Poverty and the death of the middle class (2)

For emphasis, let us reaffirm that a nation without a middle class is like a car without a functional engine. It is for this reason that we began and would, for the time being, continue to focus on the importance of this category of economic players in the development of our economy. During the past week, we presented some facts on the level of poverty in Nigeria and the danger that awaits us in the area of social stability and peace, if we continue to promote it, either consciously or unconsciously.

We insist that the 8,000 Nigerians that enter into extreme poverty everyday are not a special “brood of vipers” that must burn in hell. They are not only innocent Nigerian workers, they did nothing close to what many of us have done to this country to warrant the carnage, which poverty has been permitted to visit upon them. Above all, they come, almost entirely, from the middle class. If the attrition of the class continues, and given its importance in the growth and prosperity of nations, and indeed any cluster of humans, it will not be long before Nigeria is drained of the critical blood and juice of life needed to drive its efforts in socio-economic development. Why do we consider them the life wire of the economic development of any nation and how can we prove that our country actually depends on the middle class to grow and meet the needs of her people? The answers are nearby.

Economists often find it convenient to trade punches from two camps, especially when it comes to issues concerning the working of the economy and development in general. Over the past two millennia, the United States of America has grown from a collection of disparate and rebellious colonies to a cohesive country that is undoubtedly the greatest political, social, military and economic entity in the world. This is a feat that no other group of people has achieved, even though that supremacy is now under threat from some quarters. The attention of scholars and analysts has been, and will probably continue to be, occupied for the time being, by the study of the reasons behind the success of nations, especially the American nation-building experiment. A lot of lessons are to be learned from that.

As for the economists, there is this undying contest between two camps – the supply and the demand side economists. The former believe in the trickle down thesis, which proposes that in a dynamic economy, policies that benefit the big corporations will eventually, through the process of trickling down, also benefit the poor. Growth and employment, according to this group, can increase only with an increase in the capacity of these few big economic agents to produce and invest in the economy. Such increase is made possible only if the savings, investment and capital formation by the small privileged class or group are increased. On the other hand, the Demand siders propose a more democratic approach to growth and development. It ascribes national economic prosperity to the efforts of the several million people who work, save, spend and indeed drive consumer expenditure, which is the propeller of over 60 per cent of aggregate demand. These are members of the working class or generally, the middle class. For this group to which I belong, even if for this particular argument, the middle class holds the key to economic prosperity.

Whatever side of the divide we may individually belong, it is important to re-examine our stand based on knowledge, enlightenment and the absence of ignorance laced with impunity. Ignorance wrapped up in impunity has been the bane of many countries in Africa. We continue to promote that disability, which has been elevated to high art in many spheres of African life, by providing some facts on the middle class. It is now settled, at least in the case of the United States, that the middle class is the engine driving growth across all the sectors in that economy. Not only does the middle class produce the bulk of the energy (mental and physical) exerted in the productive activities of the nation, it also accounts for the bulk of the consumption spending that keeps industrial machines humming, and workers running many shifts that increase their family incomes. This is the class hell-bent on innovation and entrepreneurship. They are the workers and the investors; the thinkers and the striving men and women we see at work every day.

The supremacy of the working class in the United States in the drive to economic prosperity is further established and documented by the Centre for American Progress, which in its book, “The American Middle Class, Income Inequality, and the Strength of Our Economy”, described the middle class as the heartbeat of the American economy. According to the centre, the middle class is not only the provider of the indispensable workforce that drives production, it provided the spending power that keeps inventories turning over. By the time we properly situate the role of the middle class in the sustenance of our own economy, we may begin to realize the degree of crime, our political leaders are committing against all generations of Nigerians by doing absolutely nothing to protect the middle class.

The scandalously low regard for education displayed by successive governments in Nigeria is understandable. People cannot be expected to give what they do not have. Good education is not one of the requirements for leadership here. This has largely explained the disdain with which learning and scholarship are viewed and starved of funds in Nigeria, The impact of this sad state would have spelt doom for the country but for the intervention of the middle class. When the military and their politician collaborators and successors jointly and severally debased Nigeria’s educational system, the middle class quickly invested in private schools, creating some of the world-class educational institutions now in Nigeria. As the devastation of the educational system continued apace with the introduction of backward curricula and administrative bottlenecks that deprive children of meaningful education, the middle class took their children abroad, staking practically all they earn to get their kids good educated. It is also the middle class that builds factories, largely from their savings, to create jobs. They are the ones that set up small and medium enterprises, generating tax revenue from corporate taxes, personal income taxes and the sumptuous value-added tax for government.

If there is any group that still claims to think in Nigeria, especially as politician go about telling lies to the people to the people they deceived four years ago, and making promises to which nobody can hold them to account, it is the middle class. Innovation comes almost exclusively from that group. The goose that lays the golden egg is the middle class. It is unfortunately, badly disregarded, even by the greatest beneficiaries of their labour – the politicians. Strangely, the politicians do not see the nexus between the moneys they steal every day from their various corners and the labour of the middle class. That is probably why it is so hard for them to create the environment that promotes enterprise in their states beyond the rhetoric. Their enlightened self-interest should have made them realize that the more the workers are satisfied, the more they produce the resources to be looted, which is why the occupation of public office is now a matter of life or death in Nigeria.

Emeka Osuji