They followed no doctrine, choosing only what worked

I bought my first condominium apartment in 1985, when I was 35. I was never a saver, but there was enough money accumulated in my Central Provident Fund account that, together with a housing loan from my company, allowed me to purchase the studio apartment.

That a good part of an employee's salary should go into the CPF, Singapore's social security system, was Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew's idea.

His lieutenant, Goh Keng Swee, the economic architect of modern Singapore, had by the end of the 1960s assessed that the new nation was going to succeed in its economic takeoff. Workers' wages would rise rapidly as multinational companies were being wooed to set up shop here.