The World is Big Enough

 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:

 

 Sure, the People’s Republic of China does not have a good record of accepting competition to its power. The Chinese Communist Party, particularly under Xi Jinping has become even more monopolistic in its attitude to power. However, in this case, the Chinese have a point. The world is large enough for America and China and while China’s economic rise has been impressive, the fact remains, the average American remains richer than the average Chinese and whilst China’s military has been “modernizing,” it’s been modernizing from the 1950s whilst the American military is preparing for the space age.

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.