Singapore dream turned sour: How upgrading and a culture of getting ahead became corrosive

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embedded in the idea of the so-called Singapore Dream is intense interpersonal competition. Be the top student in school. Outbid other buyers for that home or car. Be No. 1 in your job. Such notions are inbred in Singaporeans. 

Individual winners may take the top prize but the overall society is worse off when everyone is forced to work too hard to attain even just a participation spot. 

 remains a big pay differential between those with and without a degree, with degree-holders earning 62 per cent more than diploma holders, and twice the amount that those with Institute of Technical Education qualifications make.

There is a tendency in many industralised countries to overvalue cognitive work over those who work with their hands or are in care work. In the 2020 book Head Hand Heart: The Struggle For Dignity And Status In The 21st Century, British writer David Goodhart warned about the over-reach of “cognitive meritocracy”, which has created a system he calls “peak head”. This places those with head skills (cognitive ability) above those with hand and heart skills (those in manual and caring jobs). The result is a lopsided system that over-rewards those with head skills, leaving those with hand and heart skills languishing behind in wages, status and respect, and feeling alienated.

The antidote for such a cognitive-based social system? To value hand and heart work as highly as head work, especially in how they are regarded socially, and to narrow the wage gap between head and other types of work. Narrowing this gap cannot be done by lowering wages for high-skilled cognitive talent, who are mobile and can move to where they are more valued. Instead, it is wages at the median and lower level that have to be levelled up.

This is precisely what Singapore is doing. The ongoing effort to roll out the Progressive Wage Model to more sectors (extended to the food services sector from Wednesday) will have a big impact on raising wages for many tradespeople. Longer term, the move must be to professionalise all jobs so they can be better paid...The antidote to undervaluing heart and hand work and overvaluing head work: Make sure every job is a well-paying job. 

Qn: To what extent should income equality be a goal in your society ?