Write your own manifesto ! Rekindle the Singapore Dream !

The concept of a manifesto has become more interesting in the upcoming elections.

For a party which is not likely to form a government, a manifesto is of little use to the electorate but serves a purpose similar to that of marketing collateral. You see that these parties would come up with the best manifestos that have the effect of transferring a bulk of the reserves into the pockets of Singaporean.

For a party that is very likely to form a government after the elections, a manifesto becomes almost contractually binding because the electorate would remind the party of the promises broken since the last elections, so naturally these manifestos will be laden with motherhood statements but would have few promises. You are expected to live a ruling party's manifesto, not read it.

But manifestos are particularly useful when someone writes it for himself. Writing a manifesto clarifies your thought processes on the nature of success and can teach you a thing or two about your personal life trajectory.

I urge everyone to attempt this and share it on their blog.

If I were to write a manifesto on how to reclaim the Singapore Dream, a draft might look like this.

Reclaiming the Singapore Dream : The Way of the Unnatural Aristocrat

To most Singaporeans, the Singapore Dream is dead.

Globalization killed it.

Data Science and automation will wipe out the dreams of almost all the blue collar workers and a large number of white collar workers within the next 20 years.

The default position is a pessimistic one.

If you are average, the Dream is dead.

No government policy can reverse this.

The way to reclaim the Singapore Dream is to become an Unnatural Aristocrat.

The natural aristocrat is so by virtue of character and talent. You are at best a natural aristocrat at a certain point and time.  Beyond a point in the axis of time, entropy destroys all talent and all meritocratic standards. Demands of industries change.

An unnatural aristocrat is a natural aristocrat who has talents and resources which transcend the progress of time.

How does one become an unnatural aristocrat ?

An unnatural aristocrat is both a rentier and a super-manager.

A super-manager has the skills which are tremendously valuable at a single point in time and are sought after by multinationals and companies. They either solve or coordinate people to solve uniquely difficult and complex problems which cannot be automated. They have mastered techniques which go beyond analytical skills and have a toolbox which can deployed to suit any contextual situation.

A rentier has a resources which last across time. He has may have no valuable skill but his ownership of capital and means of production allows him to sustain himself indefinitely. A rentier acquires an skill set for his own benefit - an intimate understanding of the resources at his disposal and how to squeeze every drop out of his own property. He is trained to structure his ownership of such resources using appropriate legal instruments to the betterment of his family, moving offshore if required.

The super-manager projects power, aggressively trades time for money but can be fragile and forms the Yang of the unnatural Aristocrat. The rentier is passive, obtains money with no time spent, is anti-fragile and forms the Yin element of the unnatural aristocrat. An unnatural aristocrat will find moments where the work is aggressive and his Yang dominates his life and find moments of retirement and introspection when his Yin is ascendant. Yang reinforces Yin when money is channel into investment assets, Yin reinforces Yang when retraining and new skills are obtained.

There is no such thing as work-life balance in one point of time but work-life balance can be achieved across time.

When Yang and Yin are in harmony, earned income flows into assets and assets reflect back passive income.

When passive income equals earned income.

Singapore Dream comes back to life.