One of the things that I remember most about starting out was being asked if I was interested in trying to write for the Today Newspaper. The person who asked me, was a senior writer in the Straits Times and she made the suggestion when I went to visit her in her office. She had to make this offer in hushed tones.
There was a reason for this. Back in the days when
there was “media competition,” the top management of both media houses (SPH and
MediaCorp) took the competition personally. The team that went to the Today
Newspaper were from The New Paper and considered “traitors” to the management
of SPH. The same was true for those who went from MediaCorp TV to help set up
SPH MediaWorks.
I found this attitude strange. I had grown up in the
UK where business and political competition were a fact of life. Sure,
companies would “compete” and try and come up with things to win consumers over
and to keep good staff. However, I never heard the phrase “too small for competition”
until I moved back to Singapore nor had I heard of top management taking it
personally when staff left to join a competitor.
However, as life required me to come up against the
political system more frequently, it became clear where this attitude amongst
out top business people came from. In the 2006 election, we got the hear the
argument that Singapore was too small to support a two-party system. To anyone
outside Singapore, this is a strange idea to put forth, especially when it
seems like the governing party in question has done a decent enough job. Why would
an institution in a position of strength be so keen to try to convince people that
natural laws did not apply to it.
In fairness, this isn’t something that is particularly
unique to the PAP or Singapore. If you listen to American politicians talk
about China, you’ll notice that the superpower has developed something of a weird
fascination with the aspiring one. Take the following from two diplomats:
So, here’s the reality of life – no one is above the
laws of competition. If you study nature, you’ll notice that animal and plant
species are designed to compete and everyone in the eco-system has a purpose.
The same is true for business and politics. The dominant species only remains
dominant as long as it remains strong and has enough food.
In the case business and political economic systems,
its clear that the dominant beast are dominant as long as they give the market
what it wants or they create markets for their products and services. The
problem only steps in when the dominant beast starts to believe that its position
of dominance is “God-given.” Again, the story of Singapore’s media giants is
instructive.
SPH and MediaCorp went to the government and got the
government to restore their monopolies. Everyone seemed happy and secure and the
top management spent their time gripping on each other’s platforms about whether
readership or viewership was better. What nobody noticed was the fact that the
general public got bored with both of them and turned to the internet and a host
of “alternative” sites run by people who were motivated by things other than
money. The advertisers who were paying the media monopolies noticed it to and
moved their money accordingly. Revenue figures dropped and eventually, SPH, a
company that that effectively had a license to print money ended up becoming a “non-profit”
dependent on government handouts.
Competition exists to keep everyone on their toes. If
you look at nature, you’ll notice that even the biggest animals have to stay on
their toes or they become a meal for predators. No animal gets the idea that its
survival, particularly at the top is a given. So, human institutions need to
understand the same is true for them. A dominant player is there because it
serves the market rather than being served by the market. Top nations, top
companies, top political parties and so on need to remember that they are
servants to ordinary folk rather than the other way round.
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