• About Us
    • Fact Checking Policy
    • Ownership & funding information
    • Volunteer
  • Subscribe
  • Letter submission
    • Submissions Policy
  • Contact Us
The Online Citizen Asia
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Commentaries
    • Letters
    • Comments
  • Current Affairs
    • Singapore
    • Malaysia
    • Indonesia
    • China
    • ASEAN
    • Asia
    • International
  • Finance
    • Economics
    • Labour
    • Property
    • Business
  • Community
    • Arts & Culture
    • Consumer Watch
    • NGO
    • Lifestyle
    • Travel
  • Politics
    • Civil Society
    • Parliament
    • Transport
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Housing
  • Law & Order
    • Legislation
    • Court Cases
No Result
View All Result
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Commentaries
    • Letters
    • Comments
  • Current Affairs
    • Singapore
    • Malaysia
    • Indonesia
    • China
    • ASEAN
    • Asia
    • International
  • Finance
    • Economics
    • Labour
    • Property
    • Business
  • Community
    • Arts & Culture
    • Consumer Watch
    • NGO
    • Lifestyle
    • Travel
  • Politics
    • Civil Society
    • Parliament
    • Transport
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Housing
  • Law & Order
    • Legislation
    • Court Cases
No Result
View All Result
The Online Citizen Asia
No Result
View All Result

Post-pandemic: Social justice, developing moral sensibilities, and rethinking economic models need to be prioritised

“There’s a very thin sense of mutual obligation, very thin sense of lateral ties across society,” said sociologist Associate Professor Teo You Yenn in an Academia.SG webinar on Friday (1 May).

by kathleen
04/05/2020
in Community, Current Affairs
Reading Time: 6 mins read
0

“There’s a very thin sense of mutual obligation, very thin sense of lateral ties across society,” said sociologist Associate Professor Teo You Yenn in an Academia.SG webinar on Friday (1 May).
The zoom webinar titled “Beyond the pandemic: what we have learned, and still have to learn” featured five panellists who shared their opinions and ideas of the current COVID-19 crisis and the aftermath.
The speakers were Professor of Media Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University’s School of Communication, Cherian George; Professor Emerita of Corporate Strategy and International Business at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Linda Lim; Professor of Practice at the Institute of Public Policy of the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, Donald Low; Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Kenneth Paul Tan; and Assoc. Prof and Provost’s Chair in Sociology at the Nanyang Technological University, Teo You Yenn.
Moderated by Assoc. Prof Teo, panellists reflected on the possible fallout of the COVID-19 crisis and offered suggestions as to how those negative impacts could be mitigated. This included prioritising social justice in policymaking, building moral sensibilities at the individual level and rethinking the country’s economic model.

Crucial to prioritise social justice in policymaking instead of growth and efficiency

Prof Low first submitted that the current crisis shows the different ways inequality manifests, from spatial to environmental, health, and housing. He added that the Singapore government should therefore look at inequality in all its forms.
“That means not just inequality within Singaporean society but also inequality between Singaporeans and non-residents. And inequality not just in terms of income and wealth but also in terms of living conditions, housing, access to public goods and amenities, and so on.”
Prof Low suggested that policymakers should, going forward, be more attuned to social justice as a way to measure good policy making instead of just focusing on growth and efficiency.
When asked why social justice should be prioritised, Prof Low explained that the crisis has revealed that when there is no equality or social justice, there is no way to achieve efficiency which is what the government has been and is prioritising.
Using current examples, he said: “The most salient, most vivid manifestation of inequality in Singapore is in the disparity between Singaporeans and foreign labour,” elaborating that inadequate access and inadequate protection of foreign workers suffer is what led to Singapore being place on lockdown.”

Building up moral reasoning and incorporating social justice into the framework of the community

Assoc. Prof Tan then weighed in on the perspective of moral reasoning. He argued that you need a moral compass to navigate complex problems, however this is something that is built up over time. Before that, what first needs to be developed is “moral sensibilities”.
Elaborating, the associate professor said that a good thing to come out of this crisis is the many expressions of generosity and kindness of people who have stepped up to provide assistance to others.
However, he also stressed that these sensibilities tend to emerge drastically in times of crisis, and that people who come out of it may be energised to do good, but that this shouldn’t stop at just being kind to people without also making necessary changes at the policy level.
He explained that now, people see cracks in the system which are being filled by kind and generous people. However, this might lead society to say that the system is doing fine and doesn’t need to be changed, but it does.
Assoc. Prof Tan suggested that there are many ways of how social justice can be incorporated in the public.
“And probably the weakest approach, at least in curricular terms, is to simply teach people moral frameworks,” he said, as people need to understand these different lenses used to make sense of complex situations.
But this is insufficient. “There needs to be an experiential level to this,” stressed the professor.
He then gave an example of university courses that send out students to engage with communities and civil society organisations, elevating it from an academic exercise to one where there is more at stake.
But he warned that we should refrain from turning this learning into ‘poverty tourism’ where students experience hardships of others but only to get away with the sense of being grateful.
Assoc. Prof Tan also emphasised that these communities have people with their own voices and that those voices may have been silenced for all kinds of reasons. He added that such courses should be designed to be collaborative so as not to solve problems for the community but to work with them.
Going back to the current crisis as an example of this, Assoc. Prof Tan said, “If we were to engage with the migrant workers, for example in this very specific problem of dormitories today. We’ve hardly heard their voices in the solutioning type of work that’s been presented in public. Where are their voices? Where is their creativity? Where is their agency expressing what the problems really are?”
Later, Assoc. Prof Teo also noted that current social policies do mitigate the economic impact of the pandemic to a certain degree, access to good education healthcare and housing is so deeply tied up with employment and wages as well as the narrow definition of family.
She added that the relationship between state and society is quite an individualistic one and people tend to think in terms of what they can do for themselves and their families and less about what they can do for society.
“There’s a very thin sense of mutual obligation, very thin sense of lateral ties across society,” said Assoc. Prof Teo.

The economic model of maximising growth has to be fundamentally rethought

Addressing inequality and the government’s strategy of maximising growth to build reserves, which Prof George notes appears to be proving its value now, Prof Lim explained that inequality comes from the economic model Singapore chooses which “tends to reward capital more than labour.”
“A big part of inequality comes from the fact that wages and consumption demands are very low proportions of GDP by global standards,” she said.
“I think we need to think more about how we cannot privilege a model that generates inequality. “
Talking about the nation’s reserves which the government are drawing from now to tide through this pandemic, Prof Lim notes that reserves have not been a constraint in this pandemic globally on how other governments spend.
“Other government show that you don’t need to build up reserves for 30 years in order to spend them in 3 months,” he stressed.
She further said, “We have run budget surpluses. What is a budget surplus? Budget surplus is government taking from people more than it gives back to them. Do we want to have this forever?”
Stressing that this is a long term structural issue that the country has “evaded” simply by sticking to this high-growth policy, Prof Lim pointed out that experts have been saying since the early 1970s that Singapore should reduce its dependence of foreign labour.
“We’ve known these problems for decades but we got hooked onto a model because for some time it generated growth and high returns for some people,” she lamented.
“We reached that point of diminishing returns even before the pandemic. We do need a fundamental rethinking.”
Chiming in, Assoc. Prof Teo added that if collective action is not taken, people will face great hardships and the number of people who struggle will only grow as the pandemic inevitably leads to higher unemployment and lower wages.
“We do have to mitigate these impacts at least partly through reforms in our social policy regime. Because social policies are meant to correct some of the irrationalities of the market,” she said.

For just US$7.50 a month, sign up as a subscriber on The Online Citizen Asia (and enjoy ads-free experience on our site) to support our mission to transform TOC into an alternative mainstream press.
Tags: COVID-19

Related Posts

Zero-COVID left in dust as Chinese revellers fuel travel boom
AFP

Zero-COVID left in dust as Chinese revellers fuel travel boom

19/01/2023
China ends quarantine for overseas travellers after years of self-imposed isolation
AFP

China back to ‘normal’ after end of COVID curbs: official

17/01/2023
UK health firm estimates 9,000 COVID deaths in China per day but Chinese govt says only 10 since 7 Dec
AFP

‘Not necessary’ to dwell on COVID death tally, Chinese experts say

11/01/2023
South Korea imposes restrictions on travellers from China over COVID surge
AFP

China scraps visa-free transit for South Koreans and Japanese over COVID curbs

11/01/2023
‘Total mess’ in China’s rural east as COVID wave hits hard
AFP

‘Total mess’ in China’s rural east as COVID wave hits hard

11/01/2023
China halts short-term visas for Japanese over COVID travel curbs
AFP

China halts short-term visas for Japanese over COVID travel curbs

10/01/2023
Subscribe
Connect withD
Login
I allow to create an account
When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
DisagreeAgree
Notify of
Connect withD
I allow to create an account
When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
DisagreeAgree
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Latest posts

Minister refutes claims of Malaysia consulting Singapore on housing policy due to its inefficient civil service

Minister refutes claims of Malaysia consulting Singapore on housing policy due to its inefficient civil service

27/01/2023
457 civil society organizations call on ASEAN to move beyond the Five-Point Consensus

Myanmar junta sets out tough new rules for political parties

27/01/2023
Thai ruling party names deputy PM as main election candidate

Thai ruling party names deputy PM as main election candidate

27/01/2023
Mrs Teo says SG continues to invest in training local talent while MNCs transfer staff to work in SG

Mrs Teo says SG continues to invest in training local talent while MNCs transfer staff to work in SG

27/01/2023
One third of Amazon ‘degraded’ by human activity, drought: study

One third of Amazon ‘degraded’ by human activity, drought: study

27/01/2023
Luxembourg court sets aside Sulu heirs’ attachment order to enforce US$15b claim against Malaysia

Luxembourg court sets aside Sulu heirs’ attachment order to enforce US$15b claim against Malaysia

27/01/2023
Philippines to appeal ICC resumption of drug war probe

Philippines to appeal ICC resumption of drug war probe

27/01/2023

ASEAN governments must stop using ‘lawfare’ against critics, Southeast Asian MPs say

27/01/2023

Trending posts

Two Indian nationals paid about S$330 and S$730 respectively for forged certificates submitted in their S-Pass application

MOM found issuing EPs meant for foreign PMETs to PRC waitress and general worker

by Correspondent
26/01/2023
33

...

Ho Ching breaks silence over Temasek’s write down of its US$275 million investment in FTX, says it “can afford to be contrarian”

US regulator questions VCs’ due diligence work prior to investing in FTX; Ho Ching says Temasek can afford to be contrarian

by The Online Citizen
24/01/2023
28

...

Indian rupee falls 60% since signing of CECA while Singapore becomes top investor in India

by Correspondent
25/01/2023
52

...

Post-pandemic: Social justice, developing moral sensibilities, and rethinking economic models need to be prioritised

by kathleen
04/05/2020
0

...

“党籍不会过期失效”  前进党称已就党籍终止知会卡拉

AGC asked to explain purposes of 68 private letters of inmates illegitimately forwarded to prosecutors

by The Online Citizen
21/01/2023
16

...

Temasek and GIC reportedly in talks with Adani Group accused of “brazen” market manipulation and accounting fraud

Temasek and GIC reportedly in talks with Adani Group accused of “brazen” market manipulation and accounting fraud

by The Online Citizen
26/01/2023
45

...

May 2020
M T W T F S S
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
« Apr   Jun »
  • About Us
  • Subscribe
  • Letter submission
  • Contact Us

© 2006 - 2021 The Online Citizen

No Result
View All Result
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Commentaries
    • Comments
  • Current Affairs
    • Malaysia
    • Indonesia
    • China
    • ASEAN
    • Asia
    • International
  • Finance
    • Economics
    • Labour
    • Property
    • Business
  • Community
    • Civil Society
    • Arts & Culture
    • Consumer Watch
    • NGO
  • Politics
    • Parliament
    • Transport
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Housing
  • Law & Order
    • Legislation
    • Court Cases
  • Lifestyle
    • Travel
  • Subscribers login

© 2006 - 2021 The Online Citizen

wpDiscuz