AN American professor who visited Singapore recently believes that if Asia stays on course for the next three decades, China will be a massive version of Singapore, and India a massive version of Malaysia.

Blogging about his experience, Bryan Caplan, an associate professor in economics from the Center for Study of Public Choice at George Mason University in the United States, was especially struck by Singapore's version of "pragmatism".

"In the US, pragmatism primarily means going along with public opinion and openness to political compromise. In Singapore, in contrast, pragmatism primarily means judging policies based on their actual consequences, not their popularity. 'Pragmatism' is virtually a synonym for 'utilitarianism'," he wrote.

At a meeting with around 15 civil servants here last month, he also observed answers to a moot question: Just what is the secret of Singapore's success over the years?

Is it due to the country's high level of economic literacy; the citizens' belief that the elites know what they are doing; or the resignation by the man in the street that he has no say in affecting policies and hence does not bother trying at all?

In a blog entry dated Nov 26, Dr Caplan, 38, recalled how most of his audience replied that the source of Singapore's success boiled down to "a mix of deference and resignation", with slightly more emphasis on the former.

"Only one or two people said that the public's economic literacy mattered - and even they put it last in importance," Dr Caplan wrote, qualifying that the informal survey had a "potentially severe selection bias".

"Perhaps civil servants exaggerate the incompetence of the public to make themselves feel important. But I suspect that if selection bias plays a role, it goes in the opposite direction," said Dr Caplan, who visited Singapore for the first time.

He reserved strong praise for the civil servants, academics and journalists he met with during his week-long visit to Singapore: "In terms of pure IQ, all of them would have been in the top half of my PhD classes."

He also described Singaporean bureaucrats as being "less afraid" to criticise their government than their American counterparts.

"Neither group would be afraid of legal punishment, but the Americans would be more worried that saying the wrong thing would hurt their careers."

His discussion with the civil servants was sparked from an earlier question he had posed during a lunch: "Do most people here support Electronic Road Pricing (ERP)?"

"Like people all around the world, (Singaporeans) want to drive free of charge. And like people all over the world, they ignore the connection between unpriced roads and congestion," wrote Dr Caplan. "Never mind that over the border on the unmetered streets of Kuala Lumpur, people can easily sit in traffic for over an hour."

In a separate post on the same EconLog blog, (http://econ log.econlib.org/), Dr Caplan touched on that pragmatism issue again.

"In the American sense of the term, congestion prices for roads would not be 'pragmatic' because lots of people would object. In the Singaporean sense of the term, congestion pricing for roads is 'pragmatic' because it sharply reduces rush-hour traffic jams. Get it?"

This is not the first time that Dr Caplan has blogged about Singapore. In previous postings, he has discussed issues like the legalising of kidney trading and the Medisave system.

"Singapore has a lot to be proud of. It's one of the great economic miracles. It avoids many of the most foolish policies that afflict other countries," Dr Caplan told BT. "I have often suggested that the national slogan of Singapore could be: 'We don't have to do this in the stupidest possible way'."

This article was first published in The Business Times on Dec 6, 2008.