Delroy Chuck
The middle class is the backbone, bedrock and bulwark of every stable, peaceful and prosperous society. The middle class connects and bridges the rich and poor, the strong and weak, the powerful and powerless.
The countries of the world that are doing well have strong, vocal and growing middle classes that represent their values, ideals and image. When a country's middle class is doing well, the country is doing well.
The middle classes are usually composed of the professionals, the teachers, civil servants, nurses, paid employees, self-employed, and the skilled and educated workforce. They invest their time, effort and money into their communities and countries. They have stable families and their children are the cornerstones of their lives. They can fend for themselves and don't look to the Government and others for handouts and charity. So, why are we hurting instead of helping middle class families and communities?
Socialist class conflict
What has really happened to Jamaica's middle class? In the Norman Manley-led PNP, the middle class found comfort and gave full support. Everything changed in the '70s, as the PNP promoted socialist class conflict and, deliberately or inadvertently, hurt the middle class. Michael Manley encouraged the professional and managerial classes to take five flights to Miami, which they did. The PNP have not learned anything from the failures of socialism and their managerial incompetence. Since 1989, the policies of this PNP administration have been devastating to the middle classes and to the many others who strive to join their ranks and to live in decent communities. Many hitherto middle-class communities in Kingston and St. Andrew and across Jamaica have been allowed to decay and decline, and bear the signs of urban slums.
The mantra of the Prime Minister, Portia Simpson Miller, is to help the poor. But, we do not help the poor by keeping them poor and forcing so many others to join their ranks. Why is the Prime Minister's constituency and so many of her ministers in such poor state, fit only for the poor and deprived, decaying and falling apart, neglected and undeveloped for decades? To be sure, the best way to help the poor is to provide them with the opportunities to pull themselves up, lift and beautify their communities and, through work and production, to become stakeholders in the building of the nation. But, that has not happened. The poor are now dependent on government and others for virtually everything.
In fact, the middle-class families and communities are rapidly joining the ranks of the poor. Our civil servants, police, teachers, nurses and even the skilled workforce are living in communities bordering on poverty and, at the present rate of deterioration, these communities will soon become ghettoes. In truth, many of these wage earners can barely make ends meet and, thus, have no savings to repair, upkeep and improve their surroundings. Nowadays, electricity and other utility bills are depleting even the meagre savings of our wage earners, and are hurting everyone. When even middle-class families can barely survive, how can the poor manage? On this present economic path, it won't be long before we have only the very rich and very poor, as occurs in Haiti and most of Latin America.
Helping the poor
Yes, we need to help the poor more than others, but we help them best by making them independent of government largesse and continued charity. We help the poor by providing the sustainable means for them to move up in life, living in decent homes and attractive communities. We help the poor by strengthening the middle classes who oftentimes provide the gateways and bridges for the poor to join them and not the other way around. Those who seek to help the poor live in middle-class communities - why don't they see the need to find the ways and means for the poor to join them in middle-class living, instead of delivering the usual handouts and verbal bellyaching?
Delroy Chuck is an attorney-at-law and Member of Parliament. He can be contacted by email at delchuck@hotmail.com.
