Ailing imbalance between the rich and the poor | Daily News

Ailing imbalance between the rich and the poor

There are three broadly distinct economic classes of people in Sri Lanka. The rich, the middle class and the poor, each of which could be sub-divided: 1. the richest to which the past and present politicians and their closest cronies belong and some of the business class and businessmen who also are in many ways beneficiaries of the favours of the ruling class whose material worth is calculated in the hundreds of millions. 2. The upper middle class who have inherited possessions of substantial worth that continue to bring good incomes along with those with prosperous businesses and the lower middle class who live off monthly earned salaries, small properties, investments and savings. 3. The poor, some of who are employed as minor staff while others do menial jobs or are self-employed earning a living for their day-to-day existence and the very poor among who are the old without any stable income and who have no one to look after them and those who have no income except what may be received as a ‘charity’ allowance from the government. (It is an irony that a throw-away dole is called charity. Charity is a self-sacrificing donation of oneself in fraternal compassion.)

The poorest of the poor who have no proper abode or food or clothing and do not know where their next meal is going to come from. Some of these poor people have found their way to elders’ homes managed by voluntary charitable and religious institutions who feel for the pain the poor go through.

The economic classes of the rich, the royals, aristocrats, corrupt politicians enjoying extremely high incomes widely differing from those earning incomes insufficient even to live, are not divinely ordained but an outcrop of an unjust man-made socio-economic phenomenon. Globally, extreme poverty is catastrophic: there are 327 million extremely poor people in Asia, 383 million in Africa, 19 million in South America, 13 million in North America besides a few more millions in other places of the world.

Visible to the keen observer is the wide gap between these classes of people. It is not only surprising but also indicative of a civilization and culture and a high level of self-respect on the part of the poor as well as their helplessness and weakness that in spite of the visible contrast between the rich and the poor, the animosity of the weak and the poor do not create frequent tensions against the rich or between the rulers and the helpless poorer citizens. This is also because the weakness of the poor will be forcefully suppressed by those in power if such a rebellion were to occur. In any case, narrowing the gap is not only improving a lot of the poor but also all getting more civilized and building the nation.

SRI LANKA’S RICH AND THE POOR

Life, as it comes, is not fair to everyone in many circumstances. All those who share life as rational human beings, have to make life human, fair, secure and livable for all, especially for the poor and disadvantaged who in their physical incapacity and powerlessness cannot do it on their own. The poor do not have decent houses, nourishing food, proper clothes. They also do not have benevolent and generous friends.

Poverty could bring on a misery that demeans life and makes the whole of society out of joint as it were. Though the able-bodied poor could earn their living by the sweat of their brow, their sweat is accounted of little worth in a society where the better off not only keep the poor man’s work at a low worth but also treat the poor with a certain disdain. The rich cheaply earn their ease by buying the labour of the poor at too low a price. Though this directly offends human dignity, the consciences of people of modern society do not seem to be pricked by it. The whole of society acts unjustly by the thousands of the poor people in it. One wonders what the sensitivity of the conscience is of the so-called leaders of workers, the trade union bosses, ministers of labour and of governments – people who have the power and could indeed usher civilized social reform – are and have been. In a way, they too seem to be socially insensitive as they too live off the poor and in a way to exploit them, even while shouting hoarse about human rights.

Almost three billion people, half of the world’s population, live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty — on less than $1.25 a day. One billion children worldwide are living in poverty.

In Sri Lanka, 6.7% of the population live below the national ‘poverty line’ unable to get what is needed for life. Yet in South Asia, Sri Lanka rates high as its literacy rate, life expectancy and social indicators are nearly equal to those of developed countries. Sri Lanka’s education and health sectors have achieved that and Sri Lanka has reached the medium category in the Human Development Index. Yet due to poverty remaining a major stumbling block 2017 was named the “Poverty Eradication Year” for Sri Lanka and “Millenium Development goals were followed.

October 17th being Word Poverty Day, it is good to pay serious attention to the world unacceptably divided as it is between the Rich and the Poor.

Governments and modern economists of all types all over the world and of various ideologies speak of national economic resurgence and growth and the strategies that lead towards it, envisioning prospects of a wider distribution of growth, prosperity and well-being among the people and indeed of eradicating poverty that humiliates. All do not pay attention to the just and fair management and distribution of the national product but concentrate about the overall growth even when it is weighted as it often happens on the side of those who are already benefitting. Sufficient amounts always do not trickle down from the prosperous to the poor nor do the high earners duly pay their taxes. Indeed, they try every ruse to pay fewer taxes or even evade taxes altogether. Parliamentarians exempting themselves from taxes and earning from the duty-free import of vehicle and selling them and depriving the State of taxes, extending tax-free concessions to certain already privileged classes is the biggest of public scandals. Workers’ trade union bosses are deaf, dumb and blind in this regard.

Very often, the poor are like those who pick the crumbs that fall from the ‘masters’ tables’ and that does not improve their lot. They also do not always get justice for the humble and often menial work they honestly do - work that is very much needed the neglect of which could cause immense inconvenience and harm to everyone. It is work that is often undervalued and unappreciated by the whole of society. If the capitalist, liberal and Marxist socialist expert economists’ and national planners’ understanding of human dignity, human rights, democracy, equality, justice and fairness, dignity of labour was sufficiently sober and moral and of good human quality, they would assess the quality and worth of human beings far more decently and value their work more in terms of wages. The intervention of public authority is absolutely necessary to bring about the overall right balance.

DIGNITY OF LABOUR

It has to be noted that menial work for which the pay is very low is handsomely paid for in other countries. People who would never think of doing such work here, such as cleaning streets and toilets, readily seek such jobs in Europe as the wages are high. In fact, on a visit to Rome, three years ago, a young Sri Lankan who was engaged doing such work came in his own new car to see my friend and me and took us for dinner to a good restaurant and was generous in his hospitality.

The poor suffer many disadvantages, the foremost of which is their being denied their human dignity and human rights along with a sense of respect and honour due to human beings. Many children of the poor forfeit their childhood by becoming child labourers and breadwinners for the family.

As child labourers, among the other many disadvantages, that they suffer from are their inability to even garner the benefits of free education and health services as well as other social and civic rights along with the manners and courtesies that come with a good upbringing and wholesome education. All almost unconsciously though not maliciously or wickedly look on and relate to the poor not on a level of equality but at a lesser level. As every material thing and every capability and intellectual property gets measured and valued in terms of money, the capabilities of the poor get less than a value of even a pet dog of the rich. These measurements and attitudes do not enable a poor person to live a dignified human life in today’s society.

ILL-BRED POLITICIANS

Even government departments such as the Department of Education, the Police and the Armed Forces are sometimes used by governments in power to irrationally and unreasonably silence and subjugate the democratic voice of the poor and disadvantaged people. Ministers and bureaucrats have no time and patience to listen to the voice of the poor. In fact, it is the stupid and ill-bred ministers, deputy ministers and politicians wielding power who treat those they think are ‘below’ them in inhuman and indecent ways. Blokes such as those who are indeed the society’s scum. They have grabbed power and are far from bringing on a new civilization in which all people could live in keeping with human dignity, mutual respect and honour.

On the part of political power holders there shouldn’t be a vague desire but a determined will and the capability of improving a lot of the poor by mobilizing the natural, human, material, political and moral resources at their command. But this does not take place because the low education, the self-absorbed selfishness of the political power holders and their craving and greed for bribes and ‘commissions’ prevent them from a wholehearted commitment to not only to any social reformation and improvement project but even in solving the garbage problem for which too they expect bribes, like in Meehotamulla and in the Uva Province. They direct their main attention to their lazy and unproductive kith and kin to whom they invariably distribute the funds, at their disposal, which belong to the people.

The intellectual poverty of these politicians makes their fragmented view of social reality produce a penury of vision that leads them to become greedy fellows who satisfy their hankering and low personal inclinations and completely ignore the civic dimensions and social responsibility of their mission as elected representatives.

The highly visible and socially unacceptable contrast between the rich and the poor cannot be transformed by the extremely corrupt politicians who have been in power for several decades and who are clever thieves who know how to rob and hide their illegal gains in secret hideouts. They create social tension and animosity by sowing racial and religious prejudice between the poor and the rich and powerful, pander to the addiction to alcohol among the riff-raff of society, sow violence among social classes and fish in troubled waters.

These lead to a spiral of violence and hatred that complicate and do not help solve social problems. Political and economic power is more concentrated than ever before in the hands of those who govern. All need to discover a dispassionate social and civic sense, sit down at a table, discuss what needs to be done and reasonably decide to do the reforms that are needed and execute them without violence and bloodshed. This needs an integrity of character not yet visible in the political, economic and professional fields.

In the corrupt political culture of Sri Lanka, the palatial residences of politicians and businessmen closely connected to every governing class are in no way symbolic of justice, fair play, equality of people, decency and recognition of merit.

Rulers also side with favoured groups and religious high ups who are made a new kind of princely class who create themselves into a newly rich privileged class above other people and even above the rule of law. Rising in importance again but finding its function limited to the slavish service of rulers, the upper bourgeois bureaucrats, shift their loyalty from the workplace, trade union and political party to the autocratic ruler’s palace. For ordinary people, administrative centralization and politically sanctioned half-baked socio-economic ‘reforms’ have the effect of loss of human dignity and freedom and of more rigid controls being imposed over their lives.

Only a determined and honest government of honest individuals could accomplish the desired reforms as man-made problems created by corrupt men and women could only be satisfactorily solved by honest rulers elected by citizens determined about electing persons of integrity to govern. 


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