by Joys

Yahoo reported in an article, ‘PM Mahathir: GDP growth benefited capitalists, not workers‘.

GDP growth should benefit the economy. But it’s the distribution, i.e who gets what, that is at the heart of the matter.

Dr. Mahathir is right that ‘prosperity should spread to workers’, the labor or laborer in the production of goods and services. And not just the greedy controller of resources.

In a capitalist economy, it is the business owners that benefit the most, since it is private ownership. Therefore, property developers such as Far East Organisation, CapitaLand, City Developments, and etc will gain from profit from land or ‘return’ to the use of land. \

Usually, in a capitalist society, workers lose out as they are employed hands, they are just intermediate inputs to produce the output for the capitalists. Therefore, the tension between the ‘haves’ n ‘haves-not’ in a profit-driven capitalist society.

Positive profits also goes to foodcourt operators like Koufu, Kopitaim, Food Junction, NTUC Foodfare and etc, as they owned the resources to produce ‘Food and Beverages’. Precisely more so, as these are the only few firms that dominate the whole industry. And these foodcourts are increasingly not cheap to sustain too.

Incidentally, a common sentiment is whether: ‘Singapore ministers (could) have joined the million-dollar club too?‘ As the number of Millionaires in Singapore saw an 11.2% increase to 183,737.

It rings very hollowly when a rich man tells ordinary folks to eat and spend more cheaply, watch your lifestyle, like buy cheaper handphones or data plans, go for cheaper holidays and etc. Isn’t this very ironic and hypocritical?

Singapore may learn from other countries (say our neighbor, Malaysia) in creating a less unfair society. The is the benefit of a less unfair election in Malaysia..

Sadly, the election in Singaland is seemingly very unfair. So you might have a skewed society where rich get richer and poor get likely even poorer with all the (regressive) taxes and extremely high cost of living… sigh!

Finally, It’s quite interesting that the International Monetary Fund discusses on ‘Its not just what governments owe, it’s what they own’.

Credit to Chris Kuan for highlighting.

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