I was recently lodged in a government hospital for a couple of days (why is another story)… All around I saw old people twice my age looking for subsidized healthcare… And I realized that the issue of ageing population is real – for relatively young office goers like me who are surrounded with younger people, the size of this population is hidden within the walls of their homes or old age homes or in the hospital’s… But it’s there… And not all have progressed to this age with means to provide for themselves… And the problem will only grow as the developed nations mean population age keeps increasing…
A friend of ours works in that hospital and she told us how overworked and over capacity the hospital runs at and how they are trying to get the aged being provided for in their homes itself or in prevention methods… But it’s still not enough…
And I was thinking… It isn’t that there is a dearth of private hospitals here… Its just that there is a huge strata of community that cannot afford it and the ones who can afford enough, have no idea of the quantum of size this strata is of and the gravity of their needs…
I recollected the Netflix explained series on Racial wealth gap… It says how the centuries of slavery in America has created such a gap in wealth amongst the blacks and the whites that even if the income levels of similarly educated people is the same (which isn’t by the way – blacks are still underpaid), there is no way for a very very long time that the wealth gap will close… As the whites have humungous head start in terms of accumulated wealth… And unless there is a significant redistribution of wealth, there will never be an equal playing ground…
There is a YouTube link which explains this head start well as well…
When I told this to Jainee, she mentioned that this head start, this wealth gap does not just apply to blacks and whites… Its true for castes in India and for genders globally… Reservations hence is a tool to correct this issue… Giving the underprivileged an opportunity to be on same footing even if they may be less deserving as the ones with privilege have a head start…
Another friend said that the purpose of income tax on a sliding scale where more income is taxed higher and lower incomes are relatively less taxed for achieving equality…
But to me both – the reservations and the income tax method – whilst having the right intention are not the right solutions…
Free government education, reserved jobs, higher taxes on higher income… All that will enable a better present to the under served… But the pace at which the head start that wealth provides, it catapults the privileged beyond any fair grounds…
Unless the government ensures private and public education to be of same pedigree… Unless the government ensures that government hospitals and private hospitals have same quality and timelines of service… Unless the government housing is of same level as private ones… Unless the public transport is as good as private modes… Till the time government grants cheap or funds capital to enterprising poor.. Unless whatever wealth can provide or afford holds no meaning to give any one a head start… The problem will exist…
But that’s the point of wealth isn’t it… Its not just a safety net… But most of you who will be reading this… We use it to provide for the best to ourselves and our progeny… Be it education, exposure, business funding… Whatever that can secure our privileged future…
And that’s why no matter if our incomes are taxed higher… And colleges may have some reservations for others… We will ‘invest’ in better tutors, better assets that grow our money faster, get our kids better scores and confirmed admissions in best colleges… The fact that they will not be burdened by education loans, very high mortgages forever in life, possible funding for their ideas from us, etc… We will maintain a head start for all our future!
The Netflix episode goes on to say that to resolve this wealth itself has to be dramatically redistributed… Like what Abraham Lincoln had tried by giving land to the slaves at time of slavery abolishment… But that didn’t happen then and seems impossible even now… See how the privileged want to keep their source of head start intact!
A practical idea should be to tax wealth and inheritance… And use that pool to shore up investable assets for the unprivileged…
But you know what has happened… Wealth tax does not exist in many or any country I know and where it did (in India for example) they abolished it… There is hardly any country with inheritance tax… And capital gains tax in most countries is lower than the tax rates on income from other sources…
So you see… The ones who are in the haves today, who fund the politics of the ones in government… They ensure that the head start catapult is not affected… We are ok to give only as much as is bare required to ensure we avoid an uprising from happening…
And the ones who don’t have today… They too aspire to move into the class of the haves… They too want the distinction… Just themselves to be on the other side… Not to have the things that provide for the differentiation gone…
Hence the misplaced solutions of reservation and higher income taxes continue!
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