Maravi

Who is getting the benefits of economic growth?

Who is getting the benefits of economic growth?
By The Post
Wed 19 Jan. 2011, 04:00 CAT

The great majority of our people cannot each day meet the basic needs necessary for a decent human life. But every day, we are being told that our country’s macro and microeconomic prospects seem to be improving.

If this is so, why are so many people in our country each day failing to meet fundamental needs? It is a strict duty of justice and truth not to allow fundamental needs to remain unsatisfied.

Proverbs 30:8 tells us: “Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me.”

Clearly, there is a danger that government policies, if not combined with clear social concern, will bring socio-economic deprivation.

An improvement in economic prospects should be seen in the improvement of living conditions, especially for the low-income earners.

Economic justice requires that each individual has adequate resources to survive, to develop and thrive, and to give back in service to the community.

Economic growth depends, in the very first place, on social progress. It is meaningless to talk about economic growth when there is no social progress.

We should always bear in mind that our people are not thirsting for the ideas, for the things in one’s head.

They are yearning to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives improve, to guarantee the future of their children.

There is nothing which makes people more appreciative of a government and the things it is doing, its policies and practices than that it should be able to deliver services.

If the economic prospects are improving, then what is causing the deepening of poverty in our country?

This clearly demonstrates that poverty is impoverishment caused by the unjust political, economic and social structures.

Every citizen of this country should have the chance to enjoy the wellbeing necessary for their full human development.

One cannot sensibly claim to be developing a country when the living conditions of the great majority of the people are not improving.

This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless it is a good place for all of us to live in. Citizens of this country are living in very different conditions.

A trifling minority is enjoying a very high standard of living. They enjoy a nutritional, abundant and balanced diet as well as clean water supplies.

They have access to sophisticated medical care and culture.

The overwhelming majority of our people are living in terrible conditions, in squalor, in abject poverty – suffering hunger, disease and helplessness.

Obviously, our country is carrying too much injustice to remain peaceful and stable.

There is need for us to ensure that all our people live in conditions of solidarity, equity and justice.

Hunger, poverty, disease, ignorance, unemployment, lack of opportunity, insecurity, inequality, hopelessness are the terms that could well define the living conditions of the great majority of our people today.

The economic and social injustice implied by all this when we are every day claiming that our economy is doing well is an affront to our collective conscience.

It is an imperative need of our time to be aware of these realities, because of what this situation entails in terms of human suffering and the squandering of life and intelligence.

This is the expression of the evident inequalities existing in our country, probably not fully reflected in the economic statistical indicators of progress they are talking about.

This is a clear case of uneven income distribution in our country resulting from unjust discriminatory social relations.

This indicates the need for deep essential changes in our political, economic and social structures so that the great majority of our people can have access to the benefits of development policies.

Clearly, the improving economic prospects they are talking about do not take into account the differentials between the various income sectors of our population.

Hunger is a phenomenon intimately associated with poverty, with the marked income imbalances in our country, with the lack of opportunities, with ignorance, inequalities and injustice.

This poverty is first and foremost, a political fact.

A comprehensive approach is required to fight this situation and to struggle for diminishing or eradicating such inequalities.

It is a question of improving the quality of life, not only fighting the serious shortages in every sphere, but acting on them where the development of our society is concerned, which is not necessarily economic growth.

The trends which serve as the basis for the somber immediate outlook for our country are the most obvious expressions of the unbearable situation of injustice and inequality still prevailing in our country today.

But they are not necessarily inexorable.

We can, if we really want, act to change that increasingly unjust future for one that is bright and equitable.

The existence of large numbers of hungry and undernourished people in our country constitutes and affront to all of us.

A stable, permanent solution must be found for this serious problem.

We cannot continue to talk about economic progress or improving economic prospects to people who are seeing nothing of the results of the progress or prosperity we are talking about.

We need to situate our economic progress within the human vocation.

Economic progress should help our people to pass from less human conditions to more human conditions.

These inequalities we see, the growing poverty among the great majority of our people amidst improving micro and macroeconomic prospects is the product of our unjust socio-economic structures.

For this reason, no sector should reserve to itself exclusively the carrying out of political, social and economic matters.

Those who possess the power of decision making must exercise it with the desires and options of the community.

Our daily life as well as our decision in the political and economic fields must be marked by these realities.

We should not forget to give precedence to this phenomenon of growing poverty amidst improving micro and macroeconomic prospects.

Instead of becoming fewer, the poor are becoming more numerous in our country today. It is impossible not to take account of the existence of these realities.

To ignore them would mean becoming like the “rich man” who pretended not to know the beggar Lazarus lying at his gate (Luke 16:19-31).

Labels: GDP, NEOLIBERALISM, POVERTY

posted by MrK @ 4:44 AM