If it's just a cultural thing, how would you compare Singapore to Ireland for instance ? They have roughly the same population, while Ireland's GDP is 500 billion and Singapore "only" 400 billion.

Are Singapore people about 100 billion dollars lazier, less educated and with a worse attitude ? Are Ireland people and culture that much aimed towards hard work, sacrifice and effort ?

Yes, a working government, educated people, hard work sacrifice and effort all weight on the scale when it comes to how a country will be doing. But reducing a whole country's issues to that is naive and misleading in a pretty perverse way in my opinion.

Too often it's also used the other way round to explain a country's success, and pat oneself on the back for being virtuous and hard working when things are just so much more complex and nuanced.

You asked such a weird question.

Singapore and Ireland are both successful countries with GDP per capitas in the tens of thousands. And we know why; good government, hard-working population, and low corruption. Comparing them because of a little GDP difference is pedantic.

Philippines, on the other hand, elected the son of their former dictator that looted billions from the country. Shows you a country that’s not ready to progress because the majority actively votes for corruption and shuns integrity.

The issue with this line of reasonning is we'd find similar issues in most of the other "successful" countries.

I don't think people look at most US presidents as beacons of human value and righfullness. Same for South Korea or Japan leaders. The US basically swapped "corruption" for "lobbying", revolving doors and other more evolved systems. But we'll find explaination for why it doesn't matter for these countries in particular. And these probably include the general population being wealthy enough to not let things slide behind a critical point and take a hit when shit is about to hit the fan.

Perhaps my point is there's no specific recipe for success, and in particular perception of "good government, hard-working population, and low corruption" often come after the other issues are solved and the country is on the rise.

The common theme among Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, besides friendly relations with the US as GP mentioned, is that they are all within the cultural influence of "Confucianism".

Strong ties with the US is neutral. You can take advantage of it, or not. Egypt is a laggard, Greece is a laggard, Israel and Iceland aren't.

But I think you bolster my point, culture has to do a lot with how a people confront adversity and overcome it.

Both Korea ad Taiwan could have cried about being colonies of Japan whose resources and people were taken with no return. Japan could have succumbed to US defeat and felt sorry for itself too.

> Egypt is a laggard, Greece is a laggard, Israel and Iceland aren't.

To put numbers on it: Egypt is 38th in GDP, Greece 54th, Israel 29th and Iceland 111th. I have a hard time understanding who you call laggards and who aren't.

The impact of strong ties with the US is an opening on the US domestic market and not getting shut down internationally. China's position for instance is clearly impacted by that, regardless of how we morally view the CCP.

Korea ad Taiwan: they cried and asked for reparation from Japan, got some, and also further strong US support in face of the USSR and Chinese influence going in the region.

Japan: the US forgave most of their crimes, reforged their constitution and used it as US base soil to keep an eye on the whole region, while making sure it's economy doesn't end in rubbles and try to bring stronger ties to the neighboring red countries. Hell, Japan is still basically US's small puppy in so many ways (was fun to look at the US meat import ban from sanitary reason getting magically removed as the US threw a stern look at Japan)

Those tigers(Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan) Heavily focused on education are way smaller than the Phillipines.