Periodically, the Singapore government complains about government scholarship holders who 'break' their bond: those who, after graduating from university, instead of working their required 6-8 years in the civil service, they return the money to the government and go their own way. The government argues that people like these are taking advantage of the system: they are taking up scholarships which could go to others who desperately want the scholarships, and are not able to afford an education at a good university otherwise. The arguments for and against breaking the bond to the government have been well articulated by both sides and it is not my place to judge their merits.

Instead, my idea is inspired by something Rich explained to me: that if, upon graduating from Law School, he were to go into public service, he would have most of the loans he took out to pay for Law School forgiven. Perhaps Singapore could use such a system. Rather than offer all their money upfront to 18 year old Singaporeans who have no clear idea of what they want to do once they graduate, they could offer to pay a graduate the equivalent of the amount of money they would have given a scholarship holder over the period of their education. This money could be used by the graduate to pay off their loans, put a down payment on a house, go on a holiday- whatever. But it seems to me that the risk of the money invested being returned to the government with no direct yield, they could instead bid for the services of graduates with good results, who are more likely to stay in the job longer as they have a clearer idea of what they want and where they want to go in their lives.

It's been a busy couple of weeks, there's been nothing new and exciting to report, and I haven't had the time to sit down and discuss issues the way I would like to. So here's an old essay I wrote, slightly edited and abridged, for your enjoyment.

This entry is inspired by the release of Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study by Thomas Sowell (Yale UP), available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

The book is very well written and well argued, methodically taking the reader through different countries where affirmative action has been tried out. American readers may not be aware but their version of affirmative action is by no means unique- in fact, it is very watered down in comparison to what goes on in Africa and Asia. My favourite example is, of course, our dear neighbour Malaysia. Sowell's conclusion is that, regardless of the moral, sociological, philosophical or economic basis for affirmative action, its results are very similar: the policies, meant to benefit the poor, overwhelmingly benefit the well-off, those who know and understand the system and know how to play it to their advantage. Comparative examples further illustrate: Malays in Singapore and Malaysia, for example, started out at roughly the same level economically but Singaporean Malays have done much better, despite Malaysia having probably the world's most far reaching affirmative action programme. This is a really good book and I urge everyone with an interest to read it.

On to my essay, which I wrote last year. It approaches the issue from an American perspective and so has American references and terminology which may be unfamiliar to those not familiar with the USA. For those of you who like labels, please do not consider me Republican or conservative just because I dislike affirmative action and am generally in favour of 'school vouchers'- that's only two issues. Other than that, read with an open mind and enjoy:

In most civilised countries, judging somebody on the basis of their race is illegal; but not in the United States of America, probably the world’s most diverse country. This past June, the United States Supreme Court in Gratz v Bollinger upheld affirmative action as constitutional. It was a popular decision, and a neat compromise, but it was not the correct decision. Affirmative action is an idea which briefly made sense but has outlived its usefulness. Despite this, the sensitivity with which many Americans regard race means that it continues to linger.

It is undeniable that inequalities exist, and it was to address inequalities that affirmative action was created. However, in the forty years since, the meaning of affirmative action has been forgotten. The original intent of affirmative action was not about discriminating in favour of people on the basis of skin colour. Rather, it was about extending help to disadvantaged people. Given that black Americans as a whole had suffered years of discrimination, reparations to the entire group made sense.

Today, however, affirmative action has become inextricably tied up with race and is primarily about judging people by their colour. Hypothetically, if you have two equally capable candidates, one an upper or middle class minority and the other poor and white, it makes little sense to aid only the former. The Supreme Court, in its ruling, recognised this and thus argued in favour of the more vague rationale of "diversity".

Diversity, however, is hard to define. While perfect language for a compromise, it hardly helps resolve such a contentious issue. In addition, race alone does not guarantee diversity. A middle class Latino and a middle class Asian might have more in common, and be more socially homogenous, than with a poor white southerner.

The biggest problem, however, is that traditional conceptions of race are being overtaken by demographics and the erasing of boundaries. Blacks, the main beneficiaries of affirmative action, are no longer the largest minority in America: Latinos are. Furthermore, the number of people identifying themselves as more than one race is growing steadily. It is impossible to determine if a Latino-Native American is more in need of affirmative action than a Black-Pacific Islander.

In theory, affirmative action is best suited for a country made up of two main races, one forming an overclass and the other an underclass. Such a description suited America in the 1960s. It also applied to Malaysia around the same time. Malaysia instituted the most far-reaching and wide-ranging program of affirmative action in the world to help the Malays relative to the Chinese, but it found that all it did was to create social distortions and disincentives to work. The Malays in general are no better off relative to the Chinese than they were four decades ago. Malaysia’s affirmative action program has been discredited by its architect and is slowly being scrapped.

Finally, affirmative action is all but impossible to implement fairly. In a parallel case (Grutter v Bollinger) decided as the same time as the Gratz case, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the University of Michigan’s undergraduate admissions program because its system of awarding points to minority applicants made it too much like a racial quota. In striking down the system in favour of a “holistic” consideration of each applicant, the Supreme Court effectively forced affirmative action to become subjective. The point-based system had one advantage: it was objective and transparent. A subjective system, bound to the whim of an admissions committee, is bound to please no one but lawyers and the litigious.

My proposed solution is simple: remove race from affirmative action. Return affirmative action to its original objective of helping the disadvantaged. Under a different name (one free of historical baggage), let it influence decisions on the basis of income instead. The people most in need of help are the poverty stricken, regardless of their skin colour. While selling this will not be easy, experience suggests that a clear and straightforward explanation of the system, emphasising the benefits, will do wonders. For example, a name change that emphasised parental choice drastically boosted school vouchers’ popularity. As minorities are the groups with the largest numbers living in poverty, they will continue to benefit more, but now in proportion to their need. Otherwise, to continue with the current situation is to perpetuate a system which has become irrelevant and creates inequalities of its own while doing nothing to address the real needs of most of the 34.6 million Americans who live in poverty.

It's the only way to cross.