Remember Goh Cock Chok Tong’s tots about building 5G leaders? This cock talk had me laughing because he (and his DPM, one Lee Hsien Loong) cocked up Dr Goh’s economic framework that took a lot from the Germans:
The Germans have a name for their unique economic framework: ordoliberalism. Its origins are perfectly legitimate – a response of Germany’s liberal elites to the breakdown of liberal democracy in 1933. It was born out of the observation that unfettered liberal systems are inherently unstable, and require rules and government intervention to sustain themselves. The job of the government was not to correct market failures but to set and enforce rules.
[…]
The ordoliberal world view is asymmetric. Current account surpluses are considered more acceptable than deficits. Since the rules are based on national law, ordoliberals do not care about their impact on the rest of the world. When they adopted the euro, the rest of the world suddenly did start to matter.
FT
As a very junior officer in the central bank, it was clear to me that Dr Goh tot
The job of the government was not to correct market failures but to set and enforce rules.
Cock Goh and Lee Jnr aided and abetted by people like Tharman (ang moh tua kees’ think the sun shines from his black ass) moved to a pseudo market economy where
Current account surpluses are considered more acceptable than deficits.
And where GLCs dominated the economy, sometimes wayanging against one another (think telcos).
To be fair, I think they were, and are, not cynically conning S’poreans. They really believed in their version of the mkt economy.
Coming back to Dr Goh, Dr Goh was really ordoliberal not socialist nor free market liberal. That was how he made S’pore great. The 2G, 3G and 4G leaders remain clueless on what made S’pore great.
[The folowing was added at 1.35pm]
As I wrote
For all their academic brilliance Ah Loong and team have not advanced beyond tinkering with the framework that Dr Goh Keng Swee, Hon Swee Sen and Albert Winsemius devised. Evolution is fine to a point. But surely the world has undergone revolutionary change. When they were constructing their model of serving MNCs as a path to grow the economy, serving MNCs was “neo-colonialism”. Today even Red China serves as as the MNCs’ factory.
Related posts
— Dr Goh’s HK counterpart had similar views on MRT and other major issues
— Why S’pore industrialised in the 60s
— SG50: Three cheers for Goh Keng Swee
Thoughts of a Cynical Investor 
[…] He was ordoliberal (An economic theory that originated in the Rhineland. It’s a reason for Germany’s continued economic success), even if he didn’t realise it, not socialist nor free market liberal. That was how he made S’pore great: Why S’pore’s economic progress went downhill after Dr Goh retired […]