This book delves into the “mechanics” of the “fit and proper test”, as it functions around the world as de facto Imperial legislation, emanating from Western Europe, and followed without further analysis by systems of governance in East Asia. The meaning of the term “fit and proper”, for assessing people as professionals, in contrast to a well-structured good character test, is insufficiently specific to be used as a set of criteria for admission to a profession. The parties to a “fit and proper” assessment are actually the court and members of the public, with the court making a judgment in its own cause, and without the public ever participating in the assessment. A “fit and proper” assessment suggests a systemic inquiry against the applicant, inferring both bias and inherent public denunciation. Thus, the book contains in-depth research into these topics: The Fit and Proper Person Test: The Theory; The ‘Fit and Proper Person’ in Malaysia and Singapore; The Origin of the Professions; The Fitness and Propriety of Subaltern Groups; Délation of Character; The Stasis of Disrepute; Child Labor and the Subaltern Working Class; Coercive Moral Hazard. As such, this book is a frank and fearless exegesis on the realities of British Imperial regulation of the Professions in East Asia.
