it doesnt matter. what matters is the concentration of people and urbanisation. the more people in a city, the more vibrant its economy, and this vibrancy is what leads to national economic growth. that's why underpopulated brunei lags behind singapore. even in the 1960s, brunei was better only in terms of 'living standards' - having more space, less congestion, etc. likewise, malaysia too is underpopulated, even discounting the rural areas, kl is small.

if you look at it in a macro view, why would kl and penang (or even new york, london or any large cities today) exist, since none of the cities have any mining, drilling or forestry industries within it?

basing on the established theory that cities are connectors i.e. they connect resources to the world market and people with other peole, some theorised that malaysia and singapore retard each other's growth. malaya basically had one port, singapore. even after 65, malaysian companies continue to utilise the sg port instead of say, port klang.

if there was no singapore (like it suddenly disappears), trade would flow through the johor, penang and klang ports, encouraging growth in these areas. likewise, if malaysia had no ports, singapore wouldve been a larger city.

also, since malaysia had more natural resources, more people need to be relatively low-skilled - if you have a mine, you will need miners. if you have no mines, you can allocate more people to higher value jobs (through incentivisation, etc. you dont need to tell people to what work they need to do - if there's a mining job, someone will take it. if there's none, there's a natural incentive for people to work harder and become more kiasu, for example).

it doesnt necessarily have to be that they work 6X as fast, its that an hour of their work results in 6X the average value of malaysian production. its either they really do work 6X faster, one worker does the job of 6 men (through mechanisation) or that they produce goods 6X the value of our goods.

also, ive been reading a book i just bought last week: triumph of the city

it talks about cities, and how it shapes a country. and it also talks about how public transport in turn shapes a city. when i read the part about how pedestrian cities result in cramped close-quarter buildings (like india), and cities with transit systems result in concentrated grids (like ny), and how car-cities have gently curving roads and a more dispersed growth pattern (like kl), i thought that you'd enjoy the book.

pap a socialist party? not really. their opponent, the workers' party, is socialist - which resulted in them getting pretty much gagged and oppressed.

and it's because of this lack of opponents that the government was free to enact non-populist measures. if they had, likeus now, both sides will outbid each other trying to push for which party can give more unsustainable subsidies to the people. if you're the only kid on the block, you dont need to do that.

and of course, having a natural port and infrastructure that was built up by the brits and an already present concentration of educated workforce prior to independence helps too.

lky can say that, and he can also say that it was a monarchy if he likes.

i think you're classifying something on the small portion of what they do, instead of what their main business is. establishing pro-business policies, clamping down on unions and relatively low taxes for the rich, are all more fundamentally against socialist principles than erecting subsidised housing and sovereign funds. sovereign funds isnt even socialist since they partake and support a capitalistic economic system or unless this is used to work towards controlling a significant or all the productive capacity of the economy - the anti-thesis of fdi.

if you're old, got a degree, are already working with a family and kids, you dont call yourself a high school student just because you've put on a high school uniform. trivial things dont count if the fundamentals are not achieved.

besides, workers' party really want to appropriate all the capital in singapore, turn all businesses to government-run businesses and impose a flat wage for all, if theyre commie?