Shortcomings of Capitalism

Interspersed among highly paid westerners on our compound is an army of South-Asian laborers clad in different colored overalls, each color representing their department. Grounds keepers are in green, street cleaners in yellow, maintenance in brown, waste management in orange, etc. The difference in income between them and those they serve is staggering, as many of them earn just over $100 a month. Since most of them are also supporting families in their native countries they find creative ways to supplement their income.

One way is to jump at every garage sale that comes up on the compound (presumably to resell purchases at higher prices). As my wife will testify, being a savvy bargain shopper herself, each of these garage sales start with a frenzy as workers clamor to take advantage of the best deals. It seems that what we find as a weekend hobby, is to them a struggle for survival.

Another method of survival is "freelance" labor. One of the perks here is quick service when things break down. We've had our washer worked on, lawn installed, roof repaired, front gate replaced, water heater repaired, etc. - all for free, courtesy of the company. Other services, such as gardening, house cleaning, chauffeuring, painting, etc. can be arranged at modest rates by calling the appropriate department who will then send out one of these contract laborers to do the work. This is all very organized and efficient, but the workers themselves do everything they can to circumnavigate the system to get paid directly. This is done in a variety of ways. Most of the time it's just outright solicitation, and a very hurt and dejected look when it is politely refused. Otherwise, if they have been sent out to do some work on the house, they will finish their assigned work and ask if there is anything else they can do. If we say "no" they will insist on giving their own personal contact information, should we change our minds. It seems obvious that they anticipate more generous compensation directly from us than what they normally get from the company they work for. Once we had a guy come to our house with a measuring wheel, insisting that he needed to measure the land around our house in preparation for planting our promised lawn. After I led him and his associate through the house to grant them access to the back yard, I watched them through the kitchen window as I did the dishes, and was perplexed to see them just stand there doing nothing. I came back out to ask if they needed anything or had any questions. The man with the measuring wheel said "no", but then sheepishly suggested that I really needed a gardener as my back patio was covered in leaves and looking rather messy. I thanked him for his offer but said that we prefered our privacy and would like to do it ourselves. After giving me a very disappointed look, he left our house without doing any of the measuring he had originally said he came to do.

Although capitalism inspires initiative, it also inspires greed. It works well for those few people that have received good education, opportunity and a bit of wealth to start off with, but the rest of the world seems to suffer in its wake. The resources of the world are horribly distributed these days as those that have, start to hoard, and those that don't have, hardly stand a fighting chance. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating government enforced wealth distribution. I'm just suggesting we take a moment to step away from our perceived "problems" and take a look at the world as a whole. Uneven distribution of wealth kills people. Daily.