well, for my demo possi class we have student-led seminars, and my group's presentation was today. the topic was Pragmatism and Democracy in Singapore, and we touched on the pay raise issue since it's extremely recent. most of the points the class raised were anti-corruption, since we're quite a dissident class...
sebas: politicians need to be paid well, yes, or no one would want such jobs with such ungrateful people. but there is a difference between being paid well and being paid a poor person's lifetime fortune, and this difference is crucial; it is very easy for the PAP to blur this line of paid well and paid best/excessively, which they are obviously doing.
pegging their salaries against the top earners just give them more incentive to widen the income gap, rather than close it. i don't know whether i mentioned in my previous post, but Singapore's income gap is wider than America's. one of my classmates asked, what's the difference between being paid $2m and being corrupt? and when you think about it, Durai probably took less money than them, and like i've said before, there's no difference in embezzling money from charity and from public funds, since it's all taking money from people who can benefit more from it.
the same classmate mentioned that we're spending some $40m (?) building some museum to herald the affluence under PAP's reign. at the same time the PAP proudly announced that they are going to spend $1m upgrading select buses with disabled-friendly facilities. oh, and of course, the pay rise.
i guess the question at the end is: would we rather have greedy but more talented ministers, or altruistic but less talented ministers? of course, we can always hope that talent and altruism are not mutually exclusive.
hs: i came up with a definition of pragmatism for my group's presentation: state pragmatism means reasonably taking the course of action that is in the society's best interest. society's interest might not be in economics. over the years the government has got us to think that pragmatism means taking the route most economically viable (like our stance for the Iraq war), like building casinos to bring in tourist money. it's like if we are not being pragmatic, we're shortchanging ourselves.
but there are other forms of pragmatism as well, because the society's interest is not just economic well-being. can't affluence coexist with political freedom or freedom of expression? the liberal democracies that exist in other countries work well enough - most first world countries are democratic. obviously pragmatism and freedom are not mutually exclusive, as the government would have us believe that taking the pragmatic approach means compromising on other things of value - it needn't be.
in order to maintain racial and political harmony, pragmatism dictates we shall not have free speech in the first place, more efficient than cleaning up messes after they are made. yet racial discrimination goes on under the ostensible civility, and political oppression just gets stronger, such that we don't protest when the parliament sat down 4 days to discuss and approve their own salary raise.
erps. sorry i went on a tirade, no offense to both, really, but it's quite an exciting topic to discuss - i feel so righteously indignant, hah.
