A DIAMOND SOCIETY

The 19th century pure capitalist model of society was a pyramid, concentrations of enormous wealth in a small group at the top, a not very big middle-class in the middle, and an enormous percentage of the population in the bottom part of the pyramid. And the job of the not too big middle-class was to sort of act as a go-between, on the one hand carrying money back up to the top and orders down to the bottom. Now, a diamond shaped society is what most people are aiming for and what some countries have achieved; a small upper class, a big middle class and small lower class (which if ‘wishes were horses’ would get swallowed into the larger middle class) making the society more equal.

The ugly head of income inequalities is about to rear its head once again in our country. This is not to say it didn’t exist before but with an increase across the board, the disparity between the highest paid and lowest paid becomes wider, and it’s no wonder the labour unions in their latest demands are asking for a pyramid distribution of the 3% increase of the total wage bill suggesting that the lowest paid get a higher increase while the highest paid receive a low or no increase. There most certainly is a big disparity in wages of management and the lowest paid employees and closing in on that gap even by a few Pulas could create a difference. A boost to the lower class income could see growth in the middle class and drive consumption not only for food but for other assets, moving away from hand to mouth spending, economically empowering people.

Africa’s middle class has been growing modestly in the past decade, but ADB admits that it is difficult to define who exactly falls into this group, and even harder still to establish how many middle class people there are in Africa, however, it has come up with a definition that middle income class constitutes of those spending between $2 and $20 and Botswana is among one of the countries with the biggest middle class in the continent but some growth in it wouldn’t hurt. Many have asserted that long term economic growth in the region is inexorably linked to the rise of the middle class consumer. The true test of progress is whether new riches trickle down from the elite to create a group of consumers large enough to sustain broad economic spurts in the service and manufacturing sectors which will create a virtuous circle of budding industries, more jobs, eventually benefiting the poor.

If William Thackeray is to go by, IT IS to the middle class we must look for the prosperity of Africa and so prosperity of our country, Botswana.