The Future of Housing in Singapore - Prelude

The Value of a Human Being
There is an old adage that goes: ‘You can know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.’ However, as most students of free market economics will be able to tell us, the price of a good must be its value, and vice versa. So if goods are to be considered as ‘things’, then at least, we know the value of ‘some things’. We could debate till the cows come home on whether this is true, but I will not do so, because, after all, goods, by definition, are non-living things. Surely, the essence of life is living things, and the essence of society is human beings. What then, is the value of a human being?

Increasingly in today’s globalised and developed world, the value of a human being is represented by his capital worth. The grand aim of economics is to ‘optimize scarce resources.’ If we accept human beings as resources thus, then it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that, the more a person is worth (the greater his price if we all could be bought), the more his value to society is, and vice versa. But are human beings only resources, and nothing else?

I was in Finland in August to attend a student conference on urban planning. We were hosted by the City Planning Office in Helsinki and addressed by one of the City Planners. Despite being half way round the globe, Finland is similar to Singapore in that it has one of the world’s highest GDP per capita. Its population of 5.3 million is comparable to Singapore’s 4.7 million. Economically, it relies heavily on high-technology industries, Nokia being the clearest example. There are obviously, marked differences between both countries with land area being the most obvious. Yet, in terms of density in Helsinki City Centre, the figures are quickly catching up with Singapore.

The lecture on Helsinki’s City Planning was intellectually stimulating, but the one point which most captured my imagination was this: In Helsinki, social housing is planned on the same site as private housing. To put it into Singaporean context, HDB flats are in the same building as private condominiums. Therefore, when developers build private developments, they have to provide for social apartments within the same development. We visited quite a few of such developments and I was amazed at the quality of the apartments. Water-front housing, landscaped open play areas, attractive architectures; the social apartments are on the whole, practically the same as the private ones, and both share a similar open space grounds. The price of a social apartment however, was only 30-40% the price of a similar private apartment! What really puzzled and subsequently amazed me though was: Who pays for the social subsidies?! The answer given was that the state and the developer had to share the costs of these subsidies. Regardless of who bore the brunt of it, the implications were clear in my head, it was an obvious case of the better-off paying for the less well-off. And what then were the better-off in effect paying for? To have the less well-off to be their neighbours!

I thought back to Singapore’s context and I thought, ‘This is impossible here!’ The doctor or banker subsidizing the taxi-driver so that he can be his neighbour?? I had to give further though to it, ‘If it was such an incredible concept in Singapore, why had it worked in Helsinki?’ After an internal elimination process, I came down to one single answer. It has nothing to do with population size, land size or economy type. It simply was that, the Finnish do not judge the value of their peers based on their income earnings. Therefore, while the doctor does not reject a higher earning than a taxi driver, he sees no reason that for something as fundamental as living environment, the taxi driver should have an inferior one to his. Because both the doctor and taxi driver know that both occupations are equally important to the society. This does not go against capitalism however, because it is recognized that the doctor’s job is harder than the taxi-driver’s, the doctor still earns more than the taxi driver, and he will be able to furnish the interior of his house to a standard, beyond which the taxi driver can afford to, and he may own a summer cottage in the woods, and he may own a larger car still!

In a society fuelled by meritocracy however, I wondered to myself, how is it ever possible for a doctor to think that the taxi driver should be his neighbour because of some intrinsic value to society, if all his life, he has been striving to be a doctor so that he doesn’t end up as a taxi driver! I subsequently had a discussion with one of my course mates from China, and he reflected another casual conversation he had in Sweden with a local. He asked the local, ‘Why do you not want to be in the University?’ To his and my amazement, the local said, ‘Only people who like to study go to the University.’ This is Sweden, with one of the highest GDP per capita in the world, and constantly ranks among the top in the HDI; not some backwards developing country.

And a rather ‘shameless thought’ struck me, maybe the base value of a human being should not be his economic ability to contribute to the society, but his effort to contribute to society to the best of his ability? Human beings are born to different opportunities, and therefore, meritocracy is a sure-step forward towards promoting greater individual development. Human beings too though, are born with different potentials and intellect, and therefore, recognition of the inherent value of humans to contribute to society is the next big step forward towards both individual and social development.

Capitalism seeks the optimal maximization of resources. Communism, despite all its attacks on capitalism, seeks ultimately to achieve equality amongst all human beings in what else, but material wealth. Should not we instead however, be seeking to maximize and achieve equality amongst all human beings the endeavor to contribute to society and the wider good? In this world of ours, resources will always be finite and seeking to equalize them will never be efficient, but endeavor will always be infinite and seeking to equalize them will always be efficient.

If so, should we then not reward such an endeavor? The immediate reaction to this is already ringing in my ears, ‘But how do we reward endeavor if we cannot measure it?’ Indeed, we cannot measure endeavor, but who every said that we must measure something before we can reward it? The governance of society to produce societal recognition that the poor and rich should stay together and in similar conditions because both are contributing their best value to society, is in itself, the best form of reward by example and implication.

Amidst the international panic of the financial markets, and the domestic furor of the workers’dormitaries in Serangoon Gardens, perhaps it is truly time for us as a society, to take a step backwards and see who really have contributed to society within the best of their means.

(The above article was published on ST Online Forum on Oct 15 2008, titled 'What a piece of work is man...and meritocracy: Finland and Singapore')