On the 8th of September I met an Asian fund manager, Alex, and we discussed the economical situation in Asia. He feels that Singapore is a condensate of the Asian dream and its aspirations. Its inhabitants all strive for economical advancement after having successfully completed the lower levels of the Maslow pyramid of needs. Consumer values slowly prevail over family values. The Western world constantly lures them with new needs, dreams and products. This leads to the question: What is valuable to us?
A study in behavioral economics showed the following: If you give people two choices of either having 50’000$ while all others have 25’000$ or having 100’000$ and all other having 200’000$, 95% of the people prefer choice one. Humans are very bad in assessing the absolute value of something but are very good in relative value comparison. Or as Oscar Wilde put it brilliantly: We know the price of everything but of nothing the value.
So Asia is slowly shedding its family and community values for self-fulfillment and personal advancement. All things new and especially Western, real or fake, are very much thought after. I saw a picture book about recent Singaporean architecture and all the buildings look distinctively Western, not Asian anymore. At the same time Asia styles and furniture are increasingly popular in Europe. Will Asia soon look like a brand-new copy of Europe? Does economical advancement ultimately mean Western values and society structures?
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