The centrality of decently-paid jobs

Tuesday, 16 October 2018

Keynote speech by Liew Chin TongEconomic Roadmap Conference22 September 2018 / Penang, Malaysia I want to start by offering a vision for how Malaysia’s future should develop: Malaysian society’s income distribution will transition from its current ‘triangle’ shape which is large at the bottom, into a more equitable ‘diamond’ structure, anchored in the centre by a strong and stable middle-class. Each of us in the New Malaysia will have to do some hard thinking about how to translate this vision into reality. We must be clear that we did not win the last election by fanning racial, religious or sub-nationalist sentiments. Instead, the election revealed what I have always known to be true: The foremost concern of Malaysians is not one’s racial identity, but one’s rice bowl.

This does not mean that racial and religious rhetoric and division has suddenly disappeared. But these divisions only matter when those in power…