Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia - Jurusan Antropologi ...

SINGAPORE AND THE NEW MIDDLE CLASS 151
other aspects of daily life. A further anecdotal glimpse of this aspiration can be
gained from the consumption pattern of working-class teenagers featured on a
Chinese language current affairs programme on state-owned national television (24
June 1995). All the teenagers interviewed expressed the desire and determination
to buy high-price, ‘brand’ name fashion items of self-adornment. In one instance, a
mother said that she gives in to demands from her daughter for money for such
purchases because otherwise the latter would not speak to her for days. Such
brand consciousness appears to be a common feature of youth in Singapore,
regardless of class.
Unlike mature capitalist societies where there are strong working-class traditions
which enable its members to construct identities in opposition to other classes, it
appears that in the newly industrialised economy of Singapore, the aspiration of
the working class is one of moving up the economic class structure rather than
proudly preserving a distinctive cultural tradition. Nowhere is this more apparent
than among the working-class youth. Unlike mature capitalist nations, where
working-class youth culture may be interpreted as a counter-culture (Willis 1977),
there is no fear of working-class fashion, such as ‘punk’ clothes in Britain,
becoming ‘normalised’ and appropriated by the middle class (Wilson 1990) in
Singapore.
THE RICH: PRIVILEGE OF WEALTH
There is a wide range of Singaporean households in the top 3 per cent income
group, including owners of the three private local banks, successful indigenous
entrepreneurs of small-and middle-size enterprises, senior corporate managers,
successful professionals and top civil servants. At the low end of this range, the
household may be a dual-income family with each spouse earning much less than a
$10,000 monthly salary. Relative to other Singaporeans, this group is ‘rich’.
Financially able to meet all personal and familial needs and obligations, they are
not dependent on any state provisions. Financial independence is reinforced by
geographical mobility. Well disposed to take up employment or set up business
anywhere in the globalised market, work is a movable feast. Location of residence
is usually the result of a combination of professional demands, personal
preferences and emotional attachments. Like all wealthy individuals in capitalist
economies, they are ‘transnationalised’ individuals.
The relationship between these transnational individuals and the state is one of
unequal disadvantage to the state. Because the state needs the rich for economic
stability, growth and even tax revenue, the rich are placed in a good position to use
the state for their own interests; for example, as a source of financial loans,
business partnership and even protection of investments. Thus, in the
government’s push to regionalise Singapore’s economy, local businesses
have actively co-operated with government-linked corporations, behind the
protective shield of inter-governmental memoranda of understanding.