To whom will monuments be built a century from now? Among them, perhaps, will be Lee Kuan Yew. He will be remembered not only as the first prime minister of Singapore, but also as the creator of authoritarian capitalism, an ideology set to shape the next century much as democracy shaped the last.
It was, after all, to Singapore that Deng Xiaoping came before enacting his far-reaching economic reforms in China. Until then, capitalism and democracy had seemed inextricably linked. Now the link is broken.
It is often said that the west has failed in its attempt to export its civilisation to the rest of the world. That is only part right. No one dreams any longer of a global liberal democracy that marks the end of history. But economic models have proved more portable than political ideas, and capitalism has triumphed. Poor countries that endorsed it are growing at spectacular rates.