Political Economy of Singapore's Industrialization

This series provides overviews and case studies of states and sectors, classes and companies in the new international division of labour. These embrace political economy as both focus and mode of analysis. The series treats polity-economy dialects at global, regional and national levels and examines novel contradictions and coalitions between and within each. There is a special emphasis on national bourgeoisies and capitalisms, on newly industrializing or influential countries and on novel strategies and technologies. The concentration throughout is on uneven patterns of power and production, authority and distribution, hegemony and reaction. Attention is paid to redefinitions of class and security, basic needs and self-reliance and the range of critical analysis includes gender, population, resources, environment, militarization, food and finance. This particular volume looks at the industrialization of Singapore and challenges the dominant understanding of Singapore as a case where "correct" policies have made rapid industrialization possible and raises questions about the possibility and appropriateness of its emulation. The study focuses on the relationship between international capital and the Singapore state. Emphasis is also given to the social and political context of this relationship and specific historical circumstances surrounding it. Within this framework it also becomes possible to reject the popular idea of the Singapore state as a minimalist one and it is argued here that far from Singapore's experience reflecting the undistorted operation of market forces realizing the city-state's comparative advantage, the state has played an important role in helping to define that comparative advantage. Whilst the analysis of this book challenges the partial and inadequate treatment of the state by writers informed by neo-classical economics and rejects the voluntarism of rational choice theory, it also poses questions about radical approaches. apart from examining the various ways in which the state influences the pattern of industrialization, expecially the pattern of investment by international capital, it examines the reasons for the state's behaviour.