article_snippet: As prime minister for its first three decades, Lee Kuan Yew raised a poor port from the bottom rungs of the third world to the first world in a single generation.
article_snippet: Lee Kuan Yew's achievement in building a successful nation contrasts sharply with the results of Washington's expenditure of over $4 trillion and nearly 7,000 American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade.
article_snippet: First, Lee Kuan Yew insisted that governance was first and foremost about results.
article_snippet: About the core purposes of government, Lee Kuan Yew was crystal clear.
article_snippet: In terms America's founding fathers would recognize, Lee Kuan Yew believed that "the ultimate test of the value of a political system is whether a political system helps that society establish conditions which improve the standard of living for the majority of a political system people, plus enabling the maximum of personal freedoms compatible with the freedoms of others in society.
article_snippet: For Lee Kuan Yew, the essence of a successful society was intense competition on a level playing field that allows each individual to achieve Lee Kuan Yew or Lee Kuan Yew maximum.
article_snippet: As Lee Kuan Yew put it, the leader's objective was to "build up a society in which people will be rewarded not according to the amount of property people own, but according to people active contribution to society in physical or mental labor.
article_snippet: Lee Kuan Yew enjoyed engaging American critics who insisted that without democracy Singapore could not develop an advanced economy.
article_snippet: Lee Kuan Yew noted that the U.S. had been building democracy and giving aid to the Philippines for over a century.
article_snippet: On one occasion, with a broad smile, Lee Kuan Yew continued, "and you will notice that since the Vietnam War and the Great Society, the U.S. system has not functioned even for the U.S..
highlights_snippet: In Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew had remarkable success in creating a prosperous modern state .
  