As special enclaves proliferate, what are the consequences for democracy?

When the British announced the withdrawal of their navy from Singapore in 1967, a Dutch adviser from the United Nations, Albert Winsemius, offered the Singapore government two pieces of advice.

The first was to crush the communists:

I am not interested in what you do with them. You can throw them in jail, throw them out of the country, you can even kill them. As an economist, it does not interest me; but I have to tell you, if you don’t eliminate them in government, in unions, in the streets, forget about economic development.

The second piece of advice was to let the statue of Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore, remain standing. The Singaporeans should not repeat the error of the Indonesian freedom fighters, who tore down a statue of a hated Dutch colonial officer. The Raffles statue would be testimony ‘that you accept the heritage of the British’, and serve as a beacon to western companies.