Author Compares Singapore’s 1976 Planned Model With Hong Kong’s Market System
Updated
Updated · South China Morning Post · Aug 22
Author Compares Singapore’s 1976 Planned Model With Hong Kong’s Market System
3 articles · Updated · South China Morning Post · Aug 22
Summary
A 50-year Asia-based commentator argues that dismissing economic planning outright is a mistake, using Singapore and Hong Kong to challenge rigid market-versus-state orthodoxies.
Singapore in 1976 is presented as a partially planned economy under Lee Kuan Yew, with state-led industrial development aimed at reducing dependence on its colonial entrepot role.
Hong Kong in 1979 offered the sharp contrast: advocating a planned economy there was treated as heresy, reflecting a far stronger faith in private-sector allocation.
The piece argues the market does not always get it right and says recent economic and financial performance in unplanned systems deserves closer scrutiny before planning is rejected per se.