One that uplifts everyone through opportunities in life, uplifts the low-paid, and uplifts the spirit
By Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Published The Straits Times, 16 Jan 2021
Covid-19, like an X-ray beamed into societies all over the world, has exposed many fractures. It has also widened them, as the pandemic and economic crisis hit those already disadvantaged the hardest.
Governments with the capacity and finances have been able to soften these unequal blows. However, as we now rebuild, we must do more than recover from this crisis. We must tackle the longer-term, more embedded challenges that will outlast Covid-19.
Many advanced nations have seen decades-long stagnation in standards of living for the majority. What's equally troubling has been the loss of relative social mobility: where you end up in life relative to others depends on where you start, and especially on how poor or well-off your parents are. As a result, faith in meritocracy, or in how people can advance in life through education and better jobs, is also on the wane.
These trends have weakened the sense of togetherness in many societies. Where there was once a strong sense of "we", there is now "them versus us". In some places, "them versus us" is not only about the rich or highly educated versus the rest. It also taps into racial or religious antipathies, which then have a life of their own. We have to recognise these changes happening around the world, and prevent them from taking root in Singapore.
We must do the utmost to make ours an uplifting society - one that uplifts everyone through opportunities in life, one that uplifts the poor and vulnerable, and one that uplifts the spirit.
Keeping society fluid
It requires a strong sense of collective mission, and continuous refreshing of strategies. But we should keep two issues foremost in mind. First, to achieve relative social mobility, with people being able to move up in life and exchange places with others, we must also have absolute mobility, where everyone can see things getting better. We must have that escalator that takes everyone up. It helps everyone accept that no one's place on the escalator is fixed, and others may catch up from below or move ahead of them. It also supports a sense of solidarity, because people can see that life is not a zero-sum game, and are willing to have more done to help those in greater need. As many societies are seeing, once that escalator is broken, everything begins to fray, and people turn resentful.
Second, to tackle inequality on any lasting basis, we must address unequal opportunities, above all, and not just unequal outcomes. Surveys around the world show that most people accept some inequality of outcomes, if it reflects differences in effort, ability or entrepreneurial contributions. But the inequality of opportunities is a different matter. It is the bad cholesterol in the system. We have to be especially concerned about unequal opportunities early in life, as they have a way of ingraining advantages and disadvantages that last through life.
However, we do need to temper unequal outcomes as well - and in particular, avoid people getting trapped in a permanent underclass. When parents have weak and unpredictable incomes, their children tend to have a less secure upbringing, and can easily fall behind and lower their own aspirations. In other words, outcomes in one generation shape opportunities for the next.