Inequality, an imperfection we continue with

Some of my happier school holidays were spent in a hilly Chittagong village where my grandparents lived. Morning fog, palm juice, winter harvest, grazing cattle, mud houses, rides on bullock carts, the sound of dheki, a foot pounding rice grinder, created a milieu that left a blissful child enthralled, as expected from a visit to Nanarbari. The fun of chasing Jonaki Poka, luminescent fireflies under a glowing full-moon or during an omaboshya, a great darkness during the first night of the first quarter of lunar month, could never be enjoyed in city lights.

A visit to the same village now would reveal a hotchpotch of multi-storey brick buildings, generators, mobile phone towers, cable TVs, tractors and of course no dheki, as they have long been replaced by rice mills – not many bullock carts either with preponderance of motor vehicles.

This transformation, though, seems not to have touched the poor in the village, who instead of sending their kids to schools, continue to supply them as servants to well-off households within the village and in the cities, as they are unable to feed them. They still toil at someone else's farmlands, ponds or paddy fields at meager wages just to be alive – with hopes that their next generation will not suffer like them and have a better life – when they remain to be pawns in the fiefdom.

This scene is not unique to my grandparent's village or confined to Bangladeshi villages but universal and can be found in many developing countries across the world, with varying severities.

When analysis from reputable sources like the United Nations, World Bank or World Trade Organisation claim that many have escaped from abject poverty in recent years, they are using a tiny $1.25 or $2.00 per day threshold as the poverty line — the poor may not be starving but they are highly unlikely to progress far on that scanty amount.

Of course, we should not overlook the efforts of generous individuals, private sector initiatives, NGOs, development organisations, charities, micro-credit initiatives and migration(remittance). Together, these efforts are indeed helping to alleviate poverty in many countries.

But when it is argued that trade, globalisation, commerce or GDP growth are also contributing towards lifting poverty levels, we need to take it with a grain of salt. Consider India and China's growth and rapid modernisation. The relatively higher GDP growth of these giants is often praised, but this growth has failed to take the poor with it. Apparently, half of the Indian population, including 13% of the urban population, defecates in the open (The Economist, India's Census Results: Just Getting By, March 15, 2012), while growth has produced more billionaires, super-entrepreneurs, technocrats and well-offs in living memory – and this is sad.

The readymade garment industry is often praised for its contribution in a number of developing economies in Asia, but working conditions, wage levels, exploitation and harassment of women workers are disregarded. In addition, as in other businesses the rich pocket the lion's share of income from export profits.

United Nations Human Development Reports have recently provided a thorough analysis of a number of indicators and demonstrated the correlation between life expectancy, income equality and education. The composite indicator or the Human Development Index ranked 187 countries and shows levels of inequality.

For a simplistic comparative analysis, in the table below, indicators of so called emerging economic powers or the BRIC countries, the richer three Brazil, Russia, China, while ranked high on HDI, have higher income and fewer people below the poverty line, demonstrate high level of income inequality. India, in addition, has a high level of gender inequality and a larger population below the poverty line.

Raising income and increased use of modern consumables may not always be an ideal yardstick of development.

Income redistribution is not a problem of developing countries alone, in the West, behind its glittering infrastructures and consumables, the gap between the rich and poor is widening. It is worrying and some commentators say it is a threat to democracy and capitalism, and one of the reasons for social disturbances like the London riots.

According to the OECD's Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising report published in December 2011:

"The gap between rich and poor has widened in most OECD countries over the past 30 years.
Today in advanced economies, the average income of the richest 10% of the population is about nine times that of the poorest 10%.

The Gini coefficient, a standard measure of inequality, where zero means everybody has the same income and 1 means the richest person has all the income, stood at an average of 0.29 for working-age persons in OECD countries in the mid-1980s. By the late 2000s, it had increased by almost 10% to 0.316".

Inequality has no boundaries, existing in any society, wealthy or poor. To create inequality is perhaps a human instinct or even an animal instinct as evident by nature's pecking order. In his powerful satire, Animal Farm, George Orwell showed the pigs having led a successful revolution for equality and claiming the farm from humans by using stronger animals, establishing themselves at the top, but soon after proclaiming, " All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others" – completely contrary to the spirit of the revolution.

If you are curious to find a parallel in the real world consider the situation in Russia and Cuba – despite successful revolutions for equality, after a while they found themselves economically deprived under totalitarian regimes headed by the revolutionary leaders.

Humans are monopolist in the sense that we want to hoard more as we get more and want to control and exploit the disadvantaged (weak) to get ahead; as a result inequality is exhibited in many forms –
gender, racial and religious – not only in income.

So what is the remedy? There is no instant panacea or overnight cure to address inequality as it has developed over many centuries. The solution will have to be multifaceted and targeted, with education and empowerment at the core, implemented at state and individual levels – government (structural) and private sector (organisational) initiatives should be complemented by conscious individual efforts.

This piece is aimed to evoke efforts at individual levels while scholars, academics and large development organisations work with governments to devise policies and implementing programs.

You and I should practice equity wherever, whenever we can. We could give more opportunities to our subordinates, servants, drivers, orderlies, employees – pay them a wage that could make a real difference in their lives, not just what we can get away with. We could support women to participate in life and workplaces more equally by being reasonable fathers, brothers, husbands, uncles or even grandparents and in-laws. We should control our bias and our opportunistic instincts to provide equal opportunity to minority groups.

This may sound idealistic or impractical, but think of your religious, cultural and educational adages, which ask us to be fair and equal to all.

I am afraid this has not been an uplifting piece, but then in the practical world things are rather different from what we may wish they were. For the time being we live in the shadow of these imperfections.

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Irfan Chowdhury writes from Canberra, Australia.