# Singapore **Singapore** is an island city-state in Southeast Asia, independent since 1965 and governed without interruption by the People's Action Party since 1959. Its founding prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, held office until 1990. It is one of the richest places on earth and one of the most tightly managed. ## Markets without much politics Singapore holds multiparty elections, but Freedom House rates it only "partly free." Public protest is legal in a single park, and the country ranks low on press-freedom indexes. Its economy depends on a large foreign workforce, about 44 percent of all workers, who have few of the rights of citizens. Free-market indexes love it anyway: the Fraser Institute ranked it the world's second-freest economy in 2022, behind [[Hong Kong]]. That combination is the appeal. British conservatives from [[Margaret Thatcher]] to the Brexit campaigners have held up Singapore as what Britain could be, and Quinn Slobodian gives it a chapter of *[[Crack-Up Capitalism]]*, "The Singapore Solution." ## The network state's home base The movement's ties are practical as well as ideological. [[Balaji Srinivasan]] gave up his U.S. citizenship in 2023 and describes himself as a citizen of Singapore. His 2024 Network State Conference was held there. The [[Network School]] opened just across the strait in Malaysia and advertised its closeness to Singapore, until Malaysian authorities shut it in 2026. [[Próspera]] in Honduras was designed with Singapore as one of its models. ## Why it's on the map Singapore is the state the exit projects would like to be: small, rich, efficient and long run by its founder. It is also a real sovereign state whose government controls most of the housing and steers the economy, which is not what its libertarian admirers are proposing to build. ## See Also - [[Network State Experiments Roster]] - [[Hong Kong]] · [[Dubai]] - [[Special Economic Zone]]