Jacob Hjortsberg writes about the example of Singapore:
The small Southeast Asian city-state of Singapore is often held up as a shining example of how free-market capitalism brings prosperity to all nations that embrace it. “If you compare the conditions of people in a place like Singapore with the conditions of people in a place like red China or for that matter Indonesia,” said Milton Friedman in his 1980s TV series Free to Choose, “you will see that the economic freedom is a very important component of total freedom.” Similarly, in its 2022 Economic Freedom Index, the Heritage Foundation observes that “Singapore’s highly developed free-market economy owes its success in large measure to its remarkably open and corruption-free business environment, prudent monetary and fiscal policies, and a transparent legal framework.”
For free-market advocates, Singapore may therefore appear to be worthy of emulation. But Singapore actually provides a vision — attractive or not — of what a pragmatic form of social democracy looks like in a globalized and interconnected world. There are three main elements of the Singaporean system that allow it to operate, and they demonstrate that the country is far from a free-market paradise.
Read the whole thing here.