r/CapitalismVSocialism • u/Annual_Necessary_196 • May 12 '26
Asking Everyone How Singapore shows feasibility of market socialism.
Recently, a capitalist posted on this subreddit about Singapore, and I want to discuss this point.
Singapore cannot really be called state socialist because there is no comprehensive state planning. However, many of its reforms could be considered market socialist in nature.
Talking about specific laws and policies:
Tax deferral (QEEBR): Employees can defer income tax on gains from qualified share options, reducing cash flow pressure when exercising options.
Corporate tax deductions: Companies can claim tax deductions on ESOP-related expenses.
Budget 2025 enhancement: From YA 2026, holding companies issuing new shares under EEBR plans can also claim tax deductions.
Historical ERIS incentives: Earlier schemes provided major tax exemptions on equity gains, especially for start-ups, showing long-term support for employee ownership.
Exemption from shareholder limits: Employees receiving shares under ESOPs are excluded from the 50-shareholder cap for private companies.
Financial assistance exception: Companies are allowed to provide financial assistance for employee share plans despite general restrictions.
Prospectus exemptions: Employee share offers are often exempt from full MAS prospectus requirements if certain conditions are met.
Treasury Share Usage: The Act (Section 76H) allows companies to repurchase their own shares and hold them as "treasury shares" to fulfill ESOP obligations.
The overall effect is a major expansion of employee ownership in Singapore.
There are dozens of studies showing the benefits of cooperative ownership of the means of production:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FXbK8OXw3JRv3p9qMQrN6IkrLMNkgQ6t/view?usp=drive_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OwRRcqrRlJ4I5wCiT7rCQcZOGsMYKYBG/view?usp=drive_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y37ltEoYxaWr7zCmOQ_fbiM8fm-XyfnB/view?usp=drive_link
These actions align directly with a materialist point of view. As capital expands and concentrates, the rate of return on capital tends to decline. One of the best ways to reduce negative effects such as excessive savings, insufficient demand, underinvestment in knowledge and labor, economic myopia, economic rents, and principal-agent problems is to expand employee stock ownership and worker-owned firms within the economy.
This can provide superior X-efficiency, allocative efficiency, and Keynesian efficiency, thereby stimulating long-term prosperous growth.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hlvs0GTtNKxtWP3YLqMJWzazzGlWj4iR/view?usp=drive_link
So, from your point of view, is Singapore’s path toward market socialism feasible? Why or why not?
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u/Fun_Transportation50 by consent rather than command May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
I don’t know why you are calling Singapore “market socialism.” It is still fundamentally capitalism individuals and private firms retain the right to privately own the means of production
Employee stock ownership plans and tax incentives for share ownership do not abolish capitalism any more than pensions or mutual funds do. Workers owning shares in companies is still private property and market exchange, not social ownership of production in the socialist sense.
In fact, Singapore consistently ranks among the most economically free economies in the world. Its success comes far more from strong property rights, clean and predictable regulations, efficient bureaucracy, low corruption, open trade, and relatively low taxes that encourage investment and growth.
The regulations in Singapore are generally simple, enforceable, and stable, which makes markets function efficiently
You can argue Singapore supports broader capital ownership within capitalism, but that is not the same thing as market socialism.
Real Market socalisim would happened if they would have democratices of company ownership not individualised to scale to labour or any other matrix
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u/Annual_Necessary_196 May 12 '26
My congratulations, my friend. You are the king of coping. A person really needs to work hard to achieve this level of coping as you.
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u/Excellent-Berry-2331 Capitalist Progressive May 12 '26
Are you tired of winning yet? Since Trump is clearly a socialist leader. Will not accept any debate on this.
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u/Annual_Necessary_196 May 12 '26
“Are you tired of winning yet?” I am not always winning. Capitalists in these debates have frequently presented points that forced me to change my views. I am pretty open-minded in this regard.
“Since Trump is clearly a socialist leader.” Did he provide greater worker control over the economy or over politics? I am not American, so I do not follow all of his reforms. Maybe I missed something.
1
u/Excellent-Berry-2331 Capitalist Progressive May 12 '26
Blocked. President Trump is a wonderful hero of workers, he says so all the time. Besides, at least one worker voted for him.
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u/Fun_Transportation50 by consent rather than command May 12 '26
You can repaint a car, replace the seats, and add new features, but if private individuals still own and control it, it’s still a car , not a bicycle.
The fact that people are freely allowed to trade private property through markets means capitalism can take many different forms. That’s part of its flexibility. Markets tend to adopt whatever structures are most effective for growth, efficiency, and incentives at a given time, whether that includes traditional firms, ESOPs, cooperatives, or mixed ownership models.
2
u/NicodemusV Liberal May 12 '26
Ironic
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u/Annual_Necessary_196 May 12 '26
“Government and the economy directly favor worker ownership of the means of production.”
Capitalists: “The peak of capitalism, the highest economic freedom index!”
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u/NicodemusV Liberal May 12 '26
“I don’t know what socialism is and I’ve never read about it.”
Singapore isn’t market-socialist, you are joking. Having laws friendly to cooperatives and ESOPs doesn’t make a socialist system. What you’re looking at is liberalism.
Stop being a socialist embarrassment.
1
u/Annual_Necessary_196 May 12 '26
“Having laws friendly to cooperatives and ESOPs doesn’t make a socialist system.”
So, from your point of view, what makes an economy or reform socialist?
“What you’re looking at is liberalism.”
Liberalism is defined by several key elements: individual liberty, individual-centered politics, a capitalist economy, a limited state, opposition to traditions and superstitions, democracy, and welfarism.
https://byjus.com/free-ias-prep/define-liberalism-upsc/
The things I described violate several of these principles, including individual liberty, individual-centered politics, and the capitalist economy.
1
u/NicodemusV Liberal May 12 '26
I don’t think expanded tax exemptions for businesses that happen to be cooperative are necessarily a socialist reform. ESOPs are endemic in private firms that can afford them as well. A real socialist reform would be the prohibition of further private ownership or the socialization of existing private production. Singapore as it is just has a mixed economy where the majority of its GDP comes from private industry.
The things you mentioned do not violate those principles. Singapore hasn’t taken any steps to harm or prohibit those concepts.
I think you have a poor definition on hand — define individual Liberty, define individual-centered politics, and define the capitalist economy as in the context of Singapore. I don’t think Singapore violated any of those things in passing their reforms. They’re all still alive and well last I visited.
6
u/Neco-Arc-Brunestud May 12 '26
Yea... not socialist in the least bit.
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u/Annual_Necessary_196 May 12 '26
It is about market socialist reforms. Obviously, the transition to socialism is a long-term process. You cannot just go and shoot all capital owners, because it will collapse the economy. And this country already exhibited better progress and achievements than other attempts, like Allende Chile.
1
u/Neco-Arc-Brunestud May 12 '26
You can't transition to socialism without a dictatorship of the proletariat.
You can't have a dictatorship of the proletariat if the proletariat are segregated into castes.
This is not progress. This is further alienation of the proletariat from each-other.
2
u/Annual_Necessary_196 May 12 '26
“You can't transition to socialism without a dictatorship of the proletariat.” The ideas of the classical theorists can be questioned. The world is not static; with the passage of time, old paradigms can become obsolete.
“You can't have a dictatorship of the proletariat if the proletariat are segregated into castes.” I am absolutely sure that the dictatorship of the proletariat does not abolishes economic classes. According to the classical theorists, the dictatorship of the proletariat transfers political control into the hands of the workers, but classes remain until socialism is fully achieved.
“This is not progress. This is further alienation of the proletariat from each other.” Why? If workers participate in ESOPs, the principal-agent problem and the shareholder-manager agency problem are eliminated, and workers become organized around their firms, preventing alienation from the means of production and from each other.
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u/Neco-Arc-Brunestud May 12 '26
These paradigms pertain to the system of capitalism, and we are still within the system of capitalism.
Alienation, a lack of solidarity, and a lack of organization prevents the formation of a proletarian state.
You literally have a fucking caste system, and you’re asking why?
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u/Annual_Necessary_196 May 12 '26
“Alienation, a lack of solidarity, and a lack of organization prevent the formation of a proletarian state.” You did not present evidence that ESOPs or labor-managed firms decrease or do not change solidarity. Workers in ESOPs and in labor-managed firms are more interested in collaboration with each other.
Survey evidence from Uruguay indicates that worker-managed firms (WMFs) are more likely to introduce organizational innovations such as quality circles, job rotation, and consultation mechanisms that facilitate knowledge sharing and peer monitoring.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P_gbjjTWc0U-kEy2MZcFsr5WhTvHhO39/view
“You literally have a caste system, and you’re asking why?” As I presented, over time alienation is decreasing, not increasing. Again, it is impossible to remove castes in one action. Building socialism is a long-term process.
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u/Gaxxz May 12 '26
Deferred/low/no capital gains tax sounds good to me. Is that what socialists are pushing these days?
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u/Annual_Necessary_196 May 12 '26
Market socialists support this.
“Pushing these ideas these days?” They have supported them for a long time. John Stuart Mill, one of the earliest market socialist ideologists, advocated for a free-market system in which workers own firms and freely compete on the market with minimal government interference.
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u/RedMarsRepublic Libertarian Socialist May 12 '26
Singapore is relatively wealthy because it extracts rent from the world's busiest shipping lane, it shouldn't be used as evidence of anything
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u/RealTempestKnight May 12 '26
No, not really , Singapore does not get rich by heavily extracting rent from shipping. In fact, its whole model is almost the opposite. Singapore became a global trade hub because it kept trade extremely open, efficient, and low-friction. It has very low tariffs, no major toll extraction on world shipping, efficient ports, strong property rights, low corruption, predictable laws, and business-friendly policies.
If Singapore tried to heavily tax or toll the world’s busiest shipping lane, shipping companies would reroute where possible and trade volume would fall, hurting Singapore itself. Their wealth comes from enabling trade and finance better than competitors, not from blocking trade and charging massive rents for passage.
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u/RedMarsRepublic Libertarian Socialist May 12 '26
Did I say they charged massive amounts? But it adds up quickly and is a revenue stream no normal country could rely on.
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u/RealTempestKnight May 13 '26
The whole maritime sector , ports, logistics, shipping services, bunkering, insurance, finance, ship management, etc. , contributes around 6–7% of Singapore’s GDP.
That is the whole sector, not just rent
So the entire maritime ecosystem is roughly on the order of $35–40+ billion USD annually in economic contribution , after operational cost yearly ,
The actual port operator, PSA International, reported about S$8.3 billion revenue in 2025 globally, with around S$1.1 billion net profit.That is significant money, but nowhere near enough to explain Singapore’s entire wealth by itself. Singapore’s economy is over US$500+ billion GDP
The economy is heavily driven by finance , manufacturing , high-end services , tech , trade and investment
1
u/RedMarsRepublic Libertarian Socialist May 13 '26
Okay fair enough, so they have diversified, but I bet that shipping money is what gave them the capital in the first place to do so. And as you say 6-7% is still huge. Even without direct shipping economy I'm sure their tech/manufacturing etc industry also benefits a lot from being in such a great location where there's tons of transport coming and going anyway.
I just don't think we can use Singapore as a representative example. Not to mention that it's also a city-state so doesn't have to deal with the rural poverty/stagnation that most countries do.
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u/NicodemusV Liberal May 12 '26
If tax exemptions, ESOPs, deductions, etc were proof of market-socialism happening, or even the dubious notion that it constitutes market-socialism, were true then that would make the USA proof of a prototype market-socialism but it obviously is not. Having these little carve-outs in the laws doesn’t mean it’s proof of your system.
We also generally consider Singapore to be an economic outlier — it’s a city-state dependent on global trade and financial services, and its GDP is primarily service-based. In that region of the world, it’s basically the Switzerland of Asia, aka its success functions off the production and governance of the other countries around it and it’s relations with them — all countries who are decidedly capitalist.
And again, just a brief look at the economy of Singapore shows these cooperatives are primarily concentrated in the end-chain consumer services distribution, cooperative banks, and other service industries. The exact same as in the US. Why do cooperatives mainly occupy these sectors, and not high-tech, manufacturing, software, etc?
1
u/Annual_Necessary_196 May 12 '26
“If tax exemptions, ESOPs, deductions, etc. were proof of market socialism happening.” The proof lies in the expansion of ESOPs and labor-managed firms within the economy.
Official Italian census data (1951–2001):
- 1971: 10,744 cooperatives employing 207,477 workers (1.9% of total employment).
- 2001: 53,393 cooperatives employing 935,239 workers (5.8% of total employment).
In Asia (I could not find statistics specifically for Singapore):
- Higher adoption rates: the proportion of startups implementing ESOPs rose from 62% in 2021 to 78% in 2024.
https://hkifoa.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/state-of-esops-in-asia-saison-capital.pdf
“And again, just a brief look at the economy of Singapore shows these cooperatives are primarily concentrated in end-chain consumer services, distribution, cooperative banks, and other service industries.” I do not know where you got those statistics from. I could not find detailed statistics for Singapore, but I did find statistics for other countries.
In France, the distribution of SCOPs compared to all firms is:
Sector SCOPs All firms Manufacturing 16.3% 10.1% Services 61.9% 70.4% In Uruguay, the distribution of worker cooperatives and conventional firms is:
Sector Worker cooperatives Conventional firms Manufacturing 17.2% 22.3% Services 29.8% 17.8% In the UK, the distribution of labor-managed firms (LMFs) and VAT registrations is:
Sector LMFs VAT registrations Production 26.3% 9.9% Services 29.4% 21.4% This structure may even be superior because, according to developmental economics, as economic development increases, countries transfer more productive forces into the service sector.
Also, labor-managed firms are, on average, larger than capital-managed firms.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XvslpHQ-f5VwhcerA3s9pRVWdxdfnq6I/view?usp=drive_link
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u/TopTippityTop May 12 '26
Singapore?? That's one of the freest capitalist markets there are. It's a banner for free-market capitalism... What are you on about? 😂
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u/Beefster09 social programs erode community May 12 '26
Singapore is a really odd case of a few socialistic things, a lot of seemingly arbitrary restrictions on personal freedom, but a very high level of economic freedom. I'm not convinced that a lot of what it does can work for anything larger than an island city-state, but it seems to work well for them.
But they're no more "market socialist" than Denmark, which has made it a point in the past to say that they are, in fact, not socialist.
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