I meant the attributes that we measure progress by. Quoted straight from the article - "It leads the world in education, banking, shipping and has created a everyday existence of unrivaled cleanliness, safety and stability"

education, banking and shipping are of course all much easier in a city state which is advantageously located and was, prior to decolonialistion, full of the best facilities for all of these in the region by far..

safety, cleanliness and stability are all pretty straightforward attributes of authoriarianism . Unless we want to reconsider our concpetion of 20th century governments usually deemed 'backward' which also achieved this, I'm not sure we should call this 'progress'

but whats that progress for? median income that hasnt changed perceptibly for a decade? a gini like the usa?