Comments, opinions and an occasional ramble
Media Literacy in Asia: New Developments
There will be an upcoming conference in June by the International Communication Association, and as part of the conference, there are a series of preconferences, of which this one about media literacy in Asia seems pretty interesting: http://www.icahdq.org/conferences/2010/preconference/cam.asp
Note that a registration fee is needed if you are interested to attend.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Aaron Ng on 17/05/2010 at 2:38 pm, and is filed under Others. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 1 year ago
They have written, but for some strange reason it is only featured in Ekunaba.
————
THE PERILS OF TREATING MINIMUM WAGE AS A ‘PRIVILEGE’ AND NOT A ‘RIGHT.’
Recently a certain Prof Hui Weng Tat from the Big Daddy Lee School suggested the Singapore government should seriously consider instituting a minimum wage scheme (MWS) similar to the one scheduled to be rolled out in Hong Kong (SAR).
According to this researcher, a MWS would not only help better regulate the flow of foreign workers into the job market –it may even be able to raise skill levels and assist both workers and employers to move up the value chain.
Sounds like a great idea.
Following this, MOM rolled out a certain Prof Lim Chin who warned: a minimum wage policy would distort market mechanism and also make the market more rigid (sounds like the opening lines of Chapter 6 of the Kamasutra to me!) – though what would get distorted and for how long was not mentioned; neither did Lim Chin elaborate what would ultimately become rigid or remain limp. As some of you may already know there are many things on this planet which regularly distort and become rigid – my underwear for example has a habit of shrinking, my socks do the opposite and get longer with every wash. And coming to think of it some of my body parts even do this on a regular basis; my point is just because things get distorted and become rigid doesn’t mean they have nothing good to offer – get my drift?
To further shore up the idea the MWS was closer to perdition than salvation. MOM went to further reference an obscure Prof John Van Reneen from the London School of Economics; and what was highlighted there again was yet another doggy biscuit of a good for nothing vignette which rattled off like so – the policy of minimum wage generally leads to increases in unemployment yada yada yada yada yada yada yada.
Again no further explanation is provided (by this time the reader has got used to filling up the missing blanks).
What’s missing from both these nano bite capers is of course context and scale.
Context in so far as while most economist would probably agree that most minimum wage schemes do increase unemployment in theory. But since these increments are negligible (less than 3 percentile points); they do not in any way negate the benefits of the MWS.
Secondly on the subject of scale – the conceptual model (supply and demand of the labor market model e.g the Piero Sraffa model) that is frequently used to discredit the workability of the MWS is premised on a rickety set of assumptions which are so racked with ambiguity and inconsistencies; even the leading subject matter experts continue to dispute the contention the MWS is the predominant cause for unemployment and pay rigidity .
When seen in both the right context and proper scale, I cannot understand for the life of me; how MOM was able to draw a definitive conclusion – 8% unemployment figure in pre-recession EU was attributable solely to the misgivings of the minimum wage system – for all you know it could have been the abstraction of the hole in the ozonosphere!
Neither can I understand by what manner of hidden Arcanum – how by just having a minimum wage scheme it could pose a threat to our Asian work culture – besides what’s the big deal about our much vaunted Asian heritage. I am reminded here the mere fact that certain practices are sanctioned by the traditions of a community do not by themselves make them worthy, timeless and universal values worth preserving – besides from what little I’ve been able to make out from the Asian phenomenon of Karoshi and the perpetual motion life of the workers in Foxconn – it may not be such a bad idea to set fire to the whole Asian work ethic jalopy.
At this juncture, I need to emphasize. My point in highlighting these glaring inconsistencies, contradictions and lacunae is not to deliberately cause intellectual offence to MOM.
Rather it is to underscore the merit of the minimum wage thesis – as a serious thesis that has a long history of durability, delivery reliability and works to create a work regimen that is based on equanimity!
This begs the question – why doesn’t the government see any wisdom in using the MWS as a means of moderating wages and managing employment opportunities? Why does MOM continue to rely on a mind boggling array of help schemes which all seem to be offered in a piece meal and haphazard fashion – instead of integrating these benevolent services as a right and not a matter of privilege?
It is conceivable when assessing the question of whether minimum wage as a social economic theory should apply or not in Singapore – policymakers have employed not only the wrong criteria to assess the real costs – but they have also failed to use to right philosophy to help them tabulate the real cost of their inaction – while I don’t doubt decision makers may diligently asked whether supporting this or that initiative may be more efficient and effective from a cost analysis and trade off perspective – I am certain they have certainly not asked whether in the long run by failing to provision help as a matter of entitlement and right be it in the form of a minimum wage scheme or otherwise; because policymakers being policymakers fear that they may inadvertently create either a moral hazard or sow the seeds to a crutch cum dependence mentality – all they are really doing by leaving everything to the vagaries of market forces is sowing the seeds of humiliation for those who will have to resort to these avenues of help through no fault of their own – since these range of social services are not regarded as “rights” and “entitlements,” but privileges – those who seek them will always be marked out as failures in our society.
And just in case you’re under the misapprehension the idea of mooting a minimum wage scheme is just an arty farty rendition which hopes only to make hay out of idealism and very little else – you are wrong again.
As when we treat humiliation (as we could probably do the same when marketers poll customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction) as a cost i.e a unit of measurement – and begin to charge it to society in the way we tabulate the cost of replacing a blown out street lamp – we soon discover the deficits of quantifying the cost of humiliation on productivity, efficiency and well being can be so prohibitively high as to reverse whatever gains policymakers may hope to reap when they mislead themselves into the short term belief – buying into the MWS is just condoning the crutch mentality or encouraging an undesirable moral hazard; what becomes evidently clear is in the long run it just makes lousy money sense to avoid mooting the idea of MWS openly and holding on to the death grip idea the MWS is just a past go and collect $200 on the cheap trip – that point of view is not only simplistic; it fails to capture the salient points of the whole debate; and worse of all condemns many to continue to draw state benefits under dehumanizing and humiliating terms.
What remains a pithy pathos of our times is in an age when many of us have experienced first hand how even the best of amongst us can get blindsided by wholly unforeseen events (including GIC, where would they be if the US government did not nationalize Citigroup?) and call for help and get it in forms ranging bank bail outs to cash infusion for corporations from governments – yet paradoxically when the same call for help emanates from the weakest segment of our community who needs the most basic of necessities – we have absolutely no hang up’s telling them straight up – you are too small to save.
I wonder what this really says about us?
Written by the Brotherhood Press in conjunction with the ASDF of the Brotherhood
The Essay has been published in Ekunaba and PBK – The Brotherhood Press 2010
about 1 year ago
I hope you publish it!
about 1 year ago
Title: Why if we are serious about creating a better world for the poor – we need to go the extra mile and demand of our policymakers what philosophy are they going to use for the Minimum Wage Scheme?
Our governments aversion to anything that remotely carries the welfare tag hardly requires any elaboration – as soon as the subject of welfare is raised, it’s surreptitiously given the third degree – the starter usually involves a mind numbing lecture on why welfare is ideologically evil since its lineage can be traced back to socialism and communism.
And consequently anathema to our way of life which is premised on the free market economy – then that’s followed by the right hook of why welfare only encourages sloth and is none other than a moral hazard – and if that isn’t enough to put the case of welfare in a plaster cast for the next 6 months – there’s what I call the Asian values claptrap – that’s always guarantee to work since that idea is so enmeshed in myth and lore – there’s no need to even need to keep scrupulously close to the truth or collaborate any information; all one needs to do to successfully pull off this caper is run a few sepia prints of pre-colonial mud huts set against mosquito infested rivers – and with a scratch record of how good triumphed over evil – you could just as well manufacture the truth; that’s a lightning summary of why the case of welfare in Singapore will always have as much mileage as a car that claims to run on square tires – the end!
The reason why I have chosen to start this essay about how to create a better a world with an indictment about what I see as the prevailing mood against welfare is for three main reasons.
Firstly, I believe this pithy summary of our anti-welfare attitude is very much ingrained into our character. We are scripted to believe welfare is bad from the word go – and a big part of how we have been subconsciously conditioned to think along this yellow brick line has a lot to do with the manner in which we have been scripted how define personal and organizational success – for example, when asking ourselves whether we support an idea or initiative, we are rarely asked, is it morally right or bad? Instead the decision nexus is corseted so narrowly to only give the widest latitude to pragmatic considerations – like how efficient it is? How productive it is? Does that unit of utility have any intrinsic worth? Can it be captured as a plus or minus in our yield? – the point that I am trying to underscore here is this; it is conceivable, our propensity to avoid a deeper commitment to the principles of welfarism is a function of our inability to seek out intrinsic worth outside the scope of measurement – our way of perceiving the known world is an acquired taste – and not an instinctive human condition.
So before we proceed further into this essay – we first need to reclaim our lost consciousness – and this brings me to the second reason why I started off this essay with an indictment about our insaneness about welfare – as if we really desire to see the world as it is and not through the eyes of officialdom – then we need to ask ourselves very fundamental and basic questions like why is it – political philosophy has been marginalized from debates by economics, trade off analysis and cost benefits? We may even need to ask ourselves deep spirited questions like; is it possible for us to create a better tomorrow for our children by just leveraging on the word pragmatism – This in essence is what the title of this essay tries to embrace when it says – why if we are serious about creating a better world – we don’t need to learn as much as forget. And this brings me to my third and final reason why I began this essay with a self effacing critique, as implicit within this assumption, is the idea; it’s not nearly enough to ape the form, but what is really required for any idea to work efficiently especially an idea such as Minimum Wage or for that matter any initiative that is premised on the word welfare is to ensure the form is fused with the right philosophy – and here it must be emphasized what usually works against us is never the form in Singapore. In 9 out of 10 cases we manage to go through the motion admirably. Where we seem to be less successful is when we allow form and content (philosophy) to diverge so far apart that the theory and reality frequently becomes a curious cognitive dissonance.
The most revealing illustration of this disconnect between form and philosophy (the lack of it or the wrong one) is to be found in the privatization of state owned entities in Singapore – admittedly when it comes to certain utilities such as telecoms, privatization has certainly lived up to its wunderbar reputation – wonder no more why the cult of privatization continues to be so mesmerized by the benefits of privatization; everyone these days from the custodians of power to even the underwriters and especially taxpayers seem least concerned about the philosophy of privatization – and here lies the real danger of what I term aping the form and disregarding the content – as when we buy too willingly into the delusion everything from the waterworks, trains and buses, power supply et al can be successfully offloaded onto the lap of the private sector, that’s when we go around looking for trouble.
Granted the theory for privatization is robust – the sale duly earns money for the state which in turn relies less on direct taxation; meanwhile by recruiting the private sector into the whole business process it becomes much more efficient in spotting opportunities due to the profit motive – governments too no longer need to maintain layers of bureaucracy to oversee inefficient state enterprises – everyone is happy – so the theory goes.
The practice seems to be another thing; as we seen from the case of Sheng Siong buying over wet markets owned and operated by HDB and to some degree what I call the train blues that we sometimes encounter with SMRT is a good illustration of what can and will go wrong when privatization merely apes the form without bothering with the complimentary philosophy –– whenever we look at privatized entities that simply don’t work; unbeknown to many of us; what we are actually witnessing is not only an abject instance of how theory has failed to past with relief into reality – it also demonstrates a clear shirking of public responsibility to the private sector with no discernable collective advantage to the tax payer (Even today I still cannot figure how the new distanced fare based is fairer and better when my daily commute cost significantly more while the travelling experience has clearly degraded. As for the Transport Minister, he has gone into hibernation mode. So no point trying to get any answers there).
Here it may be a good place to press the pause button and reflect on why the example of privatization gone wrong is pertinent to discussion of the Minimum Wage Scheme? What has the theory and practice of privatization got to do with the ideal of the minimum wage? What do they have in common?
The short answer to all three questions is – the theory and practice of privatization and MWS have more in common than meets the eye; as whatever lessons gleaned from privatized entities could just as well inform us whether the government is just going through the motions. Or are they genuine in their plan to set up a MWS as an means of alleviating chronic poverty ; my gut feel tells me; if we fail to distill the philosophical underpinnings of why we even want to have a MWS – then we may very well be replicating the same dog chase tail patchy results that we so frequently see in privatized enterprises in Singapore. Neither is it a sound argument to claim just because other countries have a MWS, that means we must have one too – that logic would only hold water if the MWS like Penicillin holds out only the road to salvation – but practice suggest MWS has traditionally been one of the most discursive subjects in every elections, without a single exception – suggesting in most cases where MWS features, it’s premised not because it offers the best or even the most reliable means to alleviate the masses from the adverse effects of poverty. But rather it’s just one of many crooked ways to buy the votes of the ignorant masses on the cheap!
This unfortunately is the unsavory side of Minimum Wage Scheme that is seldom discussed – that not only does it hold out the allure of a better tomorrow; but like the sword of Damocles it is also the road to perdition – as it’s one of the best known scams to win votes on the cheap.
This underscores our need to understand firstly what we are getting into when we moot the subject of MWS – and secondly what we also need to do is remain mindful of how even our best intentions can end up like the shattered dreams of the idea of privatization in Singapore that once promised a better tomorrow only to turn into perpetuate pay hikes – the way I see it; they only buttress that will prevent the idea of any MWS from going pear shape; or being hijacked by crooked politicians to serve their nefarious ends; is never to buy into the simplistic notion we we should buy into the idea of the MWS – rather what we need to do is go the extra mile and ask of our policymakers pointed questions – like what sort of philosophy will they be using as the basis of building the MWS; is it the old hat variety where we are all expected to view welfare with askance, mistrust and suspicion? Or the shitty variety that has riven so many of our privatized enterprises where all they seem to do from time to time is ask for pay hikes since they cannot seem to find the imagination to prosper or find it difficult to balance their books?
My point is this, if policymakers are only prepared to roll out the form this time without complimenting it with the right thoughtware to drive the whole initiative; or worst still use the same guarded ethos that comes directly from the stable of pragmatism – then its best that we if don’t dabble with MWS –as what will eventually happen is even if we have a MWS, at best is there will always be plenty of room for another policy that could alleviate the pain of poverty. And at worst, it will simply be a carrot tied to an end of the stick to further humiliate the poor and destitute in our community.
Perhaps you can give us an answer Tommy? Or maybe you’re just going to run back into your hole and go into hibernation mode? As you can see; the rest of blogosphere may be brain dead and you could probably use them for a spot of the rah-rah-brigade – but not in the brotherhood press – here we have the best flame throwers in the world!
The very best you will simply have to ask you? Where is the beef Tommy?
This has been written by the Brotherhood Press in collaboration with the ASDF of the Brotherhood – posted in Ekunaba, Phi Beta Kappa, SLF 1 to 17 – The Brotherhood Press 2010.v
[The author of this essay has lodged a complaint with the Council of the Wise expressing his displeasure as to why he is not able to use his moniker due to the recent “measured response” protocol – this has been logged by the webmaster of Phi Beta Kappa as a reference point – the webmaster of PBK also request to know from the COW when is the earliest date where we can disengage from this “measured response” protocol – we do not want to get involved in this!]
about 1 year ago
itle: Why if we are serious about creating a better world for the poor – we need to go the extra mile and demand of our policymakers what philosophy are they going to use for the Minimum Wage Scheme?
Our governments aversion to anything that remotely carries the welfare tag hardly requires any elaboration – as soon as the subject of welfare is raised, it’s surreptitiously given the third degree – the starter usually involves a mind numbing lecture on why welfare is ideologically equivalent of evil reincarnate since its stripe can be traced to socialism and communism.
And consequently anathema to our way of life which is premised on the free market economy – then that’s followed by the right hook of why welfare only encourages sloth and is none other than a moral hazard – and if that isn’t enough to put the case of welfare in a plaster cast for the next 6 months – there’s what I call the Asian values claptrap – that’s always guarantee to work since that idea is so enmeshed in myth and lore – there’s no need to even need to keep scrupulously close to the truth or collaborate any information; all one needs to do to successfully pull off this caper is run a few sepia prints of pre-colonial mud huts set against mosquito infested rivers – and with a scratch record of how good triumphed over evil – you could just as well manufacture the truth; that’s a lightning summary of why the case of welfare in Singapore will always have as much mileage as a car that claims to run on square tires – the end!
The reason why I have chosen to start this essay about how to create a better a world with an indictment about what I see as the prevailing mood against welfare is for three main reasons.
Firstly, I believe this pithy summary of our anti-welfare attitude is very much ingrained into our character. We are scripted to believe welfare is bad from the word go – and a big part of how we have been subconsciously conditioned to think along this yellow brick line has a lot to do with the manner in which we have been scripted how define personal and organizational success – for example, when asking ourselves whether we support an idea or initiative, we are rarely asked, is it morally right or bad? Instead the decision nexus is corseted so narrowly to only give the widest latitude to pragmatic considerations – like how efficient it is? How productive it is? Does that unit of utility have any intrinsic worth? Can it be captured as a plus or minus in our yield? – the point that I am trying to underscore here is this; it is conceivable, our propensity to avoid a deeper commitment to the principles of welfarism is a function of our inability to seek out intrinsic worth outside the scope of measurement – our way of perceiving the known world is an acquired taste – and not an instinctive human condition.
So before we proceed further into this essay – we first need to reclaim our lost consciousness – and this brings me to the second reason why I started off this essay with an indictment about our insaneness about welfare – as if we really desire to see the world as it is and not through the eyes of officialdom – then we need to ask ourselves very fundamental and basic questions like why is it – political philosophy has been marginalized from debates by economics, trade off analysis and cost benefits? We may even need to ask ourselves deep spirited questions like; is it possible for us to create a better tomorrow for our children by just leveraging on the word pragmatism – This in essence is what the title of this essay tries to embrace when it says – why if we are serious about creating a better world – we don’t need to learn as much as forget. And this brings me to my third and final reason why I began this essay with a self effacing critique, as implicit within this assumption, is the idea; it’s not nearly enough to ape the form, but what is really required for any idea to work efficiently especially an idea such as Minimum Wage or for that matter any initiative that is premised on the word welfare is to ensure the form is fused with the right philosophy – and here it must be emphasized what usually works against us is never the form in Singapore. In 9 out of 10 cases we manage to go through the motion admirably. Where we seem to be less successful is when we allow form and content (philosophy) to diverge so far apart that the theory and reality frequently becomes a curious cognitive dissonance.
The most revealing illustration of this disconnect between form and philosophy (the lack of it or the wrong one) is to be found in the privatization of state owned entities in Singapore – admittedly when it comes to certain utilities such as telecoms, privatization has certainly lived up to its wunderbar reputation – wonder no more why the cult of privatization continues to be so mesmerized by the benefits of privatization; everyone these days from the custodians of power to even the underwriters and especially taxpayers seem least concerned about the philosophy of privatization – and here lies the real danger of what I term aping the form and disregarding the content – as when we buy too willingly into the delusion everything from the waterworks, trains and buses, power supply et al can be successfully offloaded onto the lap of the private sector, that’s when we go around looking for trouble.
Granted the theory for privatization is robust – the sale duly earns money for the state which in turn relies less on direct taxation; meanwhile by recruiting the private sector into the whole business process it becomes much more efficient in spotting opportunities due to the profit motive – governments too no longer need to maintain layers of bureaucracy to oversee inefficient state enterprises – everyone is happy – so the theory goes.
The practice seems to be another thing; as we seen from the case of Sheng Siong buying over wet markets owned and operated by HDB and to some degree what I call the train blues that we sometimes encounter with SMRT is a good illustration of what can and will go wrong when privatization merely apes the form without bothering with the complimentary philosophy –– whenever we look at privatized entities that simply don’t work; unbeknown to many of us; what we are actually witnessing is not only an abject instance of how theory has failed to past with relief into reality – it also demonstrates a clear shirking of public responsibility to the private sector with no discernable collective advantage to the tax payer (Even today I still cannot figure how the new distanced fare based is fairer and better when my daily commute cost significantly more while the travelling experience has clearly degraded. As for the Transport Minister, he has gone into hibernation mode. So no point trying to get any answers there).
Here it may be a good place to press the pause button and reflect on why the example of privatization gone wrong is pertinent to discussion of the Minimum Wage Scheme? What has the theory and practice of privatization got to do with the ideal of the minimum wage? What do they have in common?
The short answer to all three questions is – the theory and practice of privatization and MWS have more in common than meets the eye; as whatever lessons gleaned from privatized entities could just as well inform us whether the government is just going through the motions. Or are they genuine in their plan to set up a MWS as an means of alleviating chronic poverty ; my gut feel tells me; if we fail to distill the philosophical underpinnings of why we even want to have a MWS – then we may very well be replicating the same dog chase tail patchy results that we so frequently see in privatized enterprises in Singapore. Neither is it a sound argument to claim just because other countries have a MWS, that means we must have one too – that logic would only hold water if the MWS like Penicillin holds out only the road to salvation – but practice suggest MWS has traditionally been one of the most discursive subjects in every elections, without a single exception – suggesting in most cases where MWS features, it’s premised not because it offers the best or even the most reliable means to alleviate the masses from the adverse effects of poverty. But rather it’s just one of many crooked ways to buy the votes of the ignorant masses on the cheap!
This unfortunately is the unsavory side of Minimum Wage Scheme that is seldom discussed – that not only does it hold out the allure of a better tomorrow; but like the sword of Damocles it is also the road to perdition – as it’s one of the best known scams to win votes on the cheap.
This underscores our need to understand firstly what we are getting into when we moot the subject of MWS – and secondly what we also need to do is remain mindful of how even our best intentions can end up like the shattered dreams of the idea of privatization in Singapore that once promised a better tomorrow only to turn into perpetuate pay hikes – the way I see it; they only buttress that will prevent the idea of any MWS from going pear shape; or being hijacked by crooked politicians to serve their nefarious ends; is never to buy into the simplistic notion we we should buy into the idea of the MWS – rather what we need to do is go the extra mile and ask of our policymakers pointed questions – like what sort of philosophy will they be using as the basis of building the MWS; is it the old hat variety where we are all expected to view welfare with askance, mistrust and suspicion? Or the shitty variety that has riven so many of our privatized enterprises where all they seem to do from time to time is ask for pay hikes since they cannot seem to find the imagination to prosper or find it difficult to balance their books?
My point is this, if policymakers are only prepared to roll out the form this time without complimenting it with the right thoughtware to drive the whole initiative; or worst still use the same guarded ethos that comes directly from the stable of pragmatism – then its best that we if don’t dabble with MWS –as what will eventually happen is even if we have a MWS, at best is there will always be plenty of room for another policy that could alleviate the pain of poverty. And at worst, it will simply be a carrot tied to an end of the stick to further humiliate the poor and destitute in our community.
Perhaps you can give us an answer Tommy? Or maybe you’re just going to run back into your hole and go into hibernation mode? As you can see; the rest of blogosphere may be brain dead and you could probably use them for a spot of the rah-rah-brigade – but not in the brotherhood press – here we have the best flame throwers in the world!
The very best you will simply have to ask you? Where is the beef Tommy?
This has been written by the Brotherhood Press in collaboration with the ASDF of the Brotherhood – posted in Ekunaba, Phi Beta Kappa, SLF 1 to 17 – The Brotherhood Press 2010.v
[The author of this essay has lodged a complaint with the Council of the Wise expressing his displeasure as to why he is not able to use his moniker due to the recent “measured response” protocol – this has been logged by the webmaster of Phi Beta Kappa as a reference point – the webmaster of PBK also request to know from the COW when is the earliest date where we can disengage from this “measured response” protocol – we do not want to get involved in this!]
about 3 months ago
Have you ever considered publishing an ebook or guest authoring on other sites? I have a blog based on the same subjects you discuss and would really like to have you share some stories/information. I know my subscribers would enjoy your work. If you’re even remotely interested, feel free to shoot me an e-mail.
about 2 months ago
I want that new Nike+ tom-tom watch that is coming out next month!