The Online Citizen has a report that Singapore has a high rating for being "non-corrupt" but ranks 4th on the crony capitalism index. Is crony capitalism a form of corruption?

https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/…/singapore-7th-least-per…/

Let me give my view. 

Singapore has a high standard of non-corruptibility at the lower level. We do not see junior officials, such as police officer, collecting bribes to waive summons for offenses. For the few cases that are caught, the punishment has been quite severe, relative to the small sums of money involved.

The civil servants also follow the rules strictly. They follow the rules to the letter, even to the point of implementing them in a harsh and inflexible manner. This gives the perception of non-corruptibility.

Corny capitalism involves businessmen at the high level. They are closely connected with the government leaders and are suspected to have received favored treatment.

The Economist magazine, which publishes, the index on crony capitalism, explains it as follows:

The index aims to be a measuring trend in the number of economic rent-seekers. The assumption behind is because of the favorable political policies set by the government officials, the tycoons are increasing their wealth and interest. As a result, they get a larger part of people’s fruits of labor, instead of generating more wealth for the whole society. In some extreme cases, some favored suppliers are influential on the establishment and application of the business-impacting laws and citizens pay the tax for purchasing the overpriced products supplied by the favored corporations.

There is a widely held perception that there is a high level of crony capitalism in Singapore. Indeed, Singapore ranks 4th worst in the world after Russia, Malaysia and Philippines. We are worse than Indonesia.

See the chart below.

In my view, a high level of crony capitalism is bad. It is probably worse than the corruption at the lower levels. By siphoning a large share of the national wealth to the cronies and the "rent seekers", the cost of living falls more heavily on the ordinary people.

Yes, crony capitalism is corruption in a worse form.

Tan Kin Lian