A new phrase entered our vocabulary with South Africa’s liberation — the “culture of entitlement”, which apparently threatens the new democracy. Black people allegedly think they are entitled to everything without having to work for it.
We certainly do have a culture of entitlement, but not among excluded people who have nothing. It flourishes at the top where people are already extremely rich. And it is a global phenomenon. Everywhere people who run things think they are entitled to outrageous quantities of everything.
People paid handsomely for doing their jobs think they are also entitled to large bonuses — on the grounds that they did indeed do those jobs. Or sometimes despite having not done them. The financial pages are littered with stories of CEOs stuffing their pockets as they announce poor company results. When this anomaly is addressed, world economic conditions are blamed.
The salaries at the top used to be justified by the value they add. Today no one can claim this. In August a London broker made £10-million in one hour by speculating on the euro. What value did he add, and to whom? The justification today is “the market” — top people’s salaries must match each other’s. So, by agreement at the top, salaries leapfrog each other.
In the film Fahrenheit 9/11 President George W Bush is seen addressing a banquet of his white-tied supporters. With a huge grin, his tiny eyes glinting, he says: “You are the haves. And the have even mores. [Laughter] Some people call you the elite. I call you my base.”
And I wonder if any of those rich men paid personally for the banquet. Part of their culture of entitlement is to shift the cost of much of their eating, drinking, entertainment and even holidays elsewhere as “business expenses” — and it would certainly include attending a fund-raiser for Bush.
Ordinary taxpayers like you and me pay for the very rich to consume obscene amounts of quality food and champagne. And the “functions” where business, political, civil service and media leaders entertain each other, as well as friends and family, are not paid for by the host.
It is not called bribery and corruption, but it is about buying favours — as the banquet scene in the movie makes clear. It is paid by revenue services everywhere, because it is deducted from taxed profits.
That’s another thing the already-rich feel entitled to — exemption from taxes. Let others with less ingenious accountants pay for the armies, police, highways and airports that oil the wheels of their businesses. And public education, health and welfare — the use of which they regard as “scrounging”.
The subsidies to the rich are often enhanced, ironically, by what passes for poverty alleviation. Aid budgets frequently support agribusiness. The “green revolution” — raising yields on huge agribusiness farms through high technology — did not reduce hunger in India, where it sent many small farmers off the land into destitution. The reduced price of staple products responded to demand — as do all products traded globally — and largely found their way to the supermarkets of the rich.
It is mostly we, the rich, who benefit from cheap goods, because we have purchasing power. The suction effect of money powerfully reduces consumption at the bottom.
While the parties go on at our expense at the top, people with no income are thrown out of their homes, deprived of energy sources and kept out of school — and then blamed for expecting something for nothing.
Yet we regard trade unions demanding pay increases above the inflation rate as “greedy”. We think it’s normal for nurses, teachers, child- care workers, labourers, prison warders, and others who keep the system going, to be paid less than they need to live decently.
The rich justify themselves and blame the poor from New York and Caracas to London and Rome —wherever the real culture of entitlement prevails.
Margaret Legum chairs the board of South African New Economics