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2 - The Moral Economy of Casino Work in Singapore

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2020

By
Juan Zhang
Edited by
Cheryll Alipio  and
Lan Anh Hoang
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Summary

Abstract

Singapore opened two casino resorts in 2010 despite strong public suspicion and resistance. Casino work brings a good income and a certain prestige, but it also places employees in a state of moral uncertainty. Drawing from fieldwork in Singapore, the chapter looks at the moral economy of casino work, especially how employees negotiate moral dilemmas with financial and professional gains. Casino employees fashion a flexible sense of self and hold on to a strong belief in professionalism and self-responsibilization. Such strategies allow employees to suspend personal emotions in the workplace, and to value personal detachment as professionalism. As casino employees recode their moral values through the logic of ‘making exception’, they actively contribute to the moral economy of the casino in Singapore.

Keywords: moral economy, casino, work, responsibilization, professionalism, Singapore

Introduction

‘Are we going to hell? Because what we are doing [in the casino], it is sinful. But we have to earn money. It's our job … But as long as you are doing your job in the casino, it's fine because people [like us] rely on the casino to earn money’. This was how Vanessa, a 27-year-old Filipino guest service representative working in a mega casino resort in Singapore, thought of her work. As a mother of two young children, who remained left behind in the Philippines under the care of their grandparents, Vanessa said that she needed the money and a good career to be able to support her children’s general well-being and future education. Her job in Singapore's casino came with not only a good salary package, but also an Employment Pass that suggested a slim possibility of getting permanent residency (PR) down the track. If she obtained PR, she could then bring her children to Singapore for study without paying high fees for schooling as foreigners. The casino job was ‘sinful’, Vanessa said; but if this meant that she could support her children and have a future with them in Singapore, this ‘sinful job’ also offered hope. Vanessa's account brings to light the moral economy of casino work in Singapore. Using moral economy as an analytical framework, I depart from the historical social concept developed by E.P. Thompson (1971) and James Scott (1976), who described the moral causes for popular agrarian resistance.

Type
Chapter
Information
Money and Moralities in Contemporary Asia , pp. 39 - 58
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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