conclusion that it seems to work. it seems to work. but of course, the post-independent singapore government has been often accused of being extremely keen and extremely competent at social engineering. of course, the most powerful instrument of social engineering is public housing. we force singaporeans, a large majority of singaporeans, more than 80% of them, to live in these more or less uniform housing estates. but that form of social engineering also has certain benefits. unlike most of the wealthy developed world, there s universal healthcare and little to no homelessness in singapore. the country s public housing policy provides an astonishing 80% of singapore s 5.6 million people with affordable homes, with 90% of the population owning their own home. singaporeans would be hard-pressed to name a neighborhood that they would describe as a slum. they would be hard-pressed to name a neighborhood where they would say, oh, the people here live in relatively deprived conditions
now, singapore is a rich country. a lot of rich people live here. why can t you charge as much money for this traditional food as the french charge for french food? what do you think? why won t singaporeans pay? actually, just a couple of months ago, we go through some of our old photos, and there s one photo that is like almost 20 years ago. there s a price list. they re selling their fried rice at $3 a pack. right now, we are selling $4. 20 years later. $1 more. why? singaporeans love food. i think there s like a bond between us and the customers, so he doesn t want to increase the price. you know your customers. you have a lot of regulars. yeah. a lot of them have seen us growing up, the three of us, and we see their kids growing up. so i think there s a different kind of bond between us and the customers.
most of singapore feels, i mean, even though economic inequality is high, income inequality is high, you don t see it in the public housing estates. right. it s a picture of general equality. by ensuring its citizens are safe, housed, healthy, and for the most part economically successful, the singaporean government has been effective at keeping the masses placated enough, willing to accept curbs on their freedoms and civil liberties. do you think that the singaporean success story is a rebuke to american western values in some respect? no, no. i mean, is free speech overrated? i don t think we succeeded because of the absence of free speech. and to a large extent, the values of free trade, the values of a liberal global order, these are western ideas, right? i mean, singapore did not invent them.
if you look around, tony, look at all the hawkers. more than 70%, 80% of them are 50 and above. so the tipping point will come where everybody just give up their stall because their children have gone to university. they have told them, yeah, go be a doctor, lawyer, go be something else other than a hawker. but the singaporean government wants to build more stalls, more better, modern. 20 more hawker centers? to which i say, where the are the hawkers coming from? well, that s a good question. yeah, yeah. where are they going to come from? there s a lot of insinuations of an answer, but no true answer. i mean, the answer is not from singapore, right? they re going to have to come in from china. for the 15,000 or 20,000 food stalls like this we have in singapore, if it s public run like this, you can t hire foreigners. it s meant for singaporeans. but isn t the beginning of
the asians did not invent them. it shouldn t work. it hasn t really worked like this anywhere else, and yet it works. i think that my objection or my discomfort with the lack of democratic freedoms is that i think we can allow a lot more of that without hurting singapore s prosperity and stability one ounce. right. what would we lose if we had a freer press? what would we lose if we had more democratic or opposition representation? and we ll make for not just a more livelier debate, we ll make for a better debate. we may well arrive at the conclusion that the current dispensation, the current order represents the best possible society for singapore, but let s have that debate. i mean, it s a horrifying thought. it s possible that the human mind, that the average citizen cannot deal with that much diversity, that we need these curbs and restrictions on our freedoms.