Reduce the temptation.
The temptation of corruption lies on a risk-reward spectrum, with very high temptation at the low risk-high reward end, and very low temptation at the high risk-low reward end. Singapore is successful in fighting corruption because during the early days o nation building, it had established a system to put the temptation at the high risk-low reward end of the spectrum. How was it done?
First, create a high risk environment. Make corruption pays. Of course, if enforcement is not water right or people can easily evade detection by conspiring and share bribes, it will be difficult to create such environment. That’s where the idea of Mexican stand-off comes in.
In a Mexican stand-off, everyone is holding a gun at someone else in the group. no strategy exists that allows any party to achieve victory.
As a result, all participants need to maintain the strategic tension. The system is designed in such a way that any channel that potentially allows siphoning of money, illegal transaction or fraudulent collaboration has to go through myriads of approval guarded by individuals with no common interests or even conflicting interests. This is akin to a Mexican stand off situation. When someone wants to pull a trigger, he has to consider the chain effect on others reaction that can get himself killed. When there are many parties with no common interests entangled in a Mexican stand off, it becomes very difficult for any perpetrator to persuade everyone to lower their gun together.
Second, low benefits. Now this is controversial. Singapore’s ministerial pay has always been the weapon number one used indiscriminately in any anti-government argument. Besides attracting top talents to give up their high pay private sector post and expose themselves to public scrutiny in order to serve public office, it was argued that high paid top rank government official is instrumental in warding off the temptation of corruption. As a metaphor, a hundred thousand dollars would seem attractive to a person who only has a hundred thousand dollars in their bank, but the same amount would seem less attractive to a multi millionaire. In behavioural economics this is termed as the diminishing of marginal utility. The same theory goes for all civil servants, but in a less drastic way. The argument is that it is absolutely vital to keep the top ranking government officials streaky clean.
What’s mostly misunderstood in this argument is that high paid alone can deter corruption. In fact, it is the high paid plus the high risk that must work hand in hand to create a low temptation to corruption. Neither one is dispensable. In a low risk environment, even a multi millionaire would be tempted to siphons off a hundred thousand dollars because human greed knows no limit. In a high risk environment, people would still be tempted to take the risk if basic Marslow needs are not satisfied.
In other words, LKY does not believe that human nature is virtue or self-sacrificing. Whenever opportunity presents itself, most people would choose to enrich themselves first before considering the public benefits. To deter corruption is to produce an ecosystem where such behaviour is discouraged to the point where people won’t even think about doing it. The same theory goes for politicians and civil servants. Do not expect a saint will come along and serve with the best public interest in mind selflessly. Such person may exist but one in a million, and you may never find him in your lifetime. The default mode is always to assume human is greedy and corruption is the norm. It is the game rules that can contain it, not virtue human being. It is LKY’s deep understanding of human nature that had won the war on corruption in Singapore.