While the number of heinous crimes grows at a compounding rate within the country, not a day passes when the common man (read educated bourgeoisie elite) laments moral degeneration and lack of justice in the country. It’s like reading Madonna’s biography and thinking: Are people really capable of this? And more importantly: Am I capable of this?
The conclusion that has so far not been braced is that the jungle and its laws offer more liberty in addition to a plethora of opportunities to men. And thus back gliding in to animal hood is may be not such a bad idea! There are little hurdles and no accountability to be faced irrespective of whichever extreme the avatar turns to. In a country where the richest 10 per cent consume about 40 per cent of the country’s income and the poorest 20 per cent earn less than nine per cent, it is no wonder why the population at large will never aspire to even day dream the American dream; entrepreneurial abilities and ambition in the face of zero resources and a discriminatory financial system get completely busted in front of the luxuries attached with looting and plundering. And let’s face it, how many people who have achieved fair and reasonable successes has the nation celebrated or been made to acknowledge in the last 60 years? The only role models that we have been able to identify with, belong to many many centuries ago, hence the common predilection to find solutions for today in the examples of yesterday long past.
In search of evidence against inequity, the road ironically exhibits the first clue of disparity. This arena has witnessed the onslaught of more than 400,000 brand new 1300-1600cc cars in the last ten years. Since, there have not been many climbing the economic ladder as far as the statistics show, this increase in the standard of living can only be ascribed to our very esteemed 10 per cent of the population. And this figure excludes those for imported and other high powered vehicles. In comparison, the middle class who form an estimated 50 per cent of the population, and can biasedly be assumed to be participating in the market for smaller cars (800-1000cc) can said to have been benefited from an additional 600,000 cars in the last decade.
Which brings us to the low income group where much is left to be desired. Their children are underweight, deprived of basic nutrition which seriously impairs both mental and physical growth. There is very little or no constructive education, and no quantifiable asset creation. Furthermore, the government has nurtured their status as beggars by dolling out a thousand rupees per poor household (BISP) and thus handed out about Rs35-40b in 2011 alone. If in this anti subsidy, lacking political will establishment, policy makers had actually cared about implementing projects for their “poverty alleviation” fetish, reasonable investments into employment creation would have been made for the poor making this subsidy self-sustainable over the longer run.
Economics differentiates between wants and needs. While the current growth in the economy is driven through producing commodities that satisfy the rich man’s wants, his custodian staff is somehow expected to internalise and respect the fact that good things are not meant for his class. The results of inequity are not unknown. Prisoners occupy 222 per cent of the current capacity of jails, the total value of stolen goods in 2011 exceeded Rs560m, snatched vehicles were valued at Rs45m in addition to a higher number of murders, kidnapping for ransom etc. And one can always rely on the accuracy of these official reports!
In the way of devising solutions, two clear paths can be delineated; invest more in security, guns, ammo, special forces and their paraphernalia. The second path, although much simpler may take a lot from this society as this prescribes sharing one’s bounties, believing in nature’s abundance and other such philosophical ruminations.
I wonder which is the Muslim way!
The writer is an economic researcher and freelance financial journalist. She can be reached at [email protected]
