What do the floundering healthcare reform attempts in America and the sorry plight of foreign workers in Singapore have in common? They are both victims of the corporate agenda. Making profits has become the overwhelming concern, shrouding the reality that these profits might have come at a huge social cost.

The so-called healthcare reforms started out as an attempt to slash healthcare costs in America. The issue has not only dominated President Barack Obama’s (pictured) ambitious agenda to “change” America, but is also threatening to overshadow everything else he plans to do. And somehow along the way, competing interests ensured Obama and the Democrats had to make concessions. The public option, as I type, has been tossed out of the picture and nobody knows why exactly…beyond the skewed argument that competition is bad for private insurers. The power, clout and influence these private interests yield over Congressional politics seem to be winning the fight.

The case of a journalist allegedly assaulted by the very employment agents whose practices he exposed will inadvertedly invite renewed skepticism that the Singapore Ministry of Manpower would act upon the alleged assault. There has hardly been any case of protection for journalists (except for that huge, infamous SPH v. T.T. Durai case, which SPH won) and it is unlikely the Singapore government would do anything to upset their “business friendly” approach.

At the risk of oversimplifcation, this approach takes the form of a dual labor strategy: foreign talent, usually degree-wielding foreigners from Western countries and increasingly, around Asia; and foreign workers, unskilled labor from its developing neighbors, mainly India, Bangladesh, China and various Southeast Asian countries. The argument is that Singaporeans either don’t provide enough talent for the higher-tier jobs that these foreign talent bring, or are too choosy to want to take on the menial jobs that these foreign workers do. The People’s Action Party (PAP) government argues that its liberal migration policy is for the long-term economic competitiveness of the country, but the public remains skeptical. More should and would be discussed in future posts, but for now, the focus is on private enterprises, their labor practices and how it relates to their bottom line.

In the mean time, these foreign workers are akin to the lowest life forms in the city-state. The disparity between the way the government treats these groups, policy-wise, is appalling. Many have lauded the economic progress Singapore has made since 1965, but many do not see the social and political costs of the economic miracle. Here, it’s a race to the bottom: cheapest labor costs to get the job done. There have been reports in the past even in the state-controlled mainstream media in Singapore about their inhumane living conditions, but the government continues to turn a blind eye to the way these foreigners are treated.

But unlike America where there is the greater possibility of change, democratically at least; the situation in Singapore is less clear. Sure, there are civil society groups pushing the case of these foreign workers but in a country where the term “civic society” is preferred to “civil society” because it’s less political, change is somehow a more remote possibilty. Profits matters, but here, it is at all costs. But who are these profits for?