During my primary school days, most of the times I would go school bare foot – no shoes – no slippers.
However, I never felt bad about it. I didn’t curse my luck or parents. I didn’t feel poor. Because it wasn’t only me without slippers or shoes.
This went well with our financial situations. I cannot imagine struggles of my parents if I wasn’t allowed like that in school.
My parents were so poor. A pair of shoes for me would have wiped out all their savings.
What if a child walked to school like that today? How would he feel about it? How would his society treat him?
Poor and Feeling Poor
If we consider all available metrics, we are no longer as impoverished as we once were; we have made significant progress.
This means as a society we must be better. But if we look around, reality doesn’t seem to reflect it.
It seems there are improvements in standard of living but not necessarily the quality of our life.
People who aren’t poor in a strict sense are considering themselves poor. These people feel they have less compare to others.
Basis of Comparisons
When everyone was equally poor, there wasn’t basis to compare one with others. Everyone was at same level.
But now world has become smaller with better connectivity. I can now tell what car my cousin, living some 500 miles away, drives.
Social media, the giant ecosystem of comparisons, has made it worse. It has caused many people to feel insecure and poor!
Haves and Have Nots
The income disparity in Bhutan isn’t good. More than 50% of our nation’s tax revenue is from top 0.2% of the population!
This means, the total income of this top 0.2% population is equivalent to total income of remaining 99.8% of our population.
Since wealth can be accumulated from income, it’s very much likely that the overall wealth distribution in Bhutan is also in Pareto Principle.
During those olden days, life was hard. But, most people didn’t feel poor. But now with even better living standard, most feel poor.
What do you think of living as poor in Bhutan? Did it become harder for them in Bhutan?
