Actually, this isn’t a rant, just commenting different social structures.
One of my main thoughts being through all these places and their differences is not about how the upper class lives. Honestly, big houses, expensive cars, lavish entertainment… how different can it be? I suppose for most people when money is not an issue, they tend to want the same things.
What really made me think deeper is how the lower classes are surviving in different societies.
Let’s compare them.
In the US, and I am being generalizing here, the society is set up such that you don’t have much room for the poor to fight for their livelihood. What I mean is, you can do dirty jobs only to a certain point, because everything in the States has to be within the “System” in order to be governed. You can get hired as a janitor, but you cannot be a free-rolling street vendor because you won’t be able to get a license for it. Sure there are tons of street vendors in NYC, LA and other big cities, but what if you live in suburban Atlanta? You will be arrested as a criminal. So what do poor do? They become dependent on social welfare or become homeless begging for money, not pity.
In Singapore, it’s even worse. You even have to have a license to perform on the street! The government won’t let you starve, but you can’t really do much else about your life either. In this highly competitive society, without good education, there really isn’t much room left to wiggle. Singapore being so tiny and the government pushing for high-tech industries where every staff needs to be highly educated and trained, if you don’t succeed as a student, you are assumed doomed for life.
Not trying to be a economist here (never taken a economy related class ever), but here's my diagram of level of wealth vs the amount of opportunities.
In the US where the economy is built on virtual wealth (a.k.a loans and credits), you can get by with a lot of things as long as you have decent credit. You don't need to have the real cash. Therefore it has a much broader middle-upper income opportunity scale. When your wealth goes down to a level where your credit suffers, it narrows very quickly.
Singapore is where you have a healthy amount of opportunity in the middle and upper class because most of the opportunity-types are concentrated in the educated and trained sectors. The odd job market is very narrow making it hard for the poor to get out of poverty on their own.
Taiwan and Penang, although seems chaotic, offers a wider range of opportunities at the low wealth level because of the lack of rigid regulations. Even street vendors can become millionaires as long as they work hard and be innovative in their process, service and products.
In Penang and Taiwan, there’s the very rich, there’s the middle class and there’s the poor. Each of these classes are striving equally. Well, how can I say that they are all striving? Won’t that defy the meaning of “classes”? I am looking at the opportunities that lie within each class. There’s nothing much to say about the upper class since money does wonders. The middle class in these two societies have many options. They can choose to work for corporate jobs, rent a shop and open for business or become a successful street vendor. During the earlier Asian economic crisis, many Taiwanese who were laid off from their corporate jobs became taxi drivers or street vendors. The society isn’t set up to be rigid. They have options. Where as the poor have options too. If they can get some loans, they can get a mobile food stand and become street vendors. If not, the very poor can collect recyclable waste and sell them to recycling centers. There is always some options for everyone as long as you don’t reject them. The society isn’t as pretty on the surface as the western world, but there’s a lot more hard work and determination because there’s always a way out. In this case, the bottom line is none other than “dignity”. Even the poorest will try their absolute best to work for their living and be a contributing part of the society than to beg. There’s always hope.
Then I started to think about what makes a society complete. What makes life complete. I was being brought to attention about “The Venus Project” where the founder wants to promote this Utopian society where there’s no negative feeling. Everyone lives happily so there’s no war and conflict between people. He also dismisses the current state of society that he claims is run by greed. I am not going to disagree with him. In fact, it is true that greed is often the driver for a lot of major events.
This is when I start to think about what makes life complete, and I remembered the story of Siddartha Gautama, who’s none other than the founder of Buddhism. Siddartha Gautama was born as a prince, grew up in a well provided environment and had nothing to worry about. Then as he became a teen, he decided to leave his comfortable home and set on a long journey with nothing. This was when he experienced the most extreme physical and emotional challenges as a human being. He then sat under a bodhi tree and meditated there for seven years until he became “Enlightened”. One of the his teachings is that in order to have a complete understanding of life, one must experience all the 4 stages of life, which are “birth, age, sickness and death”. In Chinese, we describe human emotions as “Satisfaction, anger, sadness and happiness”. To me, the more I experience the world, the more I find my own definition within this society. It is because of the differences between me and the other individuals, the different lifestyles that we live and the difference in values that we hold that defines us. It creates the relationship between individuals that links and separates. So what will a homogeneous society bring us? I’d dare predict one thing. Depression. Just like how Singapore is trying to create a society with no poverty, I worry about the integrity of the society, because it is often darkness that we realize light, which sets the path for us for prosperity.
2 comments:
Nice article. I like it.
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