Transcription
Five decades ago, London was a grimy, sooty, bomb-scarred city. But the people were homogeneous, white Christians, admirable, self-confident, courteous. Britain is now multi-racial, multilingual, multi-religious. Churches are nearly empty on Sundays, while some 500 mosques are filled to capacity on Fridays. In the five decades since I first came to London, so much has changed. From that well-mannered Britain to the yobs and football hooligans of the 1990s took only 40 years. I learned that civilized living does not come about naturally.
In 1946, a young student from Singapore stepped off a train in London and couldn't believe what he was seeing. The city was clean, the people were polite, the society functioned like clockwork. Perhaps the most impressive site I came upon was I when I emerged from the tube station at Piccadilly Circus. I found a little table with a pile of newspapers and a box of coins and notes with nobody in attendance. You take your newspaper, toss your coin into the box or put your ten shilling note and take your change. I took a deep breath. This was truly a civilized people.
But 50 years later, the Lee Kuan Yew would describe London as a cesspool of crime, decay, and social breakdown. And his warnings about Britain's future turned out to be disturbingly accurate. Ironically, today the former British colony has surpassed its master. Singapore, built from a third world slum in 1965, is two times wealthier than the UK per capita and boasts a homicide rate 10 times lower. Furthermore, its efficient health care system is a notable contrast to the UK, where over 7 million patients are stuck on NHS waiting lists. And while Britain battles pervasive anti-immigration protests and churns through six prime ministers in 8 years, Singapore has demonstrated stability, led by just four leaders since its independence.
This is the story of how one of history's greatest empires made a series of choices from the welfare state to immigration that would lead to its inevitable collapse. To understand just how far Britain has fallen, you need to see where it started. In 1946, Lee made his first visit to London. The city was still scarred from the war. Yet, he observed something remarkable, a profound sense of unity and purpose as the people rebuilt. After six exhausting years of bombings and privation, Londoners in the 1940s took great pride in themselves. They were courteous and disciplined. Bomb sites were cleared, the bricks neatly piled to one side, and little makeshift gardens created.
Lee's time in Britain was pivotal. As a young student, he witnessed what an advanced civil society looked like, and personally, he benefited directly, even receiving free glasses through the newly established National Health Service. I was so impressed after the introduction of the National Health Service. When I went to collect my new pair of glasses from my optician in Cambridge, I was told that there was no payment. All I had to do was to sign a form. What a civilized society I sought to myself. He thought it was genius, a society taking care of its people. But he had no idea he was watching the beginning of Britain's slow deaths.
Fast forward to 1996. Lee is no longer a student but the undisputed architect of modern Singapore. Addressing young Singaporeans at Nanyang University, he delivered a brutal verdict on the nation that once inspired him. Enormous problems have cropped up. Social breakdown, slums, urban decay, drugs, you name it. You get mugged on the London underground. You're afraid when you travel into certain tube stations at night. So what happened to Britain in those 50 years? Lee had figured it out by running his own nation, and his conclusion was brutal. The welfare state, the very thing that had impressed him as a student, had become Britain's poison. I did not understand what a cosseted life would do to the spirit of enterprise of a people, diminishing their desire to achieve, to excel, and to succeed, and to create wealth. High motivation, incentives are crucial to drive a people to achieve to take risks for profits or there would be nothing to share.
With spiraling costs from an aging population and a shrinking workforce due to declining births, Britain was trapped and there was only one way out, mass immigration. Lee saw exactly how Britain attempted to mask its structural decline, stating, "You look at the British, how have they kept their economy going because they invite foreign workers in?" The net result is they got a very polyglot community. Now, there have been other significant changes. Britain is now multi-racial, multilingual, multi-religious. Churches are nearly empty on Sundays with many deconsecrated and converted into places of entertainment. While some 500 mosques are filled to capacity on Fridays, the Muslim Sabbath, and so also are many Hindu temples and places of worship of other religions.
While importing cheaper labor offered a quick economic fix, Lee argued that the leaders had failed entirely at the vital task of integration. They imported workers without any plan for how to unite different races, cultures, and religions into a single society. Lee observed, "There are schools that are completely dominated by ethnic minorities because the immigrants have not intermingled. technology have brought different races with divergent religions and cultures into constant interaction and with sometimes unexpected and unhappy outcomes. The result, Britain was losing its national cohesiveness, the post-war unity Lee had witnessed gone. That Britain's today are better off materially than they were is visible everywhere. But that quiet pride and self-confidence, that national cohesiveness that marked out the British people after victory in World War II, that has dissipated.
But it gets worse. While Britain was importing low-skilled workers to keep the welfare state alive, something else was happening. Its best and brightest were leaving. Lee stated, "Half the number of doctors they produce every year are leaving at the very top for America, where American doctors make vast fortunes. So, the British hire Indians, Pakistanis, to fill up their hospitals. Britain invested billions in its best and brightest talent, only for them to instantly flee to lower tax competitors, erasing the nation's innovation capacity and tax base. Domestically, the union crippled manufacturing base was unable to generate new wealth or compete in the global market. Britain was effectively financing its own inability to compete, caught in a vicious spiral of decline.
So why not simply reverse the destructive policies. Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, attempted to save Britain. It took more than three decades of gradual decline before Margaret Thatcher set out to reverse it. to restore individual incentives and the motivation to succeed to encourage risk taking necessary for a successful entrepreneurial economy. But it was too little too late. Even Thatcher with all her political will and conviction couldn't fully reverse decades of welfare dependency. And in a one-man one situation, whatever you give away as a subsidy free, you cannot take back. It's very difficult. If you don't believe me, you watch Mrs. Thatcher. You look at the National Health is growing bigger and bigger. You can't chop it down. There'll be a revolt. So, she's trying to start a second tier, private hospitals, and gradually get people to opt out, tremendous rouse from the public who believe that equal medical treatment now is a sacred birthight.
Lee concluded that in a democracy, no government can cut welfare without getting voted out of office. The British people have become addicted to the system that's slowly destroying them with young people being the most affected. Every election they promise the voter everything that he would like. Free health, unemployment benefits, pensions. Who pays? They never raise taxes Lets amortise over so many years. Which means some future government must raise that money. Right? Net result is you have mortgaged your future.
In his final published book, Lee issued a devastating verdict on Britain and Europe's future. Whether they like it or not, the comfortable and cosseted postwar world they have created for themselves will eventually be done in by external forces. A new social contract will have to be negotiated. Today, Britain still faces exactly the crisis Lee predicted. anti-immigration protests, economic stagnation, brain drain, and a welfare system eating itself alive. I remember enough of the past to regret the passing of that age when power and influence made London throb and hum and count for much more in the affairs of the world.