Disagreement not over who cares more for S'poreans but how best to care for them: SM Lee, WP's Jamus Lim politely spar over COE policy

Following Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong's dialogue at a dinner held by the Economic Society of Singapore, Workers' Party Member of Parliament Jamus Lim shared his thoughts in a Facebook post.

While Lim praised SM Lee's speech as a "masterclass in the economist's way of thinking, and a certain economic approach toward public policymaking", Lim raised his issue with SM Lee's "implicit assumptions about the role of prices, and by extension, fairness in who gets what."

"This mindset then manifests itself in his beliefs about market efficiency, and his degree of willingness to rely on market forces to resolve distributional conflict," Lim added.

Three hours after Lim posted on Facebook on Jul. 16, SM Lee responded in the comment section, addressing Lim's remarks.

Topic: COE

During the dialogue, SM Lee was asked by the moderator about the Certificate of Entitlement (COE) and whether some categories of people, like families, applying for car ownership, should be "treated more kindly" and pay less for the COE.

While SM Lee acknowledged that there are many good arguments for such claims, he noted that it becomes difficult for the government to design a system that takes into account all the claims.

As the issue stems from the allocation of a scarce resource, SM Lee said that bidding on COE is a fair and efficient way of allocating car ownership.

In his Facebook post, Lim acknowledged SM Lee's response at the dinner but felt that he should have talked about "a reasonable way to adjudicate between these competing needs".

Instead, SM Lee discussed how competitive bidding represented the most effective way to allocate resources between the claims, Lim said.

He added:

"What’s sorely missing, however, is how those with genuine needs may not have the purchasing power to meet those needs, even if their needs may have more merit.

So when he defaults to an auction mechanism, he isn’t just saying that, “I don’t have the wisdom to decide. Let the market choose.”

He’s also conceding the ability to fulfill those needs to those who are somehow better able to meet them.

To those with more money."

Lim said that "to be fair", SM Lee did stress the importance of ensuring access to public transport as opposed to car ownership, and it isn't a "character flaw."

"But it isn’t how many humans wish to live; to have every aspect of their lives determined in a transactional way," Lim said.

He concluded that in his view, Singapore is not "mindless slaves to the prevailing structures and institutions present in the society we live in."

SM Lee's comment

Under Lim's post, SM Lee directly left a comment on what the government has done regarding the COE.

SM Lee shared that he made the point that instead of complicating the COE scheme and "make it unworkable", the government has:

• Made it so everyone has access to affordable and efficient transport options, though not necessarily through owning a car.
• Directly helped the groups that need more assistance, so that if they choose to, they can use it to help pay for a COE.

"Therefore where we disagree is not over who cares more for our fellow Singaporeans, but what is the best way to meet people's needs and take care of them," SM Lee wrote.

Response to a response

Lim thanked SM Lee for the elaboration and stated that he tried to include his first point in his post.

On SM Lee's second point, Lim said that he favoured a more targeted mechanism as he believes it would not only better channel behaviour toward a specific social objective, but also show how the government is helping certain groups.

He also addressed SM Lee's comment on "who cares more" for Singaporeans, stating that he did not mean to suggest that SM Lee does not care for Singaporeans, or that either one of them allegedly cares more.

"The disagreement, as you state, is the manner by which this is done. And that, in turn, hinges on our differing beliefs about the [behaviour] of people, and the efficacy of markets," Lim said.

Top photos via MDDI/YouTube & SM Lee/Facebook