THE RICH ARE GETTING RICHER, THE POOR ARE GETTING POORER - THAT'S THE DILEMMA

It’s a potentially explosive scenario that will confront any party in power

- BY LALITH DE MEL

Due to the Marxist heritage of the NPP, the two expectations that swept them into power, with the votes of the poor, was that corruption will be eliminated, and that urgent plans will be executed to make the poor less poor.

Whilst there has been commendable progress in attacking corruption, still no signs of longer term strategies to make the poor less poor.

The problem that creates this scenario, is the well entrenched economic model that governs the economy. It is one that perpetuates the current economic scenario, that lets the rich become richer, whilst the poor remain poor.

As the Government have no plans to create a radically new economic model that will make the poor less poor, the government is probably sitting on a powder keg with a relatively short fuse.

Undergraduates view

Many moons ago I was a lecturer in Economics at the Colombo campus. Following the traditions at Cambridge (where I did my degree), I invited small groups of students for a drink and chit chat, on economic-related matters.

They said that under the economic model prevailing at that time, they will continue to be poor.

In simple words without any economic jargon, they were saying that we need a revolution to make the poor less poor. I do not know whether they knew anything about Chairman Mao in China. He too had none of the slowly, slowly, catch the monkey approach. He rushed to destroy the then prevailing economic moulds, that ensured, that wealth remained with the rich, whilst the poor remained poor. Post revolution led by Mao they created a new economic mould that would ensure the creation of an egalitarian society.

Ho Chi Minh then a highly respected Marxist was the only one who adopted a step by step approach to change their then existing mould in Vietnam.

Russia during Khrushchev