The positive externalities of "exploitation"

As Economics students, we learn about maceoeconomics and developmental economics, and how people are incentivized to move in seek of better conditions elsewhere when the opportunity comes, especially in poorer rural area where the push factors are very strong. We learn these in a very macro perspective: when a country needs cheap labour, people from less developed countries move over. In fact, we see it everyday in Singapore...

Typing out essays and penning these policies down during exams always appear very mechanical and trivial to me because they comprise a fundamentally simple logic. But beyond these "textbook contents," we often overlook the very real human element within. 

Perhaps they are somewhat correct in saying academia makes human less human; that when you read too much about something, you lose a psychological connection with the "topic" you're on even when you "face" it everyday. We somehow forgot that they're more than just chapters in our textbook. 

Today, watching the news and seeing how people in India's Tamil Nadu villages are crying over Lee Kuan Yew's death made me realize how impactful certain decisions are as a public servant, and definitely reinstilled the sense of righteousness in me that I found at the very beginning. Even though I believe LKY had less of their plight in mind than that of Singapore's situation then, it nevertheless changed lives. 

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Imagine you are LKY looking down from heaven, these people from such far away land weeping over your demise, that sense of accomplishment must be unimaginable. I take back my words that "who in the other parts of the world cares if the ex-leader of a small nation pass away;" because in so many places elsewhere, they are indebted to him just as we are.