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The wealth gap

Dec 16, 2024 Editorial, News

Editorial…

Kaieteur News- In recent days a fierce debate has been engaging in social media and even in the newspapers about the diamond Ball hosted by the First lady and how lavish it was. The issues of course were whether this event was paid for by tax dollars and whether it was insensitive to flaunt such wealth while 40% of Guyanese continues to struggle under the load of high cost of living, unemployment and crime.

Ever so steadily and insidiously there is developing in our country a tale of two societies: one super rich and the other desperately struggling to keep their heads above the water of survival. And like its Dickensinian forerunner it is a tale of the best of times (the rich) and the worst of times (the poor). We have to wonder therefore, if like the latter tale, its dénouement will not be one of upheaval and revolution. After the socialist economic experimentation of the seventies and eighties, its egalitarian ethos had been achieved: we were all more or less equally down and out.

In our slow climb out of those doldrums, the free-wheeling, anything-goes, free-market of the neo-liberals – the antithesis of the socialist model – became the vehicle of our liberation. Practically all our leaders went along. Fuelled by the profits of greed, which was now “good”; the growth of the economy was supposed to “raise all ships”. Decades after we can see that most of the ships, i.e. the poor, have remained moribund.

Back in the 18th century, Rousseau, who can be called the theorist of the French Revolution that Dickens was to fictionalise, made a distinction between the sentiments of “amour de soi” and “amour propre” that was a crucial feature that sparked the revolution. Amour de soi was the striking of a healthy equilibrium between concerns for one’s own wellbeing; one’s self-worth; one’s self-regard and the concern and empathy that was owed and felt towards the less fortunate in the society. Amour propre, on the other hand, was the transformation of the healthy regard for one’s self-worth into a malignant narcissism fuelled by the acquisition of property and the greed and envy that it engendered.

And this is where we have evidently arrived at in Guyana: a tint, uncaring elite that is unbelievably rich and living in a luxurious style that can only be described as “obscene”, generating powerful waves of envy in the rest of society that can only be described as an underclass.

During the era of extreme disparities of wealth and status, the attacks from the disenchanted of the middle strata would be strident denunciations by a few that have joined the poor in their barricades.
Then there will be those that would seek to imitate the lifestyle of “the rich and famous” by joining them. Since there is no value to a club that would have everyone as a member, it is not easy at all to become one of the elites. Most aspirants start by becoming obsequious hangers-on and yes-men that are willing to become fronts to the ongoing scams.

Others delve directly into a get-rich life of crime and corruption and celebrity – and enter the elite laterally. But most corrosive is the drive of some – quite a large group in Guyana – to idealize the elite and confer onto them almost divine qualities. They will fawn over the rich and famous and take it as a blessing if the latter are to condescend to be in their midst. One is exposed to this phenomenon at most public events. We hope the cauldron of envy doesn’t bubble over too violently.

(The wealth gap)

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