The rules of the market place can be remarkably flexible but unpredictable

Aug 30, 2019 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,

Ethics, morality, decency, accountability and transparency known as the five virtues or 5V’s, have from time immemorial, posed a major challenge to humankind, irrespective of whether the person of interest is at the top or the lower end of the social ladder.
Ethics represent the rules of conduct which when practiced, ushers in success at work and in one’s personal/professional life. Good ethics are simple to learn. It is easily recognisable when you see it.
The examples and challenges of practicing good ethics can be found in the Bible, the Ramayana and the Holy Quran.
Practice, we are advised, is the criterion of truth, but the challenge lies in the practice either in favour of, or against the five V’s.
At the same time, history is replete with examples showing that many, who did not live by the 5V’s, notwithstanding their notoriety, did by a hook or crook achieve success in their personal, professional or political life.
What inevitably followed was tyrannical rule, rampant corruption and abuse of power became the order of the day under the rule of such individuals.
Their demise was only a matter of time.
The above mentioned circumstances when placed in a Guyanese context reveal; however, dread the oncoming events may be, they have already began to cast their long, ominous shadows.
The 5V’s manifest themselves in war and peace, in justice and injustice, in religion and atheism, at the economic base and superstructure. They are omnipresent in our everyday lives, whether at work or at leisure time and are difficult to resist but easy to escape from.
In the course of the slow grinding machinery of our daily lives people struggle to either live with or divorce themselves from the 5V’s.
Shortsighted obsessions make it difficult for some to recognise the facts and weigh in on the odds.
People know they are doing wrong yet they do it. Thirty four being the half of sixty five is a glowing example.
They know they are committing an act that can bring harm to, or deprive persons of something precious yet they proceed to commit that act. There is no feeling of remorse.
The fear of either losing or winning political power forces those afflicted by red carpet fever to resort to devious political and unconstitutional maneuverings to extend their stay in office while sharing the nectar flowing from the power of their offices with the gullible and those attracted to the airs and graces of a genre governance that pretends to be democratic when in fact it is reactionary and anti-democratic in body and soul.
Any public figure of any government who draws down illegally from the public purse, like a sick man addicted to opioid, will at some point in time, even in death, be made to account for his or her misuse or abuse of public office.
A prominent German philosopher once wrote, ‘Man is a product of circumstances, to change man, the circumstances must be changed’. Circumstances in this respect can be applicable to the current domestic situation obtaining in Guyana.
In the circumstances, the current political situation is characterised by the lack of constitutional democracy and the threat to free and fair elections but above all, by the vagaries of a market economy.
The market economy has for years, successfully established and entrenched, rules of socio- political and economic engagement between different classes and strata of people.
These rules of engagement can be brutal and hellish for the vast majority of the underprivileged and marginalised.
Unemployment, grinding poverty and a sense of hopelessness are the antagonistic features of the market place coupled with a government that couldn’t care less. Under such circumstances, the poor and powerless are pitched against the privileged and the living-the-good life ruling elite in a struggle for justice and fair-play.
The rules of the market place can be remarkably flexible but unpredictable.
But it is the element of flexibility, unheard of in any hitherto socio-economic formations that has resulted in the perpetuation of a system that keeps re-inventing itself in which we can either suffer or prosper.
Because of the changing circumstances, men undergo socio-psychological changes. Nevertheless, the changes men undergo can be of a more fundamental nature with the advent of a totally new, truly democratic and humane socio-economic formation that replaces what exists today and where the 5V’s appear to be of nuisance value to some but of real value for others.
Guyanese have undergone some socio/ psychological changes since the attainment of national independence but those changes have been more horizontal than vertical. Material rather than moral incentives seem to be the preferred option.
Will the growth and development of Guyana’s market economy resulting from the introduction of an incipient oil and gas economy bring about changes in the existing circumstances and by extension in the Guyanese man or will those changes come about only with a government that can narrow the differences and lift the well-being of all Guyanese out of the prevailing or future circumstances?
Like the philosopher who once said, ‘The philosophers have only interpreted the world the point however is to change it’, we Guyanese have become ‘experts’ at interpreting the world of court orders and the various provisions of our constitution, we are hopeless at changing the Guyanese world in which we live.
While many Guyanese adhere to the adage, “Man shall not live by bread alone”, we fall down when it comes to living according to the 5V’s.
At the same time, while some eat bread by the sweat of their brow, others eat but do not sweat. Basking as it were in their inglorious evasion of the 5V’s, they rub their hands in glee as they take bread out of the mouths of others like the Guyanese sugar workers who are left to ‘knock from pillar to post’ as they seek to eke out a living from the crumbs thrown to them by the good lifers.
The lofty and humane values which at one time characterised Guyanese and are to be found in the lyrics of our patriotic songs and the poems of our great Martin Carter as well our legendary writers and folk- musicians too numerous to mention seem to matter little these days.
As for those who cynically profess and pretend to have clean hands and to be God-fearing, it is important that they remember ‘Not all who shout Lord! Lord! Shall enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 7:21 KJV).’
Can a good person be a bad person and can a bad person be good person?
Let’s leave that for another time.

Yours faithfully,
Clement J. Rohee

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