Market forces responsible for social instability
THE EDITOR: Kevin Baldeosingh in his article in the Newsday dated Friday October 21, 2005 in his usual magisterial manner attempted to offer a solution for the high crime rate that is plaguing this country. In the article he pointed to the West and far Eastern countries where as he puts it, "in all cases, progress relied on market forces allied to a reasonable gap between the haves and have-not." This he argues would lead to a prosperous society where crime would be reduced. However, contrary to the picture he paints, market forces have been responsible for the social instability and a high crime rate in many regions in the world. Neo-liberal packages that have been adopted in Latin America and the former Soviet Union have almost destroyed these regions. Inequality and the social instability it generates are the outcome of these free market policies. In many of these places the result has been a high crime rate, bloodshed and in some places civil war, and almost total collapse of the state apparatus, a situation this country seems to be heading to. To put it in simplistic terms, in a consumer driven society the situation arises where the majority of people hopelessly chase after scarce economic resources, which only a privileged few seem to attain in the end. Yet the underprivileged are bombarded through the media which is owned by the wealthy, to purchase products they cannot afford. The owners of capital after all must create a market for their goods. The end result is that the poor turn to violence, drugs and criminal activity to gain these consumer goods they have been brainwashed to see as desirable. This is why many criminals have turned this country into a killing field similar to Hitler’s camps and Pinochet’s Chile. The American CIA and FBI cannot solve the problem nor can sophisticated equipment. Crime can only be reduced in an egalitarian society where human beings are the centre of development, where this elitist political system is removed and where workers have a greater say in the factories and business places. Some of the powerful business owners who complain about crime in this country are the same ones who find it difficult to pay workers the minimum wage. Is this not as morally repulsive as kidnappings and also hypocritical? Finally, Mr Baldeosingh’s false hope in the "free" market only prevents him from considering that a better world is responsible, a more egalitarian one. This social model is radically different from the failed model he advocates. RAPHAEL JOHN LALL Erin
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"Market forces responsible for social instability"