Wealth distribution has to be as equitable as possible to embrace .docx

Wealth distribution has to be as equitable as possible to
embrace regional balance in the country. Equal distribution of
wealth starts with ensuring equal opportunities politically,
socially and economically to all people in the society regardless
of their socioeconomic status, gender, or disabilities among
other discriminative factors. In this regard, the even distribution
of wealth also ensures equal growth and development of a
country because of the uniform improvement of the citizens’
living standards across the nation. Irrespective of all these
advantages, there are still many gaps in the distribution of
opportunities; hence, affluence in America and across the world
at large.
There are various ways of determining the wealth of people.
Nonetheless, in the US, the main method focuses on the wages
or salaries and the total possessions of the people (Domhoff,
2005). In this respect, many factors affect salaries and wages, as
well as personal properties of the people, which in turn, affect
the distribution of wealth of the citizens in the nation.
Meanwhile, salaries and wages (incomes) are among the major
factors that influence wealth distribution of people across the
world.
Peoples' income influences wealth distribution because it
dictates the property's acquisition potential of individuals.
Citizens with high incomes can purchase expensive things and
as much as they want; hence, they are rich, as opposed to the
low earning people. In most societies, the rich reside in high
standard states and towns with slams and other low standard
residences left for the poor (Domhoff, 2005). It is in this regard
that the high standard residences are growing and developing
with improved services and goods at the expense of the rest of
the region. If we have to develop the other regions as well, we
will have to better the incomes of their residents through better

economic opportunities. The wealth of people within a country
can change depending on the changes occurring in the levels of
their income regardless of where they are living (Domhoff,
2005).
Government policies also dictate wealth and its distribution.
Good examples are the money-related policies. The US
government, for example, controls the supply of cash to
guarantee its currency value strength (Krugman, 2014).
Effective policies encourage a country’s financial development
and security and lower the joblessness not in some parts of the
country but all of them. Furthermore, when a nation is able to
keep the value of its currency high and strong, it presents an
equal platform for all of its citizens—men and women, old and
young and other groups— to earn well and raise their living
standard so that they are all capable of accumulating wealth.
Age is another factor that affects wealth distribution in the US.
There is a huge gap in terms of wealth between the young adults
and the elderly. Stats show that the vast of the riches in the US
belongs to the retired citizens with the number soaring
significantly from the 1980 era. As such, today, individuals
beyond 65 years hold the most—around 66% —of aggregate
family unit riches in the US (Krugman, 2014). The fact that the
majority of these people are retired implies that their wealth
resulted from their good wages or salaries. Looking at the
situation of the young adults today, on the other hand, more
than 50% are jobless and therefore, it is apparent they are poor.
Based on this, the present society should offer the youths
opportunities today to earn and acquire riches. Otherwise, in the
future, our economy is going to collapse because of the unequal
distribution of wealth between the young and the old, for
instance, for reasons that: Comment by Joseph Conlin: You
are ignoring investments in capital. Comment by Joseph Conlin:
Comment by Joseph Conlin: You need a source for this as I
wrote in your first draft. Comment by Joseph Conlin: Do not

use going to for future tense.
…economy will collapse because. .. Comment by Joseph Conlin:
You are not dealing with the information available. The old in
the top 20% have far more money than the young who have not
had time to accumulate their wealth.
1) Because the richest people now are the poor but because they
are old retired, they will rely on their riches—their reserves,
which will eventually reduce and get finished by the time they
die and, Comment by Joseph Conlin: delete Comment by
Joseph Conlin: AS I wrote previously. You have nothing to
support this claim. This is true for the middle class. Not for the
top 1%. They have billions of dollars.
2) Since the youths are jobless now, they will not be able to
accumulate any wealth, which would even serve them during
their old ages as the current elderlies. Comment by Joseph
Conlin: This does not make sense as written.
Economic markets, as well, influence wealth distribution. Our
society comprises of majorly farmers and business people.
Farmers have life's essential products like food but lack money.
Business people, on the other hand, have money but lack food
and other commodities. In whichever way, there is an uneven
distribution of resources; hence, wealth, as an equal distribution
means that all of these people have the life's essential products
and cash. Economic markets steps in at this point. Economic
markets are places or situations that bring farmers and traders
together to exchange their surpluses for what they do not have.
In this respect, they help to strike a balance in the distribution
of resources, and so wealth (Domhoff, 2005). Comment by
Joseph Conlin: Comment by Joseph Conlin: Farmers are a
very small minority of the business people and owrkers.
From this analysis, it is apparent that we are miles away from

the equal distribution of wealth. The socioeconomic class
division is one of the prime characteristics of our society today
where slams and other low-status residences are associated with
the poor and the high-class places with all sorts of improved
and better-quality services with the rich (Domhoff, 2005). All
these emanate from the uneven distribution of wealth. If all
people were rich, there is a high probability that slams, and
other low-status residences would not be in existence. The
rationale is that everyone around the country would be in
demand for high-quality goods and services. As such, with this
kind of better living standards, no one would be struggling and
the whole country would grow and develop. Comment by
Joseph Conlin: As I wrote previously, if everyone is rich, then
no one is rich. Rich is a comparative term. Comment by
Joseph Conlin: Comment by Joseph Conlin: slums
Nonetheless, it is totally the opposite with the rich living in
presumably a land full of "honey and milk" while the poor are
struggling in the "deserts." Among the many factors that
emanate from this uneven distribution of wealth are crimes.
What do you do when you are jobless and do not have a single
sense, yet you have to pay bills and eat, and on the other side,
there are people enjoying life with surplus food and cash? Some
con, others steal and even robe. The gap also fuels corruption
according to Krugman (2014). Money is very powerful. Because
of it, many civil servants have bent the low in favor of the rich.
In this regard, I argue suppose that the only best way of curbing
the current socioeconomic problems is by striking the right
balance between the rich and the poor, and that means ensuring
an even distribution in wealth.
References

Domhoff, W. (2005). Wealth, Income, and Power. Who Rules
America: Wealth, Income, and Power. Retrieved from
www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html.
Krugman, P. (2014). Why Were in a New Gilded Age: Capital in
the 21st Century. The New York Review of Books. Retrieved
from www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/05/08/thomas-piketty-
new-gilded-age/.
You are still using too much defining and first/second person.
You are making statements that require support and you do not
provide it. Grade C. Final grade for the assignment: C
Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew. Photo Credit: USGov-Military,
Wikipedia Commons.
By Eurasia Review
Lee Kuan Yew adopted a “poisonous shrimp” policy to national
defense and blazed a trail for small
1, ANALYSIS, BUSINESS, CHINA, SINGAPORE, SOCIAL
ISSUES
LEE KUAN YEW AND THE SURVIVAL OF
MICRO STATES – ANALYSIS
MARCH 31, 2015 | EURASIA REVIEW | LEAVE A
COMMENT
Wednesday, April 1st, 2015
ISSN 2330-717X

http://www.eurasiareview.com/author/admin/
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http://www.eurasiareview.com/category/business-and-finance/
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region/asia/east-asia/china/
http://www.eurasiareview.com/category/news-by-
region/asia/southeast-asia/singapore/
http://www.eurasiareview.com/category/life/social-issues/
http://www.eurasiareview.com/31032015-lee-kuan-yew-and-the-
survival-of-micro-states-analysis/
survival-of-micro-states-analysis/#respond
countries in international stage.
By Dr. Chunjuan Nancy Wei*
A Chinese proverb vividly captures the Darwinist
world described by realists, where great powers
have an advantage in surviving fierce in-
ternational competition. It goes: “the big fish eat
small fish and the small fish eat shrimps.” For micro
states that fear being overrun by larger nations,
Singapore’s founding father may have blazed a
survival trail.

Lee Kuan Yew was a pathfinder statesman. He ruled one of the
smallest countries in the world, a na-
tion with a population of 5 million ensconced in a small
territory just three times larger than Wash-
ington, DC. The former British outpost lacked almost all
meaningful resources—not even water. It
was not Lee’s decision to go independent; however, being poor
and racially divided, his city-state was
turfed out by Malaya in 1965 after a bitter ethnic riot.
Yet, despite such ominous challenges, Lee’s visionary
leadership transformed his Southeast Asian
country in a rags-to-riches legend. There, national income and a
life expectancy are higher than in the
United States. Singapore’s GDP per capita (measured in
purchasing power parity) now stands twice
larger than its colonial master, the Great Britain—despite
Singapore’s myriad of adversities. In the in-
terest of self-preservation, Lee not only cured racial divisions,
but he also helped unite his region. He
proved instrumental in founding a vital regional institution, the
Association of Southeast Asian Na-
tions (ASEAN), by mending fences with Malaysia and
Indonesia. He played a constructive role, at the

1983 Commonwealth Summit, in saving Caribbean leadership
from recrimination and humiliation
over their support of the U.S. invading Grenada. The former
prime minister walked an unusual
tightrope between Taiwan and Mainland China by hosting, in
the 1990s, the two side’s first face-to-
face meetings in nearly half a century. Upon retirement, Lee
continued to serve as senior minister and
eventually minister mentor, shuttling between global giants to
provide insights and advice. At his
death, prominent world leaders from Barack Obama to Xi
Jinping paid their tribute. Two-dozen
states sent representatives to attend his funeral, with tens of
thousands of citizens lining the streets,
despite torrential rain.
What did Singapore do right that other countries might emulate?
Micro nations around the world
might consider seven philosophical points derived from the
example provided by the Lion City’s suc-
cessful leap from the Third World to the First.
http://www.caribbean360.com/opinion/lee-kuan-yews-
caribbean-rescue-in-the-commonwealth-ronald-sanders
No. 1: Thou shouldst be a realist. Since time immemorial small

countries have always been vulnera-
ble in an anarchic world. As Lee said, inequality is a fact of
life. Understand one’s own vulnerability,
such as Singapore’s lack of water. Make long-term plans.
Singapore signed a 100-year water agree-
ment with Malaysia, but it does not rely solely on that
arrangement. Instead, it invested heavily in
achieving water independence.
No. 2: Study thee changes therein of power dynamics, but
makest not enemies. In a confrontational
bi-polar world (that is, during the Cold War), Lee and his
ministers determined that Singapore could
little afford to make enemies with either the Americans or the
Soviets. In 1966, barely a year after in-
dependence, Lee analyzed global realpolitik in his speech “Big
and Small Fishes in Asian Waters.”
When the British troops were withdrawn, Singapore adopted a
pro-Western non-alignment policy. A
key theme of anti-communism indirectly cemented his nation’s
strategic relationship with Washing-
ton through ASEAN, where American treaty allies, the
Philippines and Thailand, are also members.
In a post-Soviet unipolar world where the U.S. enjoys
unmatched power in security and economy, Sin-

gapore permits U.S. ships to use its naval base for a fee of
millions, and separately pursues economic
growth worth billions. Both measures bring revenue—large, and
much larger. Money brings power.
Pragmatism affirms that commerce trumps ideology. While
Singapore does enjoy business relations
with China, it urges the United States to remain in the region. In
2011, Lee advised that smaller coun-
tries ought constantly to “be alert to whichever forces are at
work.” He added, “When the forces are
in your favor, use it, take the wind and sail with it. And if it is
against you, bring your sails down, and
wait for the wind to pass.”
No. 3: Rely on thyself. Singapore has world-class armed forces.
The twin pillars of Singapore’s de-
fense policy remain deterrence and diplomacy. As leader of a
Chinese enclave in a Muslim-concen-
trated Malay peninsula, Lee felt persistent insecurity for his
country. He initially advocated a “poiso-
nous shrimp” strategy in case bigger fish, be they regional or
global, might attempt to devour his
nascent city-state. In the 1980s, he upgraded this strategy to
porcupine-style deterrence. Singapore

tends to invest heavily on defense, which continues even after
Lee’s 2011 retirement. The Lion City,
ever cautious of big fish, did not sign a formal alliance treaty
with the United States for fear of losing
strategic autonomy.
No. 4: Grow thy economy. Democratic or authoritarian, Lee
believed a government serves best by
forging consensus on key economic policies and by creating
jobs. Speaking in 2005 at the Jawaharlal
Nehru Memorial lecture in New Delhi, Lee shared his evolved
growth strategy: “I had been influenced
by the ideas of the British Fabian society. But I soon realized
that before distributing the pie I had first
to bake it. So I departed from welfarism because it sapped a
people’s self-reliance and their desire to
excel and succeed. I also abandoned the model of
industrialization through import substitution.
http://www.amazon.com/Strategic-Thought-Routledge-Studies-
History/dp/0415658551
survival-of-micro-states-analysis/#sthash.PGeI7ScB.dpuf
http://www.mindef.gov.sg/imindef/key_topics/defence_policy.ht
ml
http://thediplomat.com/2015/03/singapores-defense-budget-
climbs-5-7-percent/
http://scroll.in/article/715572/Singapore's-Lee-Kuan-Yew-on-
why-he-departed-from-Nehruvian-welfarism

When most of the Third World was deeply suspicious of
exploitation by western MNCs (multination-
al corporations), Singapore invited them in. They helped us
grow, brought in technology and know-
how, and raised productivity levels faster than any alternative
strategy could.” Since the 1980s, even
China has sent batches of officials to learn from the city-state.
No. 5: Deviseth a political system based on thine own
circumstance. Democracy, while best for the
United States and Great Britain, may not be viable for
Singapore, at least initially. In a 2010 interview,
Lee articulated a self-evident but much-ignored phenomenon
related to developing countries that
have adopted western-style democracy. That is, in order to win
elections, politicians have every in-
centive to play up racial politics. That would be true in
Singapore where Chinese represent three
quarters of the population. He said “the easiest way to get
majority vote is vote for me, we’re Chi-
nese, they’re Indians, (and) they’re Malays.” The result of that
approach would be abundantly clear:
“Our society will be ripped apart. If you do not have a cohesive
society, you cannot make progress.”

Worse, neighboring powers could have taken this division as
pretext for invasion, citing that their mi-
nority groups were unfairly treated. Should that have occurred
(as in Ukraine), Singapore would have
been wiped off the map. This represents one reason why
Singapore changed its “poisonous shrimp”
thinking to a more aggressive “porcupine” strategy. As a long
time friend to Mr. Lee, Henry Kissinger
agreed: “Had Singapore chosen the road of its critics, it might
well have collapsed among its ethnic
groups, as the example of Syria teaches today.”
No. 6: Thou shalt craft wise social policies and implement them
with ruthlessness. Aiming toward
developing a non-communist social democracy, but with few
resources, Lee focused on science and
education to allure multinationals to Singapore. To prevent
communism from infesting his society, he
imposed heavy penalties for racial discrimination, and improved
health and public housing. Kishore
Mahbubani, former Singaporean diplomat and a noted academic,
pointed out that of the five decolo-
nized multi-racial states by the British, Singapore is the only
one that managed to avoid racial discord.

Lee’s dual language policy encouraged citizens to be
bilingual—with English for all and one of the
three ethnic languages remaining to choose from. This achieved
great efficiency in communication.
The bilingualism also provided an advantage for his population
in doing business: commerce with
neighbors (Malaysia) and commerce with the world’s largest
markets—the United States, China, and
India. Further example of Lee’s far-sightedness: Adoption of
simplified Chinese script as standard for
his dialect-speaking Chinese population, a move still ahead of
Taiwan and others.
No. 7 and last: Be ye honest in all things. Singaporeans view
Lee’s unassuming Oxley Road home as a
testament to his integrity, and a symbol of his resolve to
achieve a corruption-free nation. Ethical and
efficient governance represents one of the most difficult
challenges for all nations. Singapore’s expe-
rience provides rich lessons for all states—big and small.
Perhaps a phrase from the Confucian
http://thediplomat.com/2015/03/lee-kuan-yew-the-father-of-
modern-china/
http://www.pmo.gov.sg/mediacentre/transcript-minister-mentor-
lee-kuan-yew%E2%80%99s-interview-seth-mydans-new-york-
times-iht-1
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-world-will-miss-

lee-kuan-yew/2015/03/23/80867914-d172-11e4-8fce-
3941fc548f1c_story.html
https://www.mof.gov.tl/lecture-by-dean-kishore-mahbubani-at-
the-dili-convention-centre/?lang=en
Analects could well summarize the Singaporean model: “Virtue
never dwells in solitude, it will always
attract neighbors.”
So, you are a Micro State and you wish to know more? For a
Singaporean take on Lee Kuan Yew’s
legacy, it is worth consulting Kishore Mahbubani’s recent
speech in Dili, East Timor, where he distills
ten lessons based on his own not inconsiderable experience.
*Dr. Chunjuan Nancy Wei, currently a Fulbright Scholar in
Taiwan, teaches in the M.A. East Asian & Pacific
Rim Studies and the B.A. International Political Economy &
Diplomacy programs at the University of Bridge-
port in Connecticut. She has published on the South China Sea
disputes, U.S.-China relations, East Asian po-
litical economy, and cross-Taiwan Strait politics in such
journals as the Harvard Asia Quarterly, Yale Journal
of International Affairs, the Southeast Review of Asian Studies,
and The Diplomat.
Eurasia Review

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lysts and experts to disseminate content on a wide-range of
subjects that are often
overlooked or under-represented by Western dominated media.
Despite the combined Eurasia and Afro-Asia areas containing
over 70% of the world’s population,
analysis and news continues to be dominated by a U.S. slant,
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