Fighting over scraps

In response to the pandemic-induced lockdown, governments have started to deploy subsidies and cash payments, with more being given to impoverished families. From this, I sense a deep-seated anger against the poor among many “middle class” friends, asking questions like:

“Why is the government subsidizing the poor when we pay more taxes?” “Won’t cash grants just make them lazy?” “We worked so hard to pay our fair share, yet those without jobs get more money.”

These are legitimate yet revealing questions. Legitimate because people have a right to question, but revealing because they expose both the values and ignorance of the ones who asked them.

Research has shown that cash subsidies don’t decrease employment. In fact, the poor work more hours per day and are paid disproportionately lower wages. Kind of like what we are seeing today in this pandemic where some frontline workers are seen as the lowest of the low. President Duterte even used “janitor” in a derogatory manner, as if making things clean in this pandemic were such a useless, demeaning occupation.

Taxes, particularly progressive percentage taxes, are designed to offset the enormous advantages that the more affluent have. Because with more money, you are more likely to have a better education (and better jobs), better health (so less health expenses), better access to investments (like investing in stocks), and so many better choices in life. Even access to contraception is different between the rich and the poor who, as some of the more uncouth would say, “anak lang ng anak (they just keep having babies).” These are structural advantages that the poor don’t have. If no correction is performed, then the poverty gap widens and inequality worsens.

But what about fairness? What about justice? Let me return the question back: Where is the fairness in the lottery of birth? Where is justice when the odds are stacked against you and the whole system already favors the rich? I would have thought that with better education, our “middle class” friends would have appreciated the bigger picture. How about a little more humanity? A little more empathy?

What’s even more surprising is how some of these “middle class” people have forgotten how hard it was to rise up from poverty. Humble pie seems to be hard to find in the cozy subdivisions and lush condominiums they now live in. Why the unwillingness to share? In fact, study after study shows how the poor are more generous with what meager things they have. The instinct to share is strong among the poor as they realize they can only get through their daily struggle by helping each other.

In reality, it is in nations that share and redistribute wealth the most where we see the whole of society progressing, leaving no one behind. These “socialist” countries have higher levels of happiness and satisfaction, and are models for the world in just about every metric of progress. It’s no wonder that the root word of “progressive” is progress.

But finally, in a world where social media discourse is manipulated by troll farms and bots deployed by someone with an agenda, I wonder in whose interest this class war is: Who truly wins when the dogs fight for scraps under the table?

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Dr. Adrian Rabe is a Filipino physician, health policy advocate, and epidemiologist. He is managing director of Global Health Focus, an international NGO focused on teaching global health knowledge, skills, and leadership in developing countries. He is also an honorary research fellow at Imperial College London.