No to censorship, regulate instead
Have we arrived … at the next stage?
Are we ready, for an open economy for ideas?
The question, is not if we need or want an open economy for ideas. The question is, when will we be ready, if we are not yet.
A quick search on internet with ‘Singapore the most open economy’ will give us the understanding that this island has been ranked highly among the most open economies for international trades and investment, for decades (in fact, it is THE most open economy as seen by Ernst & Young and World Bank in 2010).
Singapore thrives (and survives) on having an open economy. As a (natural) resource-scarce nation from day 1 of independence, we’ve made ourselves useful to other people’s business – so others have been willing to bring in their capital and skills to do business here. By learning to service the needs of these incoming business activities, we’ve become sensitive towards external trending (in order to continue our usefulness and relevance). In that process, we recognized a useful tool – a strong and pro-business regulation. We define the rules clearly and stick to them. It enables transparency and consistency of expected outcome one can get in returns for efforts invested, and lowers risk of unexpected and undesired outcome. Singapore has become a ‘safe bet’ – credibility, reliability and dependability command premiums amidst the world’s chaos. Various market players come, and the market flourishes.
When the global economy moves from production-based economy to information economy (70′s to 90′s) to knowledge economy (21st century), the nature of trades passing through this island has shifted from tangible (e.g. electronics, money) to (increasingly) non-tangible (e.g. ideas, knowledge). Singapore is moving aggressively towards becoming a knowledge-based economy (for those in doubt of this sentence, type ‘Singapore knowledge economy’ in your favourite search engine). Bearing in mind how regulation has served us well in managing the international trades in tangible goods, it is no surprise that we should see evolution of regulation to serve the new trades – of ideas and knowledge. I interpret the establishment of Censorship Review Committee in 2009 as a natural step in this direction.
Being a government led economy for more than 4 decades, it is easy for anyone to take it for granted that a suitable pro-business and strong regulation will be eventually established (by the government) to serve us in the new era.
I see a slight difference. For tangible goods, it is much easy to lay the rules down, such as trading of foods and utilities are welcomed but drugs are prohibited. For intangible goods, it is much more subjective to distinguish between ‘food’ and ‘drugs’ of ideas and knowledge (in some cases, they can be both). Collective consensus is thus more difficult to achieve, and likely more so among individuals having differences in beliefs shaped by cultural and religious influences.
But we must. There is no looking away from it, if we believe our futures lie in Knowledge Economy (or even Innovation Economy). And I like to believe what a friend wrote on his facebook:- ‘government do listen, but we must speak to be heard’. And I really like the work put behind by the Arts Engage group in preparing this paperArtsEngage-CensorshipRegulation(2010) (downloaded from their website).
Go on. Read it.
If you agree with it, like I do, have your say here.
We are not yet ready for an open economy of ideas. And this is not the only step we need.
But it is the first step we need.
