaders of Singapore can wake up and enact more pro-social policies (e.g. minimum wage laws) to protect Singaporeans of all levels – whether we are academically-inclined, intellectually capable and elitst or not, we are all Singaporeans and should be protected by the Government, not exploited and left behind in the dust for the sake of growth.

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