Justice delayed, growth denied

Comment

LAHORE: Social justice and economic growth are mutually dependent and one cannot exist without the other.

Injustice, in all its forms, not only holds a country back from exploiting the true potential of its gifted human resource, but also creates tensions within the society.

By depriving receptive poor children from meaningful learning (because they lack resources) we may be losing visionary scholars, groundbreaking researchers, innovative entrepreneurs, etc.

Similarly sending someone to the most big-ticket institutes without identifying their aptitude may be a waste of time and resources.

In a society based on absolute merit instead of unlimited wealth, aspiring learners coming from a lower socio-economic background will always have a better chance to excel in their fields of study.

The empowerment that social justice provides to the underprivileged facilitates them to compete with wealthy and influential on equal terms. This does not in any way imply that the wealthy or influential are inferior to the poor in terms of mental faculties. The geniuses could be rich or poor but the opportunity-getter becomes obvious and the denied drowns in oblivion.

The United States produced successful entrepreneurs mostly from the lower segments of society. Bill Gates, the Microsoft’s founding father, and the late Steve Jobs, the Apple pioneer, had very humble socio-economic backgrounds.

They surpassed the rest and succeeded because they were born in a society where opportunities are up for grabs for those who dare to go after them.

We also see many billionaires in United States and United Kingdom, who migrated from Pakistan to those countries without any money and shot to success in those societies.

By denying opportunities to the poor we are in fact minimising our chances of economic success.

When success is subject to influence, it kills competition and creates monopolies under which no innovation, research, and development ever takes place as there is no competition.

Social justice requires paradigm shift in attitudes. We are denying social justice not only to the poor but also to women that are almost half of the population.

The only way to take the country out of economic crisis and conflict situation is to empower people particularly the women.

The entire civil society would have to show commitment and a strong will to achieve this aim. We should not exclude anyone from the development process.

Entrepreneurs are as important as the ordinary citizens if they perform honestly. We must understand that nobody is dispensable be it rich or poor.

The system should be fair enough to eliminate the incompetent ones automatically.

Even in Pakistan the enterprises growing above normal pace are equal opportunity employers and claim to follow all decent social norms. Our thinking on social justice should refocus on work as it is the only way to take people above the poverty line and give them a chance to be a partner in the solution.

Social justice is indeed a realisation by the society that it is sensitive to the needs of others.

The fact that working poverty continues to increased in Pakistan indicates the society as a whole is operating on self-interest even at the expense of intruding upon the rights of others.

There is no doubt that increased economic growth creates opportunities at the lower levels. But growth alone would not address poverty until the norms of society change.

The government alone cannot address this issue, thus civil society and the affluent are appealed to support fair reforms.