ISN’T A SYSTEM OF CLASS FILTERED BY MERITOCRACY STILL A SYSTEM OF CLASS?
Lord Young (1958) , the man who coined the word meritocracy, clearly understood the real dangers of meritocracy if misused.
Meritocracy, like other man-made ideas such as capitalism and democracy, are dangerous concepts when applied to their extreme ends.
In Singapore, we have witnessed Mr Umbrage who talked down to the reporter, Mr slip-of-the-tongue Minister who called an NMP illiterate and a Senior Minister who sees anyone earning less than S$500,000 per annum mediocre.
What happens in a society when mechanisms of mobility turn into fortresses of privilege?
What happens when meritocrats become insufferably smug, much more so than aristocrats who are measurably humbled by knowing they have achieved advancement quite often not on their own merit but from inheritance?
The carapace of “merit”, Young argued, had only inoculated the winners from shame and reproach.
Put simply, winners of the “merit” game can easily and dangerously be led to believe that their success in life is solely due to themselves and others who fail only have themselves to blame.
This is the meritocracy trap that Singapore has fallen into and a big dose of socialism maybe needed to dig the society out of the deep hole.
RACISM IS THE RED HERRING OF POLITICAL DISTRACTION...
Racism is a political red herring used by the ruling elites to distract from the real issues of inequality, social justice, loss of dignity and self-esteem amongst the commoners, policies that over reward a few and under-compensate the rest on the false narrative that cognitive jobs pay a thousand times more than honest blue-collared jobs.
The hypothesis that minorities will always feel racially discriminated by a majority population is bollocks. Have you ever heard of a minority white Swiss banker, German CEO and British scientist becoming a victim of racism in Singapore?
Why is there no racism amongst the rich, educated and famous people in the world?
Billionaire Oprah is an icon in America, regardless of her race. Will Smith has no problems booking the best restaurants in Beverly Hills at short notice. The mega-rich are colour-blind. And I am also willing to bet that our highly paid MPs, mayors, and ministers of minority races are colour-blind and do not suffer the least from racism too.
Societies divided by class and caste have existed long before societies understood racism. Policies can only get you thus far and beyond which the free and ruthless market takes over.
There may be an EIP system to prevent racial enclaves in the HDB flat allocation system. But has any study been done to investigate elite racial enclaves amongst our privileged new citizens (> 500,000 of them in the last 15-20 years), PRs (>500,000 of them today) and EPs (200,000)?
Many core Singaporeans have served NS and helped built the Singapore of today and by some estimates, more than 100,000 of born and bred locals are now displaced by new Singaporeans, PRs, EPs and SPs.
Anonymous
Singapore's system is not only meritocrazy and elitism, but also nepotism and cronyism added. These are the four pillars that laid the foundation of the PAP's power in good steadfastness, unshakable and undefeatable.
ReplyDeleteBlame the 61.24% lah . .
ReplyDeleteThe fall of autocracy or dictatorial rule is always the result of elitism. Few ruling elites wants more and more benefits, and the attending sycophants follow suit, and soon the whole house of cards collapse.
ReplyDeleteHow it affects the 61.24% today will determine the outcome of the succeeding GEs. Nothing is a certainty, only birth and death.
Empires and kingdoms fell mostly because of corruption, corruption of power leading to nepotism, cronyism, enriching themselves and persecution of opposition.
ReplyDeleteWhen these happened, it is only a matter of time. When all these happened at the same time, you know it is very near.
For a person to label others earning less than S$500K as mediocre says a lot about the character of that person. Arrogant, elitist, boastful and self serving.
ReplyDeleteFor a person of that nature, what boastful pronouncements he makes like Goal 2010, Swiss Standard of Living, More Good Years, The Chikus and Papayas are ripe for the picking, have all never materialised, despite his un-mediocre standard of forecasting.
Among the three Prime Ministers, with hindsight, the worst is not LHL but GCT.
ReplyDeleteHe never create jobs, but instead lost tens of thousands of jobs.
He pissed off some MNCs. As a result, they left and set up shops in China, Malaysia and Vietnam.
He set perennial long-term increase in Cost of Living by collection of extra taxes such as COE, CPF Medisave, ERP, 300% Vehicle Import Tax, HDB Property Tax, and others, etc.
He abolished Estate Duties so that people like him and LKY won't get taxed after they expired.
He made many empty feel-good promises that he did not keep.
He is the biggest snobbery and most arrogant among all the Singapore leaders.
He looked down, and still does, upon those earning less than $500,000.
He managed to psycho LKY to raise his salary from $100,000 pa to $3,800,000 pa.
Anonymous September 22, 2021 11:21 am
ReplyDeleteYou forget one thing . Just like any PAP clown, GCT use taxpayer's monies to have books written about him to glorify himself and PAP stooges
Lucky I never bought his books leh
DeleteAnon 9.16 wrote " Blame the 61.24% lah . . "
ReplyDeleteNext GE the 61.24% wil become 71.24%. Why???
New citizens from the CECA deal.
Don't worry, Singaporeans graduates will still have jobs as Grab drivers, delivery for McD or KFC. Oh, jobs as security officers and Bus Captains are also available.
Virgo - he had very little to say, and he took too long saying it.
ReplyDeleteSeen the picture of a dozen of them dosing off?
ReplyDeleteListening to this long winded bugger, I surprise only one dozen doze off.