Countries should build capabilities to help workers, not adopt protectionist strategies: Tharman
SINGAPORE - Countries should not seek to establish a relative lead over each other internationally by protectionist means, because doing so would compromise their own “absolute performance” and ability to maximise their people’s opportunities so that ordinary working people can benefit, said Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam on Tuesday evening.
He added that the ordinary worker depends on absolute performance – through the growth of an economy, jobs being created, the quality of jobs being created, and opportunities for social mobility. He noted that many advanced countries have essentially run out of fiscal space to fund benefits for everyone at the same time.He added that this was especially because governments could not avoid increased spending on healthcare, which was the biggest fiscal challenge in the advanced world because of ageing.
He added that insurance was needed to pool healthcare risks. “But if you go for the ultimate insurer being government – the government simply paying for all costs, you end up with an ever-increasing bill that has to be met by taxing everyone more.” “There is a basic market failure. The state has to step in, and this has to be an opportunity for the state, private sector, unions and people themselves to collaborate to invest in people regularly through their working lives, so as to keep upskilling, reskilling and making sure that the quality of jobs that are available to them goes up,” he added.
He added: “It’s not as if societies have weakened because of an upsurge in individual irresponsibility. People haven’t become suddenly more irresponsible. We face challenges now that require a more active role for the state.”Smaller nations stress support for multilateralism, principle of sovereign equalityMr Tharman also clarified the role of the President in response to moderator Bronwen Maddox, chief executive of Chatham House.
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