Commanding Heights: Interview
<i>Lee Kuan Yew
(b. 1923)
The first officially elected prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew served in office from 1959-1990.He is also widely recognized as the founding father of modern Singapore. During three decades in which Lee held office, Singapore grew from being a developing country to one of the most developed nations in Asia.With his successive ministerial positions spanning over 50 years, Lee is also one of history's longest-serving ministers.</i>
INTERVIEWER: Around the same time you were in England, there was the election of a Labor government and the desire of the government to take control over the commanding heights. There's a lot of appeal in the idea of a mixed economy.
LEE KUAN YEW:When I was a student there [in England] in the 1940s, one day they passed the National Health Service Act. I went to the optician to pay for my pair of glasses and the optician said -- this was in Regent Street in Cambridge -- he says, "No, sir, you just sign here." He gave me a form; I signed -- free glasses, free dentists, free doctors. After a while it threatened to go broke, so they put a prescription charge -- 20 shillings or five shillings, I can't remember -- a token charge just to keep the prices down. At one time even the French used to come over for their spectacles and dentures, and they stopped that.
Subsequently it was quite obvious it didn't work. These are scarce resources. You've only got a limited number of top-class surgeons or doctors, and if you promise everybody that they are entitled to the same treatment, it's just not practical. So the system malfunctions, [but] they can't dismantle it now because it's too popular; it's gone into the national psyche.
INTERVIEWER: Why did that model of a mixed economy have such appeal throughout the developing world?
LEE KUAN YEW: It's got an appeal even now in the developed world. Why not? You give the vote; I will deliver. I promise you this, so vote for me. You've got the French, the Germans -- they've also gotten into this welfare business, and it's tough cutting back, because once you've given it, cutting back means losing votes. It's a problem.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitextlo/int_leekuanyew.html
This guy experienced the birth of European socialism first hand and saw it's failure yet fools like Obama want to repeat it....
<i>Lee Kuan Yew
(b. 1923)
The first officially elected prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew served in office from 1959-1990.He is also widely recognized as the founding father of modern Singapore. During three decades in which Lee held office, Singapore grew from being a developing country to one of the most developed nations in Asia.With his successive ministerial positions spanning over 50 years, Lee is also one of history's longest-serving ministers.</i>
INTERVIEWER: Around the same time you were in England, there was the election of a Labor government and the desire of the government to take control over the commanding heights. There's a lot of appeal in the idea of a mixed economy.
LEE KUAN YEW:When I was a student there [in England] in the 1940s, one day they passed the National Health Service Act. I went to the optician to pay for my pair of glasses and the optician said -- this was in Regent Street in Cambridge -- he says, "No, sir, you just sign here." He gave me a form; I signed -- free glasses, free dentists, free doctors. After a while it threatened to go broke, so they put a prescription charge -- 20 shillings or five shillings, I can't remember -- a token charge just to keep the prices down. At one time even the French used to come over for their spectacles and dentures, and they stopped that.
Subsequently it was quite obvious it didn't work. These are scarce resources. You've only got a limited number of top-class surgeons or doctors, and if you promise everybody that they are entitled to the same treatment, it's just not practical. So the system malfunctions, [but] they can't dismantle it now because it's too popular; it's gone into the national psyche.
INTERVIEWER: Why did that model of a mixed economy have such appeal throughout the developing world?
LEE KUAN YEW: It's got an appeal even now in the developed world. Why not? You give the vote; I will deliver. I promise you this, so vote for me. You've got the French, the Germans -- they've also gotten into this welfare business, and it's tough cutting back, because once you've given it, cutting back means losing votes. It's a problem.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitextlo/int_leekuanyew.html
This guy experienced the birth of European socialism first hand and saw it's failure yet fools like Obama want to repeat it....
