Social inequality in Singapore : the threat of workplace automations & what it reveals about meritocracy

• Main Author: Arinna Fithriyya Ridzuan
• Other Authors: Christopher Louis Suhler
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities::General
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/76689
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Workplace automations are on the rise, but so is Singapore’s social inequality. In this essay, I aim to investigate the effect that the incoming surge of workplace automations has on our social inequality. By doing so, I hope to show how not only does workplace automations threaten to exacerbate our current social stratification, but that it does so at the expense of the less privileged. This will be followed by a distributive justice approach on our meritocratic ideals, in an effort to understand why current initiatives meant to tackle the threat of automations have consistently – and persistently – been geared towards the privileged. In doing so, I will show how distributive justice not only acknowledges the social inequalities perpetuated by our meritocratic ideals, but it also offers a solution in an effort to redeem meritocracy.