People's Action Party - Ideology

Ideology

Since the early years of the PAP's rule, the idea of survival has been a central theme of Singaporean politics. According to Diane Mauzy and R.S. Milne, most analysts of Singapore have discerned four major "ideologies" of the PAP: pragmatism, meritocracy, multiracialism, and Asian values or communitarianism. In January 1991 the PAP introduced the White Paper on Shared Values, which tried to create a national ideology and institutionalize Asian values. The party also says it has 'rejected' what it considers Western-style liberal democracy. Some contest this, pointing to the presence of many aspects of liberal democracy in Singapore's public policy, specifically the welfare state and recognition of democratic institutions. Professor Hussin Mutalib, however, opines that for Lee Kuan Yew "Singapore would be better off without liberal democracy".

The party economic ideology has always accepted the need for some welfare spending, pragmatic economic interventionism and general Keynesian economic policy. However, free-market policies have been popular since the 1980s as part of the wider implementation of a meritocracy in civil society, and Singapore frequently ranks extremely highly on indices of "economic freedom" published by economically liberal organisations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Lee Kuan Yew has also said in 1992: "Through Hong Kong watching, I concluded that state welfare and subsidies blunted the individual's drive to succeed. I watched with amazement the ease with which Hong Kong workers adjusted their salaries upwards in boom times and downwards in recessions. I resolved to reverse course on the welfare policies which my party had inherited or copied from British Labour Party policies."

The party is deeply suspicious of communist political ideologies, despite a brief joint alliance (with the pro-labour co-founders of the PAP who were falsely accused of being communists) against colonialism in Singapore during the party's early years. It has since considered itself a social democratic party, though in recent decades it has moved towards neoliberal and free-market economy reforms.

The socialism practiced by the PAP during its first few decades in power was of a pragmatic kind, as characterised by the party’s rejection of nationalisation. According to Chan Heng Chee, by the late Seventies, the intellectual credo of the government rested explicitly upon a philosophy of self-reliance, similar to the “rugged individualism” of the America brand of capitalism. Despite this, the PAP still claimed to be a socialist party, pointing out its regulation of the private sector, activist intervention in the economy, and social policies as evidence of this. In 1976, however, the PAP resigned from the Socialist International after the Dutch Labour Party had proposed to expel the party, accusing it of suppressing freedom of speech.

The PAP symbol is similar to the old Flash and Circle used by the British Union of Fascists under Sir Oswald Mosley, and later under Mosley's Union Movement. The meaning assigned to these symbols is also similar. The BUF and UM version (which was white and blue on red) was supposed to represent "the flash of action inside the circle of unity", while the PAP symbol (which is red and blue on white) stands for action inside "interracial unity". Furthermore, PAP members at party rallies have sometimes worn a "uniform" of white shirts and white trousers.