The hunger of the East: why Singapore and Hong Kong are outpacing the UK
In short: While Western economies often take prosperity for granted, Singapore and Hong Kong operate with a distinct, persistent hunger. Despite their wealth, these nations are pulling ahead of the UK by leveraging a high-intensity work culture and a state-driven model that challenges conventional Western assumptions about economic freedom.
Professor Douglas McWilliams identifies a profound shift in global economic power, noting that Singapore and Hong Kong are already significantly outperforming the UK. Specifically, Singapore's GDP per capita is 30% higher than the UK's, while Hong Kong's is as much as 50% higher. This disparity is fueled by a work ethic where people in these Eastern nations work an equivalent of five months longer each year than their British counterparts.
The mechanism behind this success is often misunderstood by Western observers. While the UK frequently discusses a 'Singapore model' of low taxes and minimal regulation to solve its own growth problems, the reality is far more nuanced. Unlike Hong Kong’s liberal entrepreneurial capitalism, Singapore utilizes a state-driven hybrid model. The Singaporean state actively intervenes in industrial structures, capital, and labor markets—actions the colonial state in Hong Kong never considered.
This interventionist approach allows a technocratic elite to bypass the 'anti-growth coalition' of special interest groups that often stall progress in liberal democracies. Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew famously described this elitist structure, suggesting that the nation's survival depends on the decisions of its top 300 civil servants and political elites. McWilliams suggests we are only in the early stages of a 50-year eastward economic shift, requiring the West to learn from these models of high-intensity development and state-led industrial policy.
Ultimately, the data suggests that economic freedom does not always occur in tandem with political liberalism. Singapore’s rapid growth under authoritarian institutions challenges the assumption that market freedom is the sole driver of prosperity, highlighting a more coercive, deliberate model of development that prioritizes national growth over the influence of special interests.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: How Hong Kong and Singapore are Overtaking the UK Economy - Professor Douglas McWilliams
- Also: What we talk about when we talk about Singapore - UK in a changing Europe
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