Comments on: Is Singapore a Libertarian Utopia?

By: KALYAN

KALYAN — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:13:34 +0000

Your blog is so informative ?keep up the good work!!!!

By: Zhu Bajie

Zhu Bajie — Sun, 03 May 2009 13:37:46 +0000

“I think we can reasonably expect a U.S. guest worker program to be more compassionate and less disturbingly efficient than a Singaporean one.”

Why?

Zhu Bajie

By: celpjefscycle

celpjefscycle — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 09:00:00 +0000

Thanks for information.
many interesting things
Celpjefscylc

By: Expat in Singapore

Expat in Singapore — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 00:24:33 +0000

For a detailed discussion on Singapore’s migration policy and racial issues in Asia visit http://www.asianracism.blogspot.com

Singapore is no paradise for the non-Chinese, in a similar way that Malaysia is not a paradise for non-Malays

By: Brian Moore

Brian Moore — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 19:30:59 +0000

No country is perfect, a Singapore is probably further along the not-perfect scale than others, but surely a country can have good and bad policies, and we can admire/condemn them independent of the others.

Unless you can (like Thoreau) theorize that somehow the bad parts are bound up in the ones you are complimenting, you can’t just say (or in Yglesias’ case, imply that someone could say) “well you know who ELSE liked open immigration? The evil government of Singapore!”

By: Pedro

Pedro — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 14:12:27 +0000

Everything Free in America!

Muchos Gracias Tio Sam

By: Guy Montag

Guy Montag — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 13:15:45 +0000

Great new ‘blog Kerry!

We already have wide open borders. Perhaps the Reason staff (and others) think that the eye-wash efforts to secure the borders are too much, or a waste of money, but we do already have that open border segment of libertarian utopia working, complete with a black market for the labor.

By: thoreau

thoreau — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 06:04:05 +0000

I think we can reasonably expect a U.S. guest worker program to be more compassionate and less disturbingly efficient than a Singaporean one. If the system is bettering lives over there, it would surely do so in a country less excited about, say, executing people for marijuana possession.

Kerry-

I’d like to agree with you on that, but I am stuck with a contrary thought: What if the reason that Singaporeans are more willing to let foreigners in is precisely because they trust their illiberal state to “keep those people in line”?

If I were a xenophobe, I might still be willing to put up with having “those people” do construction on the cheap if I had reason to believe that some tough-ass cops will bust their chops for so much as spitting on a sidewalk. OTOH, if I were a xenophobe in America, I’d be more skeptical about the idea that our government will “keep those people in line”, so I’d be less likely to compromise for cheap labor.

Fortunately I’m not a xenophobe, so I’m all in favor of anything that leads to an overall freer flow of people, products, information, and money. Still, it strikes me that Singapore’s predictably authoritarian nature might make their citizens less fearful of certain things.

By: Sam Grove

Sam Grove — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 05:36:11 +0000

Ah yes, the eventual dissolution of political boundaries that we libertarians foresee at the end of the struggle against political hierarchy.

In the meantime, let’s fix up the U.S. of A so we can show other people that they actually can be better off without politicians and bureaucracies screwing things up.

When people learn to master their tribal instincts instead of being mastered by them, such as is the case with cultural, nationalist, and economic collectivists.