Poverty: The child of inequality

THE EDITOR: Paraphrasing biblical passages to support his view, Mr Fitzgerald Hinds recently informed us that poverty as it exists in this country is “the reward of laziness.” The Member of Parliament for Laventille East has made himself clear: “We are responsible for our poverty.” The missionaries of the slave plantations must have applauded from their graves. The victim is blamed for his circumstances. The MP dismisses the view of those who blame the “system” and “capitalists” for conditions of poverty. It is all up to us he declared, to “work and pray ourselves out of this condition.”

This outlook is identical to that of the ruling classes of nineteenth century England who considered that “hungry men were invincibly idle men, and poverty was the consequence of moral fault.” At that time poverty was equated with laziness, and so the entire working class was considered to be lazy. Such is also the definite view of Mr Hinds. But are we to believe in this world’s largest exporter of methanol, as well as ammonia, that all of the 22 percent of the population “officially” deemed to be below the Poverty Line are lazy? Would Mr Hinds have us accept that in these two little islands, where corporate executives earn upwards of $100,000 a month while 90 percent of the working population earn less than $4,000 a month, that laziness explains the lot of the working poor?

Is it because they are lazy that workers are currently gaining salary increases ranging from 10 to 15 in contrast to the hefty increases of upwards of 33 percent to Parliamentarians like himself? These days even the World Bank, of all institutions, acknowledges that poor income distribution is a major cause of poverty. It is therefore a political tragedy of tremendous proportions when a “people’s representative” can only see laziness as its cause. Even the staunchest conservatives now concede that neo-liberal structural adjustment policies, such as have been adopted in this country, serve to worsen income distribution and thus raise poverty levels - but not the Laventille/East MP. The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 1997 reported that as a result of these measures “wage inequality has increased, most often in the context of declining employment....and large absolute falls in real wages.” UNCTAD continued “Capital has gained in comparison with labour, and profit shares have risen everywhere.”

The global agencies acknowledge poverty as the outcome of the workings of the economic system - the capitalist economic system. The MP for Laventille/East, however, remains convinced that our poverty is due to our laziness.’This is not to deny that laziness and other counterproductive attitudes exist and need to be corrected. Indeed, I share the MP’s expressed abhorrence of that sense of helplessness and dependency that has come to characterise the outlook of too many of our citizens. Much of this has been nurtured and reinforced by the election oriented policies of governments such as the one that he supports in the Parliament. But if poverty has anything to do with laziness, it is the laziness of our generation to carry forward the work of the patriots of the 1930s to abolish this exploitative order. This is what Butler, Barrat and others had in mind, when at that time, they raised the slogan that: “Labour must hold the reins of power.” Such language of course, would seem like gibberish to today’s so-called labour leaders. And so the field is wide open for insult to be added to our injuries, where after brutal exploitation and dispossession, we are told that we are poor because we are lazy. Perhaps Mr Hinds is right.

TERRENCE REGIS
Trou Macaque