Those who have read Lee Kuan Yew’s book “From Third to First World” must surely have been impressed with what Singapore’s former prime minister did. He was able to transform the country from a poor one without natural resources into an industrial one capable of competing with the developed world. The book ought to serve as an inspiration for economic planners and strategists, providing their minds with fresh thoughts and ideas.
When Yew took office as prime minister in 1959, the per capita GDP of Singapore was $400. When he left the job in 1990 it had jumped to more than $12,200. By 1999 it was $22,000. It all happened at a time of immense political and economic changes in the world.
“In material terms, we have left behind our Third World problems of poverty,” Yew wrote in a book he said was primarily written for the younger generation of Singaporeans who took stability, growth and prosperity for granted. “I wanted them to know how difficult it was for a small country of 640 square kilometers without natural resources to survive in the midst of larger, newly independent nations, all pursuing nationalistic policies.”
The book points out how cultural insulation and allowing one ideology to dominate could cripple nations and deny them the opportunity to develop and progress. Citing China as an example, he explains how the policy of isolation prevented the Chinese from developing and progressing for some 30 years. It was terrible to see a country with a rich cultural heritage such as China plunge into the state of madness it went through during the Cultural Revolution.
When the country at last managed to overcome its past complexes and shunned the policy of hollow slogans, it managed to move forward and now claims the highest rate of economic growth in the world. The book, as its author said, was not a how-to book, whether to build an economy, an army, or a nation. “It is an account of the problems my colleagues and I faced, and how we set about solving them.” It is experiences like these that we should seek to learn from and apply what suits us in order to achieve the economic development we aspire to. An economic experience like this should never be missed or taken lightly.
