Is Free Speech a Luxury?: The Failing Democratic Ideal of the East and West

By Amelyn Koh Yee '29

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The East and West have often run head-to-head, a push and pull between a market that is too free and a government that is too involved. Looking at two constitutional democracies, the United States and Singapore, that contrast cannot be more evident.

Freedom of speech is a fundamental pillar of democracy, one that is constitutionally protected in both the United States and Singapore. The Constitution of the Republic of Singapore states in Article 14 that all citizens have the “right to freedom of speech and expression, [...] and to assemble peacefully without arms.” (1) In the Constitution of the United States, the First Amendment prevents Congress from censoring free speech, the press, peaceful assembly, and petitions. (2) While both countries have constitutionally democratic frameworks, they systematically limit political expression through different mechanisms. Singapore uses explicit state authority to suppress dissent, while the US allows capitalism and market dominance to commodify political speech and undermine the voices of the working and middle class.

At first glance, Article 14 of Singapore’s Constitution perfectly protects free political speech. However, as one reads on to Clause 2 of Article 14, a very different truth is revealed. (3) Clause 2 gives Parliament the right to impose laws necessary to maintain public order and protect against defamation. In 2009, Parliament passed the Public Order Act, which prohibits citizens from freely protesting without a police permit, seeing even peaceful marches as threats to public order. (4) A decade later, Parliament passed the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA), giving ministers in Parliament the power of deciding what is considered to be true. (5) For example, during a drug-trafficking death penalty case in 2023, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued corrections to social media posts and articles from anti-death penalty activists. (6) Government regulation of social media platforms enabled by POFMA forces online political discourse to abide by government censorship, giving the government the power to craft each narrative the way they want.

While POFMA directly limits speech, Singapore’s campaign finance laws limit speech through money. Where democracy is a constant fight between freedom and equality, Singapore’s campaign finance laws promote fairness where everyone’s voices can be heard equally. It prevents money politics, ensuring an even playing field where each candidate is only allowed to spend the same amount of money during their campaigns. The Political Donations Act of 2000, later repealed and incorporated into the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act 2021, sets a cap of $10,000 towards candidates in a single year. (7) (8) However, this egalitarian ideal exists within a system where opposition voices are already structurally repressed by the state, proving how a financial cap, while enhancing democratic equality, limits the freedom of campaign finance management.

With the First Amendment, the United States Congress cannot pass laws that will restrict free speech, allowing its citizens to freely express various political sentiments. This has allowed the public the right to freely assemble, a right which has been well-used, noting the surge in protests within the country in the past decade. With the right to assembly and speech, many organisations, groups, and individuals are able to express their political beliefs. Political Action Committees (PACs) are one such organisation. PACs raise funds to support or oppose political candidates; the funds raised are distributed to candidates, and, like in Singapore, are subject to strict caps.

With the judicial decisions of the United States Supreme Court following the cases of Buckley v. Valeo and Citizens United v. FEC, independent political spending was redefined to count as protected free speech, indicating a legal shift where the Court legally equates money and speech. In Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court struck down the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 Section 608, deeming limits on election expenditures unconstitutional. The Buckley v. Valeo decision established the concept that caps on candidate expenditure would be unconstitutional as they restrict free speech, violating the First Amendment. The court stated that “a restriction on the amount of money a person or group can spend on [...] a campaign reduces the quantity of expression.” (9) 

In Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court expanded that concept of expenditure to include unions and corporations, allowing such groups to have unlimited spending for independent political promotions. (10) The categorisation of independent political spending as protected free speech has allowed the proliferation of super PACs, officially known as independent-expenditure-only committees, that are able to spend unlimited amounts of money to promote and support specific candidates and their political agenda. In the 2024 election cycle, the Senate Leadership Fund spent a total of $211 million to secure Republican seats during the federal elections. (11) In 2016, Priorities USA Action allocated $133 million in support of Hillary Clinton’s run for president. (12) While the working class still has rights to free speech, corporate elites are able to spend millions on political advertising, drowning out the voices of the working class and distorting democratic representation.

Both the United States and Singapore are constitutionally democratic; however, they each have their own democratic shortcomings. Singapore’s government maintains top-down, authoritarian control of the political narrative, limiting its citizens’ freedom of political expression. Control of the political narrative is held solely by executive ministers, stripping common folk of the freedom to express dissent. The United States’ bottom-up, plutocratic control of the market of campaign politics equates wealth with political speech, suppressing the sentiments of the less wealthy. While the causes of these democratic shortfalls are very different—too much state as opposed to too much market—the result is alarmingly similar. Grassroots voices are drowned or silenced to favour the desires of political elites and the wealthy.

Being constitutionally democratic isn’t enough for a democracy. Singapore and the United States are both countries that are constitutionally democratic, but through the use of state authority in Singapore and the dominance of the capitalist market in the United States, the democratic ideal of free and equal political speech is kept an idealistic dream. For true political freedom of speech to exist, a democracy requires both the absence of state persecution and the presence of structural equity. It requires a reconciliation of the equality Singapore’s campaign finance laws structurally provide, and the freedom of expression the United States’ lack of state intervention allows for.

Endnotes

1. Constitution of the Republic of Singapore Art 14(1).

2. U.S. Const. amend. I.

3. Constitution of the Republic of Singapore Art 14(2).

4. Public Order Act 2009 (Singapore). https://sso.agc.gov.sg/act/poa2009.

5. Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act 2019 (Singapore). https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/POFMA2019. 

6. Yuen-C, Tham. "Pofma Correction Orders Issued over False Claims about Death Penalty Case." The Straits Times. May 19, 2023. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/politics/pofma-correction-orders-issued-over-false-claims-about-death-penalty-case.

7. Political Donations Act 2000 (No. 20 of 2000) (Singapore). https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Acts-Supp/20-2000/Published/20011231?DocDate=20000620.

8. Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act 2021 (No. 28 of 2021) (Singapore). https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/FICA2021.

9. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 15 (1976).

10. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S 310, 340 (2010)

11. Open Secrets. “Senate Leadership Fund Outside Spending.” Accessed June 13, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/detail/2024?cmte=Senate+Leadership+Fund&tab=summary. 

12. Murse, Tom. “The Era of the Super PAC in American Politics.” ThoughtCo. Updated May 9, 2025.  https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-super-pac-3367928.