Every time I hire a rick, I find myself at conflict with my own thoughts and beliefs. As always that one question pops its head before me- who decides the worth of labour?
When I happen to observe someone paying less to the rick-puller, I feel disgust at the unfair treatment being met out to the less privileged. But ironically though, when the rick puller happens to ask more than I ‘expect’ him to ask for, I am not able to decide whether he is at fault or not. Since the world largely lives on the lines ‘an eye for an eye’, the rick puller is entirely justified in making up for the loss he incurred at the hands of his previous customers as well as to be prepared for the impending less generous ones. Moreover, righteousness can never exist in isolation.
But this is how I try to justify his demand for ‘larger sum’. But the basic flaw remains, who decides his fair due? And he is not just this rick puller but every less equal man inhabiting this earth of equals. Today, only our species type i.e. homo- sapiens unites us all, otherwise ours happens to be disastrously diverse species with respect to the living conditions varying from that of kings to vermin.
Since ages our fathers and fore fathers have lived by Darwin’s words –‘Survival of the fittest’, even before these were coined. Exploitation of the unprivileged has been the foundation of all large and glorious empires one may recall, be it the Greeks, the Sumerians, the Mayas or the Spartans to name a few. When the fashion of slavery passed away, the division of Society was called upon to help continue the powerful to be in power. The centuries of atrocities committed upon their mute bearers did force the predators a lot of times to shun the inhuman crimes only to resort to some newer forms.
Now that the age we live in is the one of Gandhi, Tolstoy and Teresa, lot of consciences have come out of their deep slumber. Everywhere the word goes of setting up of an Egalitarian society where every man is Equal! Ask anyone round the corner and he will empathise (and not just sympathise) with cause of poor and less-privileged.
One thing that bewilders me a lot is the all pervasive attitude of people who second the idea of equality, while at the same time strive madly to be superior to all others. How can the two contentious thoughts co-exist in a single brain? Leaving aside the whole world and talking of the faction I belong to, being of engineers, I get upset every time I witness a discussion over salaries. Majority of students seem to be nurturing the thoughts of being a millionaire/billionaire and to lead an easy, luxurious and glamorous life. If given their way, everyone starts living the way they have imagined themselves to, would the world be able to move ahead even a single day? Because no one is there to toil, sweat and do physical labour which form the basis of every industry or household. We happen to be forwarding the concept of individualism as well as socialism, what an irony!
Qualitatively the amount of money at any given time on earth can be assumed to be roughly constant. So progress anywhere is bound to happen at the cost of others. As all the economic surveys have shown, less than twenty percent of world’s richest possess more than eighty percent of world’s wealth and this ratio is worsening with every passing second. And satirically, yet unsurprisingly, half of them are the world’s biggest philanthropists!
The problem lies in our grading of labour. Today mental labour is given too much significance over physical labour. Given, that monitoring, planning and innovation have brought us to this state of technological advancement which have transformed and raised our standard of living, but of how many. On the shoulders of those carrying the building blocks have all the Pharaohs ascended to glory. We praise Shah-jahan for the unparalleled beauty of the Taj, while blatantly ignoring the mutilation of twenty thousand artists at his command.
World has become more knowledge intensive, but what is to happen of those who live on their daily toils and unfortunately had no access to education? Since we are more privileged with skills to mould things and situations to our favour, we have taken upon ourselves the power of deciding the worth of labour hence fate of all as well. And because decision involves mental brooding (huff!) such jobs ought to be awarded generously and the work involving physical labour, which any one with functional limbs can do, deserve meagre pays. Isn’t this feudalism in a form pertinent to contemporary world?
Some say that the less privileged have chosen their ways and hence, deterministically can come at pars with others in society. Ha! How can the ones having no choice at their disposal be the choosers? And when they have been made to believe in their inefficacy through centuries of suppression, how can we expect them to be dreamers and visionaries? Though some do overcome all the adversities and rise to levels unthinkable of them, but then they happen to be few amongst millions.
Even during the recent global crisis, the fat-pay CEOs put up a brave fight against their salary dilution. Pink slips were offered to scores of employees, but dare anyone talk about the salaries at management level! In the course of inflation, everyone tries to save as many pennies possible from the ones lacking it the most viz. vendors, rick-pullers, labourers, etc. but then the world moves on ability, and extracting money out of others is a skill, isn’t it?
Giving out alms isn’t a solution but to make their receivers able to help themselves and giving every person his due. The gap between rich and poor has already reached its threshold of sustainability and is still widening. If not controlled soon, it would give rise to a mass awakening of the silent sufferers that would shake the foundations of this deaf world! The facade of hypocrisy won’t last for long.
Quoting Albert Einstein:
“A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.
Not mastery but service, will lead people in the right way.”
