> What social contract? That's a convenient fiction, but no one ever agreed to any social contract anywhere. My adopted home of Singapore goes a lot harder on private initiative than Thatcher and Reagan ever dreamed off.
Do you chew gum when you are at home in Singapore? No, you don't, because it's illegal. Did you agree to that, were even you given a choice? No, of course not.
Singapore is more authoritarian than most liberal democracies. That means you do as your told. That's the social contract. If you disagree with the people in power to loudly, you got to rot in jail. https://www.smh.com.au/world/lee-kuan-yew-a-towering-figure-...
As it happens, Singapore got lucky. The people in charge are good at running a country efficiently. In particular, they didn't line their own pockets too aggressively - certainly not in a way that was out of line with liberal democracies. The Singapore it's an outlier compared to other authoritarian countries. Generally, once politicians eliminate the competition, they use their control to milk the economy for all they are worth.
> Do you chew gum when you are at home in Singapore? No, you don't, because it's illegal. Did you agree to that, were even you given a choice? No, of course not.
It's more like a license than a contract.
> Singapore is more authoritarian than most liberal democracies.
The Singaporean government is a smaller part of life than in most other places. Much less red tape to fill out before you are allowed to do anything and regulations are simpler.
Yes, there are some weird regulations about how you can say things. But they affect the form more than the substance. You are pretty much allowed to say whatever you want, just not however you want it.
Yes, Singapore got lucky in that they had (and have) a hardworking population, and competent leadership.
Why do you insist that Singapore is authoritarian? We have free and fair elections, that are regularly observed to be so by international organisations.
Well I'm not going back to Singapore until they treat gay men like myself better. I've been there; Singapore is a private money pit/playground for Western and Asian high business, much like Dubai.
When have you last been? They have recently improved the de jure treatment of gay people. (The de facto treatment hasn't changed.)
I agree that the laws about homosexuality are weird, but they are also democratic: it's broadly in line with what the population wants as far as I can tell.
That's not what democratic means. If the people did not vote on them, it's not democratic, even if it appears as though they would hypothetically vote for it.
Huh? The people voted for the government that implemented the policy. Just like with every policy in any representative democracy anywhere around the world.
Do you chew gum when you are at home in Singapore? No, you don't, because it's illegal. Did you agree to that, were even you given a choice? No, of course not.
Singapore is more authoritarian than most liberal democracies. That means you do as your told. That's the social contract. If you disagree with the people in power to loudly, you got to rot in jail. https://www.smh.com.au/world/lee-kuan-yew-a-towering-figure-...
As it happens, Singapore got lucky. The people in charge are good at running a country efficiently. In particular, they didn't line their own pockets too aggressively - certainly not in a way that was out of line with liberal democracies. The Singapore it's an outlier compared to other authoritarian countries. Generally, once politicians eliminate the competition, they use their control to milk the economy for all they are worth.