Lee Kuan Yew (Video Version)

And let that be no mistakes about this. Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him or give it up. This is not a game of cards. This is your life and mine. I've spent a whole lifetime building this. And as long as I'm in charge nobody's going to knock it down. I'm going to show you how good I am. Good. But I'll tell you. I just want to say it on the bottom of my heart. I'd like to take this chance to apologize. Absolutely nobody. Hello and welcome to How To Take Over the World. This is Ben Wilson. Today we are talking about Lee Kwan Yew, the founder of modern Singapore. Singapore is a very small island off the southern coast of Malaysia. When Lee Kwan Yew took over as Prime Minister, it was a small dirty backwater port town. Now it is a gleaming modern metropolis, one of the great cities of the world up there with London, New York and Tokyo. You may have noticed that we started doing video episodes for How To Take Over the World recently. And one of the last episodes we did before we started moving over to video was Lee Kwan Yew. And so this episode is a re-release of the Lee Kwan Yew episode this time with video. Video has allowed us to reach an entirely new audience. And so I wanted to make sure that we were able to get this episode in front of that audience as well. Because I think this story is so important. Lee Kwan Yew is a really interesting figure. One of the reasons I like his story so much is that it's applicable to everyone. Right? If you're an entrepreneur and investor, an executive, a coach, whatever, then Lee Kwan Yew is applicable to you because he's a great modern leader. And his management style, his leadership style, the way that he manages and runs teams is applicable to basically everyone. But also, it is a story of how to take over the world. This is someone who founded not just a company and who led not just a team of people trying to build a new product, but a new country. And so I think it's got resonance for anyone who's interested in the political domain of how do we actually transform things? That's something we're talking a lot in America. I think in the West in general, it's just things are no longer functional. And I think a lot of people are thinking about how do we actually transform the West to make it functional once again? And I think Lee Kwan Yew, even though obviously he's an Asian leader, can provide a lot of inspiration for that of how do we get things back on the right track? If I had to distill down the lessons of Lee Kwan Yew's life to three things, what I learned from him is vision competence grit, right? Have a vision. And he did. He had a vision. And he had multiple visions, right? The first was for a clean and green Singapore, then of transforming it from a fishing village to a regional manufacturing powerhouse, and then from a manufacturing hub to a financial hub. And he has all these subsequent visions for Singapore that he's able to articulate and get people behind at every stage of his career. And then competence, just doing the right things in the right order, getting it all right, doing it well, having a competent team behind him. And then grit because there were tons of setbacks in his career, tons of moments when it could have failed, and he kept persevering nevertheless. So those were my main three takeaways as I reflect back on the life of Lee Kwan Yew. So without further ado, let's get into it. This is the re-broadcast of our episode on Lee Kwan Yew. I'd like to start off this episode with a quote from his book from Third World I. He says, "There are books to teach you how to build a house, how to repair engines, how to write a book, but I have not seen a book on how to build a nation out of a disparate collection of immigrants from China, British India, and the Dutch East Indies, or how to make a living for its people when its former economic role is becoming defunct." So I think this episode should be of interest to reformers, statesmen, politicians, people who have visions of reform and nation building. But the other interesting thing about Lee Kwan Yew is that he ran his country like a startup, like a company. And so on a broader level, I think his example and his wisdom can be of benefit to anyone who is a leader in any capacity, whether that's in business or sports or art or anything. So let's get into it. For this episode, I have a few sources. One, the Singapore story by Lee Kwan Yew, which is autobiographical and recounts the first few years of independence for Singapore. And then his second autobiographical book called, "From Third World to First." Also Lee Kwan Yew, the grandmasters insights on China, the United States and the world, by Graham Allison and Michael McConaughey. And then Singapore, a modern history by Michael D. Bar, and No Man is an island, a study of Singapore's Lee Kwan Yew by James Minchin. The first two, like I said, are by Lee Kwan Yew and give his perspective. They're quite good. But they were written for a Singaporean audience, and were a little more dense than I anticipated, but still very good. Lee Kwan Yew, the grandmasters insights, is a very good book for his thinking on leadership. I would frankly skip his thoughts on geopolitics and go straight to his thoughts on leadership and management and life, which are the last few chapters. Singapore, a modern history by Michael D. Bar, is essentially the view of a communist who regrets very much that Lee Kwan Yew eliminated communism in Singapore. But its first few chapters are okay for their narrative of the origins of Singapore, I like that. And then No Man is an island is a somewhat hostile biography, but it's even handed in many ways. It's pretty good. A little dated, I think it was finished somewhere in the late 1980s or early 1990s. But if you want a more objective biography, that's a good one. So with that said, let's get into it. This is Lee Kwan Yew. Okay, Lee Kwan Yew is born in 1923 to a wealthy family in Singapore. They were ethnically Chinese as were most Singaporeans. And Singapore is a small island off the southern tip of Malaysia. It had been in old times, majority Malay. Malay is a ethnicity. And that's what most people in Malaysia are obviously. But the British had acquired it and made it into a free port. And thereby turned it into a bustling port city. This attracted thousands of Chinese merchants who took advantage of the favorable trade conditions to start factories and import export affairs and other associated businesses. And so it quickly becomes a majority Chinese city. The Lee family lose much of their wealth when Lee Kwan Yew is five due to the Great Depression. But they are still upper middle class. And in British Singapore, upper middle class means that you have some servants to help you manage what is a quite large estate in the case of the Lee family. His father was a very strict disciplinarian. And he very much admired British discipline and manners and culture. And this is unsurprising for someone who makes his fortune on the back of the British trading empire in Asia. So he actually gives his son the name Harry Lee Kwan Yew. Okay, so that's his real name when he is born, Harry Lee Kwan Yew. And so he was largely known as Harry Lee for most of his early life. However, we know him as Lee Kwan Yew because he later dropped the name Harry in order to seem less westernized. We'll get to that. As a boy, Lee Kwan Yew loved reading. Early on, he has a love for westerns in particular. You can see that initially he had this great attraction to western culture just like his dad did. Lee Kwan Yew's father was a gambler and his mother is really the leader of the family for that reason. Lee Kwan Yew becomes the de facto head of the family while he's still in his teens. And that's a fairly Chinese thing to do. The oldest son is given responsibility and expected to lead from a very young age. So he grows up with his whims constantly accommodated and with his siblings and even his mother obeying his commands. And so he really learns to lead in command from a very young age. He speaks English to his parents, Baba Malay, which is a sort of pigeon Malay with a bunch of Chinese words thrown in. He speaks that to his grandparents and Malay with a smattering of Hokkien to his friends. And Hokkien, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, is a Chinese dialect. And most Chinese immigrants to Singapore had come from this region of China where they spoke Hokkien. So that was kind of the de facto Chinese language in Singapore. Mandarin was totally alien to him. He had to learn it a little bit in school, but he doesn't finish his Mandarin education. So he didn't speak very good Mandarin. He gets a very good Anglo-English education. They had these institutions to educate the locals and help build up a local cadre of white collar workers and officials who could help serve in British administration and lead the local economy. And so he goes to a high school called Raffles, named after the founder of the Singapore colony. A man who has the most British sounding name I've ever heard. Sir Thomas Stanford Bingley Raffles. So he goes to the school, it's named after Sir Thomas Raffles. And his goal in going there is the top students from Raffles could matriculate at top universities in England, like Oxford and Cambridge, with a scholarship. And this is what Likwan you wanted to do. However, in 1940, World War II is going on and it's going very poorly for England. They're being bombed by Germany. This is the blitz. And so instead of when he finishes Raffles, the high school portion, instead of going to England, he goes to Raffles College. So Raffles established a secondary school, essentially a high school, if you're an American, and also a college. So he goes from Raffles High School to Raffles College. Although, you know, he still has an eye towards doing well there and then going on to study more in England. At Raffles College, he does extremely well. He kind of goofs off and doesn't pay much attention. He's a prankster. And I'll just highlight this, that if you want to find really great talent, look for the pranksters. Thomas Edison was a prankster. Steve Jobs was a prankster. John Wooden was a great prankster. Alexander Hamilton was something of a prankster. The list goes on. It's a great way for whatever reason to spot talent. Very intelligent, very capable people. You know, I think what it is is they like to test the limits of the world around them and therefore they enjoy pranks. He's actually punished at least once for coming late and for being a prankster. And at Raffles, that meant caning. Like, you know, to take out a stick and whack you on the bottom. And here's what he wrote about that in the Singapore story. He says, I bent over a chair and was given three of the best with my trousers on. I do not think he lightened his strokes. I have never understood why Western educationists are so much against corporal punishment. It did my fellow students in me know harm. Okay. So he does get some physical punishment while at Raffles, I actually think this one he's in high school. But again, he thinks like I suffered no psychological damage from this. And he would continue to be a vocal proponent of corporal punishment. Actually not only in educational situations, but in the criminal justice system as well. So Lee Kuan Yew doesn't take school too seriously. He often shows up late. He likes to carry out pranks and hijinks. But despite this, he is the leading student in mathematics and the second student in English and economics. And that's just because he's brilliant. He's very, very intelligent. He actually panics when he finds out that someone else has beat his scores in English and economics. And he's only in second place because only the very top student from Raffles was guaranteed a scholarship to go study in England. So he has to up his focus in order to make sure that he is still considered the top student. And by the way, that one student who outcompeats him in a couple of classes is named Kwagak Chu. Okay. Probably mispronouncing that. But that is the woman who he would eventually go on to marry. His education comes to an abrupt halt in 1942 when the Japanese invade British Malaya. Lee Kuan Yew volunteers as a medic, as did all of the other university students. But he doesn't serve for very long because the British resistance in Malaya just completely collapses very quickly. And this is really unexpected. The British had a reputation as, I mean, they had an empire that covered the entire globe, right? And so they had this reputation for dependability, for being warriors, for holding out to the last man. And so to see them completely melt away with hardly any opposition to the Japanese, he is dismaying for Lee Kuan Yew. You can tell that he loses a lot of respect for the British at this time. And it's difficult to wrap your mind around why this happened many years later. Winston Churchill would write that the fall of Singapore was, quote, "the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history." And this just catastrophe really changes his mindset. You know, this is someone who grows up in an anglophile family. English is basically his first language. He should have been a natural ally of continued British rule in Singapore and more broadly in Malaya. But seeing this collapse changes something in it. And it's at this time that he makes a commitment that his people need to be independent and control their own destiny. Lee Kuan Yew writes, quote, "it is difficult for those born after 1945 to appreciate the full implications of the British defeat as they have no memory of the colonial system that the Japanese brought crashing down on February 15th, 1942. Since 1819, when Raffles founded Singapore as a trading post for the East India Company, the white man's supremacy had been unquestioned. But in 70 days of surprises, upsets, and stupidities, British colonial society was shattered. And with it, all the assumptions of the Englishman's superiority. Okay, so he and everyone else in Singapore grow up with this sort of unquestioned assumption that the English are superior, they're in charge, they run things. But once he sees them completely unable to resist Japanese, you know, something changes in his brain a little bit. I think, okay, maybe these people aren't so much better than me as I had thought. The Japanese are much harsher rulers than the British have been. Lee Kuan Yew has a couple of cloth calls with death actually under Japanese rule. At one point, he's put on board a boat to head off to an undisclosed location and he's got this ominous feeling. He's looking around and he asks the Japanese captain in charge. He says, "I'll be right back, but can I go get a couple things from my house first?" And to his surprise, the captain says, "Yes." So he hops off the boat and of course never returns. And all those aboard the boat were never heard from again, presumably taken to some labor camp where they were worked to death. So he barely survives. But he unsurprisingly somehow excels under Japanese rule. He works as a clerk. He also becomes a merchant. He's in sort of the gray market, not quite the black market, but not quite legal either. He starts a minor manufacturing business making stationary gum with improvised ingredients. He's very good at just the basic business, right? Bilo sell high. He's always buying little things and finding arbitrage opportunities and reselling them. He has to stop selling this gum for lack of demand when the war starts going poorly. The Americans are kicking the Japanese butt in the Pacific. They're running out of a lot of raw supplies. And this only accelerates his time, goes on. As America is continually beating back the Japanese and the Pacific, the economy in Singapore completely collapses. And just as the end of British rules chaotic, so the end of Japanese rule was also chaotic in its final days in Singapore. Japanese rule, however, was crucial for Lekwan's understanding of the world and how to govern. You get the impression that he definitely, I don't know if I would say he hates the Japanese. He certainly hates the way that they govern and their cruelty, but he respects their methods. So listen to what he says about it. I learned more from the three and a half years of Japanese occupation than any university could have taught me. I had not yet read Mao's dictum that power grows out of the barrel of a gun, but I knew that Japanese brutality, Japanese guns, Japanese bayonets and swords, and Japanese terror and torture settled the argument as to who was in charge and could make people change their behavior even their loyalties. Okay, so on the one hand, he hates Japanese rule, but on the other hand, he's like, well, look at this. He also points to how little crime there was under Japanese rule, how orderly everyone was, how much people respected and obeyed their laws because they were so afraid of them. And so, you know, I think this is wise. Anyone can learn from their heroes, from their friends, from their allies. It takes a truly wise man to learn from his enemies, but that is what Likuan Yu is doing here. He's learning from his enemies. He doesn't drink too deeply, right? He's not some fanatical crazed torturer, the way the Japanese sometimes could be, with the way they ruled in the Pacific, but he is learning, hey, the way they institute public order really works at the very least. So, once the Japanese are kicked out, World War II ends, technically the British are back in charge. Everyone can kind of feel that the British Empire is now going to end. But for the time being, that's not the case, that the British are back in charge, although there is this sort of feeling in the air, this agitation of, okay, it's time for the Singaporeans to take over. The MPAJA was a Malay guerrilla organization that had fought the Japanese and their communists. As was often the case in World War II, some of the most ardent partisans that continued to fight behind enemy lines against fascists were communists. And in the wake of the war, they don't say, okay, the Japanese were defeated, time to put down our guns and, you know, be model citizens. No, they continue to be gangsters and rebels and they make headaches for the British. And they even go so far as taking over a few kind of rural outlying towns. And the British make the mistake of recognizing and paying tribute to and even paying funds to this communist organization, the MPAJA. They were doing this out of gratitude, basically. Like, yeah, you guys did a bang up job fighting the Japanese. So, you know, you'll use some gratitude. So because of good feelings, you know, here's here's some recognition, here's some funds. And then these people turn around and use those funds to create havoc for the British, the very people who were paying them. And that was one lesson that Leekwan you would learn early on. Always look to the future. Sentimentality gains you nothing. The Cold War begins shortly after World War II ends and it is completely insane that the British are lavishing, compliments, and funds on communist rebels who are actively fighting against them in their next war. These people would be their avowed enemies within months, but that is what they are doing. And Leekwan you seize the unfortunate results of these policy decisions and anarchy their results from that. So again, his takeaway is, look, people might help you in one circumstance, but that doesn't mean that you need to continue to trust and help them in the future if they're not helping you. Okay, so Singapore is kind of getting resettled after the war. It's still kind of in a state of chaos and Raffles has shut down during World War II. There's no higher education in Singapore. And so it's going to take a while getting restarted. So he decides that he's going to go to England to finish his university education and it had been his plan all along the way. So he goes, he first he goes to London and studies at the London School of Economics. He doesn't really like London. He doesn't like city life. It's too noisy and crowded. And he's very unacostumed to having to do his own housework. He complains about the lack of servants having to do his own lawn. his own cooking. So he leaves one of his school of economics after less than a year and he matriculates at Cambridge. He studies law. Of course, if you don't know, Cambridge is one of the top universities in the world. And Lee Kwan-Yu does very well there. Even among these very bright students, he's one of the most intelligent and capable. He gets a little bit politically active, he becomes a member of the peaceful anti-colonialist movement, and he and five other students form the Malayan Forum. And the Malayan Forum is just an organization to talk about. So Malaya is sort of the region that the British ruled together. Mostly what is now called Malasia, though it also included Brunei and Singapore, and a few more other World Territories. Malasia did not exist yet as a country or even as a concept. And so they formed the Malayan Forum to talk about independence. For Malaya, are we going to do it all united or separately? This forum would later be captured by Marxist and basically turned into a communist organization, but at the time, it was solely focused on independence for this region of Malaya. In terms of his political persuasion, he's something of moderate socialist, I think is what you would call it. You know, in the wake of World War II, this is like the apogee of leftist politics in Western academia. This is the heyday. Even in the midst of the Cold War, everyone at all these universities is a Marxist. This is a socialist. Is at the very least like a hard left liberal. And so actually British intelligence is keeping an eye on him. And they assume that Likwanyu is a crypto Marxist first. He's going to be a communist. And look, I think there is probably something to that in the environment of a university, everyone's getting carried away with this. I think he was quite leftist at the time. He was also a party or a very social. I find this very interesting about Likwanyu. He's so disciplined and so single-minded that you would think he'd be very strict in his personal habits. Like this robot, it's a tomatown. But no, he liked to drink and smoke and play golf. He was very social and he very much adopted the social habits of the upper class British, right? Smoking drinking playing golf. That's kind of what they did. That's what he did. So after his years at Cambridge, he moves back to Singapore where again, he studied law. So he becomes a lawyer and also gets involved in politics. This is the time when he changes his name. Again, like he thinks the big cause of his life is going to be Malayan independence, anti-colonialism essentially. So he doesn't want to be hairy Lee anymore. He wants to be Lee Kwan-Yu. He wants to sound like a native, not like a foreign British guy. And so he drops the hairy and just goes by Lee Kwan-Yu. At this point, Singapore is just a city within British Malaya. It was different enough that it had some separate institutions, things like that. They had their own legislature, but the British government still maintains ultimate sovereignty over not only Singapore but all of Malaya. One of his first cases as a lawyer is a labor dispute and he argues on behalf of the Union of the postal union. And he's able to secure a deal that is satisfactory to all parties involved. It's very impressive. The postal workers are happy with the increase in pay and all these different benefits and the government is just happy to get this workstopage over with. So everyone's happy with this job that Lee Kwan-Yu does. Labor unions are often known for being intransigent and difficult to work with. And especially at this time, even still a little bit, but especially at this time, labor unions wear a hotbed of communist agitation, especially when it comes to international labor unions. They would often have no interest at all in actually striking a deal or improving conditions for their workers. They just wanted to foment unrest and hopefully start a communist revolution. But luckily in this first case, Lee Kwan-Yu is working with one of the better unions that actually has an interest in the well-being of their workers and he's able to strike this deal. He becomes known as someone who is definitely left-leaning, pro-labor, sticks up for the little guy, but he's moderate. He's not just trying to foment revolution. He is actually trying to strike deals and get things working. He also takes on criminal cases. And since he's a very good lawyer, he's able to get favorable verdicts for some of his clients, including ones that he knows are actually guilty. And so even though he wins these cases, he's becoming disillusioned with the democratic judicial systems. He's not impressed with the system with a jury system where a capable lawyer like himself is able to get obviously guilty criminals off with no punishment. And so that would come into effect later in terms of how he governs Singapore. He also quickly gets involved in politics where he starts the People's Action Party, the PAP. In the short term, this is a pro-labor party focused on independence from Britain. It is somewhere between center left and not far left, but yeah, like left. I don't know if that makes sense, but somewhere between center left and just left left. It's closely allied with labor unions. And at first, it included many communist elements, like overtly, openly communist party members and unions. And again, Lee Kwon-yoo, he's definitely more left-leaning than he would be later in life. Even so, he's not a communist, but he is aligned with labor unions, which typically have strong communist elements within them. And at this time, the communists are also helpful to his new party, the People's Action Party, because they're very well organized. They can get people on the streets. And so this is a marriage of convenience that gets Lee Kwon-yoo some muscle right at the beginning when he needs it. There are a lot of great things about living in the modern world, but one of the bad things is the amount of spam and scams that we're exposed to every single day. That is why I have been using in Cogni for over a year. 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So give it a try again that is Zashi ZAS HI wallet and you can get it wherever you get your apps. So in its first ever election in Singapore in 1954, the People's Action Party contests four seats in the Singapore legislature and wins three of them. So it's a promising start for this new fledgling party. So this is when Likuan Yu is 31 years old. He's finished his university education. He's been practicing for a couple of years and now he has formed this political party. Starting now and throughout his life, Likuan Yu is a very successful politician. One of the keys of his success are these tours that he does throughout all these neighborhoods in Singapore. He gives speeches and listens to the constituents at the same time. And here's what he writes about these tours. Quote, the tours were an enormous success. As I argued against the unreasonable demands of others, the people swung behind me. The crowds kept growing bigger and warmer with each visit. The leaders eager to participate in welcoming me and to be seen sporting the PAP. The officials with me followed up listening to the People's Requests for Surface Roads, Drain's Power, Streetlights, Stand Pipes, Clinics, Schools, Community Centers, the easier needs they dealt with quickly. The more difficult ones I promise to study and meet if practical. Okay. One thing to notice there at the end is that he doesn't promise necessarily to meet these needs at some point in the future. All he says is that I'll study what you guys are saying and I'll do what I can. And that's something that he would always do. He state his reputation on his dependability. And so he would never promise anything that he couldn't carry through. He would do that with everyone, even with his enemies. There's this time where this this like secret Chinese Communist agent comes to him and is meeting with him under a pseudonym. And he's saying, look, we can help you if you can just do XYZ. And he's like, look, I would appreciate the help, but I can't make those promises. And so he never promises anything that he can't follow through on. And that reliability is one of the things that made him formidable. So he's going through, he's doing these, these tours. Because one of the difficult things about doing these tours are that Singapore is about 75% at the time and today, 75% Chinese, about 15% Malay, and about 10% Indian, with a smattering of others, including Europeans, left over from English rule, Eurasians, other immigrants. But at this time, there is no common language to everyone. English was the language of doing business at the highest levels, but most people in Singapore at the time did not speak English, his first language. So he knows English and he knows Malay, okay, that's a good starting point. But at this time, his Hokkien is very shoddy, it's not up to snuff, and his Mandarin is also quite poor. And so he learns both of these languages in order to be able to speak to his constituents more clearly. And that's one of the really impressive things about Likwanyu, not just that he is a great, great public speaker, great politician in that way, but that he's a great, great public speaker in four languages. I mean, it's just, it's pretty remarkable. So yes, with this first crop of elected PAP members, Likwanyu becomes a member of the Singaporean parliament in the opposition, right? They only have three members. The government of Singapore was still led by a party called the labor front with their leader David Marshall as prime minister. And you could probably tell by his name, David Marshall, that he is English. And this is kind of the leftover vestiges of English rule, as we reflected through the prism of labor, which was in charge in the United Kingdom back in England. The major issue of the time was independence. And Likwanyu goes to London with David Marshall to try and hash out an agreement with the British government for peaceful separation from the empire. Marshall pushes for too much. He wants all of Singapore's demands met, you know, perhaps as an Englishman, he was sort of sensitive to accusations that he was selling out the Singaporeans. And so he pushes too hard. And instead, no deal is reached and the talks fail. Independence is not reached. In 1958, Singaporean leaders, including Likwanyu, go back to London again. And this time an agreement is reached and the constitution of Singapore is revised to allow for full independence functionally speaking. Technically, British rule would last for a few more years, at least in sort of foreign policy, external matters. But for all practical purposes, now Singapore was independent. And you might wonder why the British are basically granting unconditional independence to the nations like Singapore. And the answer is, it's immediately after World War II, the country is still reeling, its economy is in tatters, and it wanted to save money on administering this massive empire. The British empire had long since ceased to extract resources and value from its colonies, and administering the empire at this point was actually an expense. There's also the fact that intellectually, the British public was just not in favor of ruling over all these far-flung colonies anymore. People supported independence on ideological grounds. And so that's why the Singaporeans are going and negotiating for independence. I mean, it's a pretty easy negotiation. The British, all they're really concerned about, is doing it slowly. And in a way, that's going to make sure that their naval presence in Singapore, which was quite large. They had a big naval base there, was going to be maintained for as long as they needed it, especially in light of what was happening with the Cold War. Okay, so functionally, Singapore kind of gets its independence in 1958. And all throughout the 1950s, Lee Kuan Yew was battling with the left wing of his party. In part, because he's got all these communists in his party. And again, like I said, they didn't want to do things through proper channels. They wanted to just agitate and create inconveniences, create strikes, create problems to try to foment a revolution. And he doesn't want that. He wants to do things through the preexisting channels. And so it's difficult that he's trying to gain power for the people's action party, the PAP, while at the same time battling within that same party to make sure that it stays out of communist hands at a time when the communists served a sort of the muscle for his party. So he kind of needs them, but he kind of wants to get away from them as soon as he can. In the 1959 election, the first election since the deal with the British, the PAP take the majority of seats in Singaporean parliament, and Lee Kuan Yew is named Prime Minister. Okay, so now as Prime Minister, even as he's battling with the left wing of his party, he's got to govern at the same time. And to make matters worse, as he comes into the government, they have a massive budget shortfall and Lee Kuan Yew has to implement some difficult cost-cutting measures, which he decides to do right away. He writes about this time, "The steps necessary to balance the budget would prove unpopular, not only with the public, but also with ministers, but it was imperative that we did not end up in the red in our first year of government. I told them that we had better take the unpopular measures early in our term." Okay, and we talked about this in the Augustus episode. Augustus does the same thing. He does, as Machiavelli puts it, "Do all of your injustice upfront and all at once." Okay, so Lee Kuan Yew very much buys into this idea that when you come into power, if you have some unpleasant things to do, you need to do them right at the beginning and all at once. However, you don't just want your popularity to tank, right? So on the flip side, he also undertakes very visible and very public initiatives that will boost his popularity. So listen to what he does. I don't understand why every governor in the United States does not do this immediately upon being elected. This is a crown just lying in the gutter. Okay, listen to what he does. Lee Kuan Yew writes, "We were determined to strike while the iron was hot and exploit our post-election popularity. We mounted a series of well-publicized campaigns to clean the streets of the city, clear the beaches of debris, and cut the weeds of unkemptivacant land. It was a copycat exercise borrowed from the communists. Austin Tatius mobilization of everyone, including ministers, to toil with their hands and soil their clothes in order to serve the people. We saw no reason why the MCP, the Communist Party, should have them monopoly of such techniques and organized drives to enthuse the people and involve them in setting higher standards in civic consciousness, general cleanliness, and the preservation of public property." So he takes this even further in organized work brigades of the unemployed to do basic construction and cleanup work around the city. The other thing he does is to ensure that he has control and a working government operation. He dissolves entire departments and just replaces them with new ones. So for example, he's got this highly corrupt and inept Singapore Improvement Trust, which is in charge of public housing essentially, and he just dissolves it and replaces it with something called the housing and development board. And again, I think this is something that Western politicians should consider. I think when a department has just become corrupt, as they tend to do over time in government, just dissolve it. Just let everyone go and start from the ground up and bring in a completely new organization. Okay, so the Communist within the PAP become more and more of a problem, and now he's actually in charge, and so this chaos that they're causing isn't just a headache for everyone, it's a headache for him personally because he's the prime minister. And so in 1961, there is a divorce within the party and the Communists are kicked out of the PAP. It is really only through the force of charisma of Lee Kwan-yu and other senior party members that the PAP is able to hold on to its majority in parliament, and it just barely does so and continues leading the Singaporean government. I told you that Lee Kwan-yu had learned a lesson from the British after the war, and that is to only look forward and not be sentimental. And that is a lesson that served him well. I think someone with less of an iron will might not have been willing to kick out the Communists because they, you know, not only did they still bring something to the table, at this point they were more of a headache than they were in asset. But I think someone else might have said, "Well, hey, these people brought me to power. You know, I owe these people something." And loyalty is obviously a crucial attribute of a great leader. But loyalty should not be confused with naivete or begging or relationships of convenience. The Communists had repeatedly taken actions that had damaged his government. They had no loyalty toward him. And so it shouldn't have been reciprocated. Yes, loyalty is important, but only to your true friends who continue to favor you. And you can't have that sentimentality towards people who have done good things for you in the past, but in the moment are working against you. You can't be sentimental like the British and hand resources to people who hate you. And this lack of sentimentality culminates two years later when Lee Kwan-yu has hundreds of Communists rounded up and arrested or forced into exile in a famous operation called Operation Cold Store. And for those who are anti-Lee Kwan-yu, especially those who are on the political left, this has become something like his original sin. These people were held without trial. Many were provably Communists, but others were not either because they were careful to avoid incriminating evidence or because they were simply fellow travelers who intentionally kept enough distance to be useful as people who were not officially tied to Communist activity. It has even been suggested that some may have had no affiliation with the Communist Movement whatsoever, and were simply political opponents of Lee Kwan-yu. I tried to look into it a little bit and get to the bottom of those accusations and I can't tell if that's true or not. Judging by how vehement the Communists are, that these people were innocent, I tend to believe that they were actually supporting the Communist cause in some way. But who knows, certainly it was an operation that did help Lee Kwan-yu gain a firmer grip on Singapore. But it did also more or less put a total end to the anarchic strikes and riots that had been a frequent feature of life in Singapore up to that point. And by the way, he has to do this over the objections of the British, who along with the Americans were often useful idiots in keeping communists around, and were opposed to such a sweeping mop-up operation of all these communists. So one of the big reasons for Operation Cold Store was that Singapore and the rest of British Malay were getting ready to unite into one independent nation. And Lee Kuan Yew was the most prominent voice in Singapore in trying to make sure that they would join an independent and united Malaysia as a new country. The Malaysians were extremely anti-communist. And partly that was because it's a majority Muslim country. Communism was seen as an inherently atheistic and anti-Islam ideology. But there was also an ethnic dimension, as discussed. China was communist, and Singapore was majority Chinese. But the rest of Malaysia also had large Chinese populations. They were a distinct minority, but a large minority. In the capital of Kuala Lumpur, for example, Chinese still make up 40% of the population. And not only are they a large minority, but they are a particularly wealthy one. In much of Asia, Chinese populations serve the role that Jews had served in Europe. They were the bankers and the merchants, they're particularly entrepreneurial, and as a consequence particularly wealthy. And just as in Europe, they stirred up jealousy, resentment, and frequent repression and programs. So you have this large minority population, who people resent anyway, and they are ethnically tied to a large communist country. So in some ways, communism was seen as a Chinese influence in Malaysia in the same way that some people said that communism was a Jewish plot in Europe and the United States. And so for some ethnic malaise, their opposition to communism was also a way to express some ethnic resentments against ethnic Chinese living in Malaysia. So this roundup of Operation Cold Store is a gesture of good faith from Lee Kuan Yew to say, "Look, we're not communists, even though we're majority Chinese. And if you let us into Malaysia, we will be good citizens, and we will help you keep communism in check and we'll behave ourselves." So look, admittedly, I'm not a big fan of communism, but I don't see Operation Cold Front as this fascist crackdown on opposition and civil society. I see it as a necessary step to getting Singapore orderly and secure. But if you read leftist accounts of the history of Singapore, you will sometimes see this highlighted as an egregious violation of human rights. In any case, it assuages the fears of the malaise enough to let Singapore into a united Malaysia, which forms in 1963, and Lee Kuan Yew is sort of the mastermind of getting Singapore into this united Malaysia. Now, there is a fissure in the government right from the beginning. People like Lee Kuan Yew want a Malaysia that is for Malaysians, that is, people of any race, as long as they are citizens of Malaysia. And he thinks that all these people should have more or less equal rights and a stake in this new nation. But the dominant Malay parties want to see a Malaysia that is principally run by and run for ethnic Malays, who are the majority. They think, you know, we're the native inhabitants of this land, and we should have special privileges. So Lee Kuan Yew is willing to go along with this actually to a certain degree. He concedes that the top levels of the government will always be staffed by Malays. He agrees to fewer seats in Parliament than Singapore would have had based solely on their population, so that Malays will be overrepresented in ethnic Chinese underrepresented in the legislature for Malaysia. But ultimately, he and the other leaders from Singapore expect the nation to slowly move toward a secular democracy that treats its citizens more or less equal regardless of race. But that doesn't happen at all, and for the next two years, ethnic tensions actually increase, and the Malaysian government seeks to marginalize its Chinese citizens more and more. Finally, this breaks down in 1965, both sides come to understand that there is no way forward. One side wants a Malaysia, for all Malaysian citizens, the other side wants a nation that is fundamentally designed to serve ethnic interests of Malays. And this included things like ethnic quotas in government and special privileges for Malays. And so there are negotiations between Lee Kuan Yew and the chief minister of Malaysia, a guy named Tunku, or the Tunku. And finally, on August 9, 1965, Malaysian Parliament voted 126 to zero to expel Singapore from the country. At 10am, Lee Kuan Yew reads out on the radio in Singapore, "Whereas it is the inalienable right of a people to be free and independent, I Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister of Singapore, do hereby proclaim and declare on behalf of the people and the government of Singapore, the as from today, the 9th day of August in the year 1965, Singapore shall be forever a sovereign, democratic and independent nation, founded upon the principles of liberty and justice and ever seeking the wealthier and happiness of her people in a more just and equal society." At the same time, the Tunku explains to Parliament in Malaysia, "In the end, we find that there are only two courses open to us, to take repressive measures against the Singapore government or their leaders for the behavior of some of their leaders, and the course of action we are taking now, to sever with the state government of Singapore that has ceased to give a measure of loyalty to the central government." So, they announced at the same time they're separating, "In his public address, Lee Kuan Yew actually breaks down crying and has to stop for 20 minutes to gather his composure." And this was not posturing, this was actually not seeing that as like an impressive thing for Lee Kuan Yew, especially Chinese culture at the time, kind of valued machismo, manliness. It was not, yeah, it was kind of looked down on to cry publicly. But he was crying simply because unification had been, well, he thought would be his signature issue for his life. And he was the man who got Singapore into Malaysia. And now that was gone. He felt like his life work was going down the drain. And so he's completely devastated. And in the short time of negotiations, he has tried to take some actions to prepare Singapore for independence. But still, the country is completely unprepared. He writes, "Some countries are born independent, some achieve independence. Singapore had independence thrust upon it." So, in 1965, Lee Kuan Yew finds himself the prime minister of an independent nation, one with no military, no hinterland, no way of feeding itself, no independent access to fresh water. And to make matters worse, they were now surrounded by larger neighbors who were upset at them and wanted to punish them for their insolence. So, he and his colleagues are going to have to figure out everything, the nuts and bolts of the government from the bottom to the top. You're just going to have to solve everything for themselves. Before we see how Lee Kuan Yew would manage this newfound independence, let's take a minute to hear about founders. Founders is one of the only podcasts that I always listen to when it comes out. It's like how to take over the world, but foreign about great founders of companies. The host David Centra has read hundreds of biographies at this point, and he is just so good at teasing out common lessons from the greatest to ever do it. He recently did an episode on how Elon Musk works, and it was just fantastic. If you are or aspire to be a founder, you have to check him out. So go check it out that his founders wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Gaines & Bulk. I study great performance for a living, from conquerors to tennis champions, and as you might imagine, I am always trying to lock in my own Pete performance. And in that pursuit, the only supplement that I take every single day is Instant Ties Criatine from Gaines & Bulk. Instant Ties Criatine is the only form of Criatine that is water soluble, that means no chalky taste, no bloat, no water retention like you get with some other Criatines. So give it a try, you won't regret it. I really believe that Criatine is one of the only supplements you can really trust to improve not only your performance in the gym and your athletic performance, but also your mental performance and mental clarity. So check it out that is Gaines & Bulk. You can find them at Gaines & Bulk.com and use code Ben for 20% off. Okay, so they're in the situation, Lee Kwan you refers to Independence Singapore as a heart without a body. It's an incredibly difficult spot for an independent nation. The Malaysians would like to have them back on their own terms. The Chinese would like to see them become Communists, the Americans would like to see them become anti-communist. Achieving true independence was going to be a tall task. And the first thing that Lee Kwan you had to figure out as Prime Minister was internal and external security. So he made sure to reach an agreement with the United Kingdom regarding the continuance of their naval base in Singapore for a few more years is provided security as well as much needed economic activity and employment. In the meantime, he starts beefing up Singapore's security services. And he's doing this in order to make Singapore dangerous enough. Okay, their population is so small, they're never going to be able to stand up to China, Malaysia, Indonesia. So that's not what he's trying to do. He's not trying to, you know, be a near peer to China or Indonesia. Obviously. What he's looking to do is be dangerous enough that it's not worth anyone's time to mess with them. So he looks to the example of Israel. Israel has mass conscription. Everyone has to join the army and do service when they reach a certain age and they have to be prepared to volunteer in a national emergency. So from this, they're able to put together a respectable defensive force from a small population. And so he doesn't just use them as an example. He has the Israelis come and help train up their army from the ground up. And by the way, the Israelis are of course deeply unpopular with Singapore's Muslim neighbors of Malaysian Indonesia because, you know, Muslim Jew, whatever. Okay. And so he says that they're Mexican. And he actually says in the book, they were swarming enough to pull it off. So he says that these are Mexican consultants come to train their military, which was a good fig leaf to use for a little bit. But by doing this, he's able to maintain Singapore's independence. There were. Western aligned, non-communist. They do eventually align with the United States. Lequon U supports the Vietnam War, especially 'cause I'm thinking about it from his perspective, right? If communism just keeps growing and growing in Asia, it's only gonna be a matter of time before it overtakes Singapore. So he's glad to see a check on communism and Vietnam, so it doesn't keep spreading. You know, essentially, yes, the British leave, they pick up stakes and get rid of their naval base. The United States does eventually establish a naval base in the same place. Technically, the US doesn't have a naval base there. They just rent land and park an aircraft carrier there. But I mean, for all intents and purposes, there is a United States naval base in Singapore. But despite this, Singapore does have a large measure of independence. And you see this when the CIA actually tries to bribe Lequon U and he thinks it's for a laughably small amount of money and he rejects it. But again, he's able to do this. He's able to maintain its independence, like yes, Western aligned, but not Western controlled. They really can't control their foreign policy. He's able to do this because he makes them what he calls the poisonous shrimp of Asia. He has a speech where he says, "The way of the world is that big fish eat little fish and little fish eat shrimp." And his job is to make Singapore a poisonous shrimp. In other words, no one's not big enough to eat anyone else or even to stand up to one of the bigger fish. But it can make itself dangerous enough that it's not worth eating. Then he did that. Singapore is strong enough that no one wants to bother them. Internally, even after Operation Cold Store, the biggest problem was still communists. There were threats of assassination against him and he had to beef up his security and totally get his house remodeled and put both proof glass in his personal home. I was really touching go for a couple of years there, but he does manage to suppress communism within Singapore and get it internally secure as well. One of the reasons this is so difficult is because he has to be delicate about it because for many of the ethnic Chinese, China is a source of pride. And the fact that they were this communist country was a source of pride, especially because they weren't in China. And so they couldn't see what was happening. They couldn't see the devastation of the cultural revolution and the horrible economic policies and the repression, all they see is the propaganda coming out of it, which is this is the way of the future. We're doing great. Our five year outputs are better than ever. And so yeah, they're proud of this. And so he has to, on the one hand, totally repress communism. And on the other hand, seem sympathetic to the people who view this as a source of ethnic pride. And by the way, if we go on, he was not a communist, what is he? He starts as kind of a center left, a labor style socialist, I think. But he doesn't even really hold to that. Here's what he says about his ideology. Quote, "We learned on the job and learned quickly. If there was one formula for our success, it was that we were constantly studying how to make things work or how to make them work better. I was never a prisoner of any theory. What guided me were reason and reality. The acid test I applied to every theory or scheme was, would it work? This was the golden thread that ran through my years in office. If it did not work or the results were poor, I did not waste more time and resources on it. I almost never made the same mistake twice. And I tried to learn from those mistakes others had made. I discovered early in office that there were few problems confronting the end government, which other governments had not met and solved. So I made a practice of finding out who else had met the problem we faced, how they had tackled it, and how successful they had been. Whether it was to build a new airport or to change our teaching methods, I would send a team of officers to visit and study those countries that had done it well. I preferred to climb on the shoulders of others who had gone before us." He also later said about his ideology, "I would describe myself in perhaps European terms as between socialist and conservative. I would put myself as a liberal as someone who believes in equal opportunities so that everybody gets an equal chance to do his best, and with a certain compassion to ensure that the failures do not fall through the floor. I want to run the system as efficiently as possible, but make allowances for those who will not be doing well because nature did not give them enough or they cannot make that extra effort. I am a liberal in the classical sense of the word in that I am not fixated on a particular theory of the world or of society. I am pragmatic. I am prepared to look at the problem and say, all right, what is the best way to solve it that will produce the maximum happiness and well-being for the maximum number of people? My life is not guided by philosophy or theories. I get things done and leave others to extract the principles for my successful solutions. I do not work on theory, instead I ask what will make this work. If after a series of solutions, I find that a certain approach worked, then I try to find what the principle was behind the solution." Yeah, so he calls himself sort of, I don't know, maybe like a radical centrist, a classical liberal is how he describes it. I would say some of his policies are kind of eclectic. Most of his policies maybe were right-wing, I would say, that includes lower taxes, a mostly free market, a strong emphasis on law and order with strong penalties for anti-social crimes, including the death penalty for major drug dealing, and fines for even minor infractions like public urination, chewing gum and public, failing to keep your home well-capped and stuff like that. For the argument that he governed more from the left, are the fact that he gave a fair shake to unions. He definitely favored controls on the free market and wanted to make sure it served the nation. And though he opposed socialized medicine, he did allow for a strong social safety net. The, the, there are kind of policies from all over, I will say, as time went on, he tilted right. For example, initially, he bought into racial equality somewhat, but that started to change almost immediately. It's one of his biggest critiques of the West is that he doesn't believe in equality of the races and believes that such thinking is fanciful. And as he would describe it, obviously, false. In the Singapore story, he writes, "He was only after I had been in office for some years, that I recognized that performance varied substantially between the different races in Singapore and among different categories within the same race. After trying out a number of ways to reduce inequalities and failing, I was gradually forced to conclude that the decisive factors were the people, their natural abilities, education and training." And then later, he says, "One of the facts of living is that no two things are ever equal, either in smallness or in bigness. Living things are never equal. Even in the case of identical twins, one comes out before the other and takes precedence over the other. So does with human beings, so does with tribes, and so does with nations. Human beings are not more than equal. They are highly competitive. Systems like Soviet and Chinese communism have failed because they tried to equalize benefits. Then nobody works hard enough, but everyone wants to get as much as, if not more than, the other person. I started off believing all men and women are equal. I now know that is the most unlikely thing ever to have been because millions of years have passed over evolution. People have scattered across the face of this earth, been isolated from each other, developed independently, had different intermixtures between races, peoples, climate, soils. This is something which I have read, and I tested against my observations. We read many things. The fact that it is in print and repeated by three or four authors does not make it true. They may all be wrong, but through my own experience, I concluded, yes, there is a difference." And so, yeah, like if you look at the highest levels of Singaporean government, under Lee Kuan Yew, there are some Indians, there are some malaise, but it is overwhelmingly people of Chinese descent who fill those top positions. People of Chinese descent make more money, have better social outcomes, and that just never bothered him. He did do some things, especially for malaise. I think he felt like, since they were, the most native had the longest history in Singapore, they deserved some special attention. But he just didn't let himself get bothered, or fall into social justice stuff, try and remedy all of these racial inequities. He just said, "Yeah." Basically, he just squared that circle by saying, "I think the Chinese are brighter, and therefore we do better." And he just left it at that, and people have gone with it. There's not a whole lot of ethnic unrest in Singapore, even though social outcomes are different. So that's just one visible way, in which he has swung right word. Another way is also in family planning, family relations, and he starts off, Singapore had a very high fertility rate, and they actually have some family planning initiatives to try and bring down the fertility rate, and then the rest of the developed world, it just completely crashes. And so then, he becomes old grandpa Lee, and he's trying to encourage women to not put off child bearing for the sake of a career education. And so that's another way in which, he's very, you heard what he said about the equality of the sexist, right? And he actually starts off early in his career, encouraging women to go and work and get education, but then later in his career, he encourages them to stay home, have children, support their families in that way. So he does shift right word over the course of his career. I guess, let me just sum up the rest of his career, and then I'll go over some more of the finer points of how he got hurt Singapore. So he's prime minister of independent Singapore for 25 years, from 1965 until 1990. He made a new office for himself in 1990, what he called senior minister, which he served in from 1990 until 2004. And while he was senior minister, he didn't maintain day-to-day control of the government, but he could use his popularity and reputation and influence to come in and fix or change anything he thought needed fixing. And then from 2004 to 2011, he served as what was called minister mentor, which was an even more removed version of senior minister. He was married to the same woman for his entire life, he had three, three children and his oldest son, Lee Shenloon. I think I pronounced him that right. Succeeded him as Prime Minister of Singapore. He's actually the, someone else came in between and he was the third Prime Minister. And that actually happened during Likuan used lifetime. Likuan actually died in 2015. Okay, so that's the broad overview of his career. But, you know, what actually happened? How did he take Singapore from third world to first as he put it? I would put his accomplishments in the following buckets. Number one, the talk about is economic growth. That's probably the number one thing people point at and it is really remarkable. Singapore went through three more or less successful transitions since independence. So it starts off when he takes over Singapore. It is the ontopo as the word they always use for the Malaysian peninsula. Entrepreneur just means it's where things come in and out. It's a major hub, major port. This is basically the way to think of it. But that's no longer the case once they're no longer a part of Malaysia, which is really difficult. So they have to switch suddenly to being a manufacturing hub. Okay, this is, you know, 1960s, 70s, 80s. This is when, I mean, still everything is manufactured in Asia. But at the time, this was really just starting up and China was still communist. People weren't manufacturing stuff in China. So Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Singapore all become major manufacturing hubs. I might have missed one or two. And so he does a very good job of turning Singapore into a big manufacturing hub first. From there, you know, he can see that, okay, this is good, but we can't really make ourselves rich off of this. It's highly competitive on price. And so he moves Singapore to becoming a financial center next. And so it becomes a major finance and banking center it's essentially London or New York for when London and New York are closed. It's like the first along with Tokyo, but maybe even for a while more so than Tokyo, the major financial center of Asia is the second transition that's made. And then the third transition, which is still ongoing, is to transition from a financial center to a knowledge economy powerhouse. Okay, and I would say this last transition has been the most tenuous and the most difficult for a number of reasons. And so how does he do this? Well, when he first starts out, he really needs investment, he needs employment, he needs people to bring their manufacturing to Singapore. And the first thing he does is when he's asking for that investment, he shows strength and he doesn't go begging, okay? So he writes, quote, "On my first official visit to America in October 1967, I recounted to 50 businessmen at a luncheon in Chicago how Singapore had grown from a village of 120 fishermen in 1819 to become a metropolis of two million. This was because its philosophy was to provide goods and services cheaper and better than anyone else or perish. They responded well because I was not putting my hand out for aid, which they had come to expect of leaders from newly independent countries. I noted their favorable reaction to my no begging bowl approach." Okay? So I think that's a smart approach. Even though he really does need the help, he's not begging. And that shows confidence. And makes more people want to invest. Okay? The next point to highlight is that extreme consistency breeds trust. When Singapore becomes a major financial center, a major British investor is found to have committed fraud. And so the question is, the prosecute or not the prosecute because this guy is a major trader for a big London bank. He's a British national. And on the one hand, you want there to be law and order, but on the other hand, this is a guy with a big bank and you want to be in good with the big banks and be in good with Wall Street and with the city of London. And so he kind of agonizes over, do we prosecute this guy? But he decides, no, we really need consistency. And if we're going to be a big financial hub then people have to trust that we enforce the rules fairly. And so he prosecutes this guy to the full extent of the law. He later writes in Third World I, if I have to choose one word to explain why Singapore succeeded, it is confidence. Okay? And he instilled that confidence by being very, very consistent. You know, another way in which he was consistent was with corruption. Just absolute zero toleration for corruption. And that included prosecuting close friends for relatively minor infractions. And I think a lesser leader might not have been willing to prosecute that, but he knew he needed to instill that confidence and he could only do it through like extreme consistency in enforcement of the rules. You know, there's a long way away. This is a tiny Asian country asking for investment from big Western economies. And so if they couldn't trust him, then it was all going to fall apart. And I would say another feature of their economic progress has been flexibility. So yes, consistency, but add to that flexibility because he didn't have this all worked out in advance. He didn't know all these various transitions the economy was going to make. He says, quote, looking back, I cannot claim that our economic development and industrialization worked out as we had planned. The early plans before separation were made on the assumption of a common market with Malaysia. He doesn't see all this stuff in the beginning. They just kind of have to accept opportunities as they come and pivot when they have to. As Steve Jobs says, you can only connect the dots looking backwards. You don't want to make complicated multi-step plans. You just want to accept opportunities as they come. And then the other thing I will say about all these transitions and succeeding economically is that it wasn't like it was just all smooth from 1965 until the present. There have been a number of economic crises, difficulties. However, if you communicate and get buy-in, then crises benefit you rather than destroying you. Okay, here's what Lee Kwon U writes, the deep sense of crisis that prevailed made it possible for me to turn around union attitudes in a few years. The dangers of an economic collapse because British forces were about to leave altered people's mood and attitudes. They realized that unless we made a U-turn from strikes and violence towards stability and economic growth, we would perish. Okay, and so it's because he has this vision for economic growth, stability, a different kind of economy that this crisis strengthens him rather than weaken him. For most politicians, a crisis weakens you. A crisis makes it more difficult to lead and you're more likely to get voted out. But when you have a plan, when you have vision, crises are actually an opportunity to consolidate, to build power. As Napoleon says, "Imagination rules the world." As Steve Jobs says, "The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller." The storyteller sets division values and agenda. Okay, so that's all one big bucket. Is there's a ton of economic progress under Lee Kwon U. It goes from, you know, I do think it's maybe talking himself up a little bit to say from third world to first. Certainly that's GDP per capita. If you look at that, it tells that story. Having said that, you know, it was a relatively prosperous British colony before that. They had left it in a pretty good place for him. Anyway, yes, economically, Singapore develops and does extremely well over the decades under Lee Kwon U. Okay, number two, social progress. Okay, the administration of Lee Kwon U and his successor sees the virtual elimination of severe poverty from Singapore, which had been very common. You know, I think of it as like a little fishing village. Yes, it was a port, but port cities are often chaotic. It was chaotic. There were a lot of drugs, a lot of gambling, a lot of prostitution, just a lot of the social ills that you see from chaotic, growing port cities. But now again, there's been the virtual elimination of severe poverty, very good health outcomes and a very efficient healthcare system, extremely low crime rates, which have been accomplished through a series of fines and a very harsh, frankly, criminal justice system that doesn't use jury trials. Actually, we talked about that earlier that he had been a lawyer argued in front of juries and one trial that he thought he shouldn't have. And so now Singapore uses judicial rulings instead. Corporal punishment is used. People are sometimes cained in addition to jail time or sometimes instead of jail time. So yeah, it's maybe harsh from a certain perspective. However, crime rates are extremely low in Singapore. Also on the note of social progress, comfortable modern housing is provided for all Singaporeans at least somewhat affordable price, even though obviously real estate is expensive in the city of Singapore. And then also on social progress, there's been an easing of ethnic tensions, which previously leek on you. He had these three distinct communities. The cost of this is that he has virtually destroyed some of these smaller ethnic communities and a lot of the cohesion they had. So that's the price. But there aren't the same ethnic tensions. That there have been in that there are in other similar parts of Asia. So we've had economic development, social progress. Number three, beautifying the city. If you go to Singapore, there's virtually no litter. No chewed gum on the sidewalks, chewing gum is illegal. There's no graffiti. There's no urine. There are virtually no homeless people. It's clean. The buildings are well-capped. There's very little public decay or dirtiness. Yes, he created a green city with tons of beautiful trees and flowers and landscaping. He's actually his first motto for the transition he wanted to make was a clean and green Singapore. That's what everyone rallied around. He actually later said, "Greening is the most cost-effective project I have launched." And Singapore is a very green city now. And because of that, I would say the architecture, it looks modern, it looks nice, but it's uninspiring if you ask me. However, the greenery is really beautiful and they've done a remarkable job for that. And I do think that's one of the most impressive things that he has done visually to the city. So beautifying the city's number three, number four, this could go with that. I'll put it in its own. And that is the airport, Cheng-Yi Airport, its name is the most beautiful airport in the world. I don't even know what would come in second. Like, you can go look up pictures of it. It's got this huge water feature in the middle. It's got these gardens and this beautiful greenery and it's got all these amenities. And his Cheng-Yi Airport has been voted the best airport in the world, 12 times in a row. And he put all this investment into it to make it beautiful, to make it functional because it's a huge welcome mat for Singapore. You show up in this beautiful airport and you think, "Okay, what is this place?" And so it helps to attract foreign talent to Singapore. And it's just a remarkable jewel of a place. I guess related to that, number five, public transportation. Singapore is a very dense, crowded city. It's very small. And at one point this led to huge traffic jams, just complete stoppage. You couldn't even get around the city. But through clever construction of roads, bus lanes, rail and through public planning, traffic is now quite manageable. There are still traffic jams like there is in any major city, but compared to other nearby cities like Manila or Jakarta, it's very manageable. And so his management of public transportation infrastructure has been remarkable. And then for number six, I would just say other public infrastructure. So as I said, Singapore used to be a very dirty place. Tons of litter was a huge problem. Very dirty ocean and river, people just threw trash everywhere. But garbage services have been improved significantly. As I said, at the beginning, they didn't have their own fresh water. That has been a huge public infrastructure accomplishment that Singapore now does have access to their own fresh water. So they're not dependent on Malaysia. It can't be cut off at another nation's whim. They have used land reclamation to create more space. It's actually not land reclamation. It's more like land creation. They have created new islands and new land to build on. And so that is, I guess, in some what he has accomplished. It's really remarkable. I think some people, let me make the opposite case. The opposite case is this. Singapore was, yes, it was poor and dirty and yes, it had crime and yes, it was politically unstable in 1965 when it took over. But it also describes places like Korea and Taiwan and Hong Kong, which have all been successful in ways similar to Singapore. And it had a great location on a major shipping lane with a big port and a great history of free trade and low taxes created by the British. So, Lee Kwon, he was handed pocket aces and yeah, he did well, but not that hard. Look, I mean, Hong Kong did it, Taiwan did it, Korea did it. It's not that impressive. Okay. And I hear that case and I think sometimes he is a little flippant when he says third world to first. But that's just the title. Actually, I think he does give a lot of credit to the British who left a wonderful legacy for Singapore. But here's why Singapore is different from Hong Kong and Taiwan and Korea. First of all, Taiwan and Korea are, I mean, I know Taiwan is an island. It is a much, much larger island than Singapore, much, much larger. It's just completely different. Korea and Taiwan can have a hinterland or self-sufficient lands. Like they're not tiny, tiny, tiny city states that are surrounded by these huge larger neighbors. So they're both much larger and the two of them are much more propped up by the United States, especially the American military, keep significant forces in Korea to help control the DMZ between North and South Korea. And similarly, Taiwan has all these connections to the United States because the US wants to keep it out of communist China's hands. When it comes to Hong Kong, yes, that is a very apt comparison. But there's one big, big difference, which is Singapore in 1965 finds itself suddenly out of a job. You know, it had been the ontrapo, the place of embarkation, disembarkation for the Malaysian peninsula. And that's what Hong Kong was for China. The main difference is that Hong Kong could continue to be that for China and Singapore could not. You know, Hong Kong didn't have that issue of being cut off from its historical role. And so in that way, yes, I mean, you could look at Hong Kong. So yeah, it's had similar outcomes to Singapore. But it wasn't in a similarly difficult position. And the other thing I would say is that a big part of what Lee Kuan Yew did was make sure that Singapore had an independent future, which is not something that Hong Kong has anymore now that is being absorbed into China. And so that is a remarkable accomplishment. And so yes, I do think it is an amazing, incredible transformation of someone who has, in many ways, created, if not a nation, then at least this city state from scratch. I mean, I just can't think of anyone quite like him in the 20th century. There have been other great leaders, of course. I'm not saying that he's the greatest leader of the 20th century necessarily, but just that there's no one who has done something quite like what he has done. He is unique. He's a one of one. And that's difficult to figure that out from scratch, but he has. I'll end with this quote that I think just kind of sums up what mattered to him and what he accomplished. He said, I have no regrets. I've spent my life so much of it building up this country. There's nothing more that I need to do. At the end of the day, what have I got? A successful Singapore. What have I given up my life? So I'll leave it there for free listeners. I actually have a ton more quotes. He's very quotable. He's very fun to listen to. So if you want to hear his thoughts on leadership and organization, how to run an organization in a country, I'll have even more takeaways and more quotes after this. That is for premium subscribers. So if you would like to subscribe, go to takeoverpod.supercast.com or if you're listening on Apple podcasts, you can go ahead and subscribe in app. Okay. I'll wrap it up there. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, thanks for listening to How To Take Over the World. 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