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Despite heavy rains, tens of thousands of people lined the streets of Singapore today to say goodbye to the country's founding prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew¹. Lee was one of the most influential² leaders of the last 100 years. He was also an autocrat³ who used his country's libel laws to silence dissent⁴. His opponents were jailed without trial for years. That said, he transformed the city-state from a malaria-infested swamp into a shiny metropolis⁵. Under Lee's rule Singapore became one of the least corrupt⁶ and the richest places on earth and a model for the rest of Asia. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports.

JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE⁷: Singapore has been called the 20th century's most successful development story. Linda Lim is an economist⁸ who teaches at the University of Michigan.

LINDA LIM: I don't think any other economy, even other Asian tigers, have that good a statistical⁹ record of rapid growth, full employment with very good social indicators¹⁰ - life expectancy¹¹, education, housing, et. cetera - in the first 20 years.

ZARROLI: Singapore had little land and no natural resources. But after its independence in 1965, the former British trading port was transformed into a major manufacturing and financial center. The late conservative economist Milton Friedman said on PBS that Singapore showed how to do development right.

MILTON FRIEDMAN: If you compare the conditions of people in a place like Singapore with the conditions of people in a place like Red China or, for that matter, in Indonesia, you will see that the economic freedom is a very important component¹² of total freedom.

ZARROLI: Conservatives saw Singapore as a free-market success story with low taxes, few capital restrictions¹³ and liberal immigration policies that made it one of the most cosmopolitan¹⁴ places on earth.

JOSH KURLANTZICK: They have very, very free trade, very low tariffs¹⁵, very few nontariff barriers. So in that way, it's a very open economy. And they'll boast about how you can start up you own company in Singapore in, like, three hours or something like that.

ZARROLI: That's Josh Kurlantzick of the Council on Foreign Relations. But, like Deng Xiaoping's China, which emulated¹⁶ many of Singapore's policies, Lee's government played a big role in the economy.

KURLANTZICK: Some of the biggest sectors¹⁷ domestically - shipbuilding, electronics, banking¹⁸, and now they're very involved in private banking - got their start because Lee Kuan Yew and the government specifically directed State Farm into those areas.

ZARROLI: The government also provided social services such as housing and health care in a way a liberal economists¹⁹ applaud it. Linda Lim, who grew up in Singapore, says this brought a certain amount of social peace. She says these policies were designed by Lee's cabinet, but Lee provided the leadership that made them possible.

LIM: He understood the politics of this very diverse place and put together the laws, including the labor²⁰ laws, that created a stable, peaceful place that multinationals²¹ were looking for.

ZARROLI: Lee himself believes Singapore's growth was tied to the shared values of its different ethnic²² and religious groups.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRIME MINISTER LEE KUAN YEW: We have had, since 1965, an undivided society, solidly behind a meritocratic system, pushing for higher standards of education, higher standards of performance and meritocratic at every level.

ZARROLI: Singapore today is a mature economy that, like Japan, has seen its growth slow. It's had to compete with other low-wage countries that sometimes emulated its economic policies. Kurlantzick says today it struggles with a problem familiar to the West.

KURLANTZICK: People live well but the per capita GDP conceals²³ a high level of inequality. So that is definitely a major issue in Singapore today and one of the things that the current Prime Minister has focused on.

ZARROLI: But Singapore remains²⁴ a big financial center with a high standard of living. And Lee Kuan Yew is remembered as the man who made its prosperity possible. Jim Zarroli, NPR News.

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