Professor Danny Quah succinctly explains life when he points out that growth benefits all, but it also leads to inequality. I may be wrong, but I believe that this has a lot to do with how we as a society currently defines value. Admit it: We are materialistic at some level, if not for ourselves then for the people we love. Because of that we move like herds, planning for our future base on what we are told today, training ourselves now so we can be employable in the future.
Mass production and industrialization has had a significant effect on our working life and in that sense new lifestyles are created, some better, some worse and some requires sacrifices from the future. Just in my hometown alone, I watch small landowners becoming plantation workers, a neighbour recycling metals from electronic goods in his front yard, and women leaving their homes in the village to come out to work as maids. All these for the pursuit of wealth and happiness, yet how much of this "improvement" is real?
Admittedly, commerce has created a better life for an increasingly larger portion of the world population than ever before, and numbers are used to show the rise of this middle class which are then compared between countries. Though we can count what we have material-wise in quantities (eg. units or currency), I don't think there is a clear way to show these differences in quality. For example, Bob and Daud may each have an apple for breakfast in the morning although one apple is organic and the other irradiated. Karim and Tatsuo may spend the same number of hours in school, though one studies in a comfortable classroom of 10 students while the other is stuffed into a jam-packed room of 35.
Other more subtle sacrifices are also made in the name of growth, such as the rejection of one's own culture for another that is considered superior in the world of commerce and information. I would be a hypocrite if I do not admit that I know more about the Western Culture than I do my own Dayak ones. The reason is simple, I don't speak Iban as well as I would hope and I also don't read the language well. Most of all there was, and still is, very little incentive for me to learn my mother tongue.
All being said, growth does have one valuable aspect that we cannot ignore, which is the fact that our lives have become so intertwined with each other that we can no longer afford to ignore each others' needs. There will always be cases of abuse in the workplace, especially when the supply of labour is more than the demand for it. Yet, when growth does occur, employers will do all they can to ensure increased productivity to the extend of giving higher pay and better work conditions. In essence, their own self-preserving nature will make them better human beings.
For that reason, with all the inequalities that do occur within economic growth, there is also a portion of it that improves the way people treat each other. Maybe we will see full equality in a generation or two because of the open opportunities we now have in terms of work and education, or maybe we will not because of our humanness. Whatever the outcome, rambling away an ending is a very bad way to end an article.
Read more articles.
Find more Danny Quah in the WWW.
