THIS piece is not about the crisis or the chaos that the country is now facing after successfully toppling the autocratic regime of Sheikh Hasina. Rather, it is about the crisis of confidence and social capital or trust 鈥� interlinked, nonetheless.
The thread that binds a nation together is trust or social capital. There could be many factors that contribute to social capital, but one that stands out is equity or fairness. Social capital or trust is low in a country where income and wealth gaps are high, and the general people feel unfairly treated or deprived.
The fallen autocratic regime prided itself on rapid economic growth, averaging approximately 6 per cent a year. However, the regime鈥檚 kleptocratic system of ruling by plunder and favour to its cronies has contributed to accelerated wealth and income gaps as well as relative deprivation; thus, it has caused fissures in the social fabric.
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Rising relative deprivation
Income and wealth gaps have yawned wide, turning a reasonably equitable society at the time of independence into one of the most unequal societies. The Gini coefficient, a common measure of income inequality, has increased from 0.36 in 1973 to 0.499 in 2022, according to the latest (2022) Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
The Gini coefficient was 0.39 in 1990鈥�1991, marginally above the 1973 value (0.36), accelerating to 0.46 in 2010. Income inequality in Bangladesh has deepened since 2016. The 2022 survey reveals that about 30 per cent of the income generated in the country is concentrated within the top 5 per cent of household. This proportion was 27.82 per cent in the 2016 Household Income and Expenditure Survey.
Furthermore, the top 10 per cent of the wealthiest households in Bangladesh hold about 41 per cent of total income. This proportion was about 38 per cent in 2016. Concurrently, the income share for the bottom 50 per cent of households decreased to about 19 per cent in 2022 from 20.23 per cent in 2016.
To be fair, there has been a secular transfer of income from the lowest quintile of the households to the highest quintile. The average annual loss of the bottom 1st quintile鈥檚 share in the national income has been -0.71 per cent as opposed to the average annual gain of 0.46 per cent for the highest (top) quintile during 1973鈥�2010. The middle-class also lost; income shares of 2nd, 3rd and 4th quintiles declined since 1973.
This does not augur well for our democracy. Nor can we celebrate this development in a country where one of the founding principles is socialism.
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Suppression of democracy driving growing disparities
PROFESSOR MG Quibria of Morgan State University and ADB鈥檚 former Senior Advisor pointed out, 鈥榩ossession of political capital opens up myriad economic opportunities, including preferential access to finance and business, restructuring and loan default options, lucrative employment, access to privileged information, tax evasion or even outright corruption鈥�.
The link between corruption and economic growth could be debated, but it is a method of plunder and primitive capital accumulation by the lumpen bourgeoisie that exacerbates inequality of wealth.
An environment conducive to unchecked corruption emerges when democracy is suppressed and the institutions that ensure accountability, transparency and the separation of powers between various branches of the government are weakened. Where democratic institutions are weak, political capital is a powerful instrument for advancing one鈥檚 economic and social position.
Unfortunately, suppression of democracy in Bangladesh began as soon as it emerged as an independent nation with the rigging of its first parliamentary elections in 1973. It is ironic that a country, where democracy is one of its founding principles, turned into a one-party state in 1975 within four years of its independence, shutting down most of the news media and allowing only state-run ones.
Sadly, instead of trust 鈥� built through accountability and transparency 鈥� election manipulations became the norm for all political parties to gain power and then retain it. Therefore, each successive government became more repressive, more lacking in accountability and more vigorous in election rigging.
However, such regimes suffer from legitimacy deficits 鈥� both legal and moral; they can only survive by allowing corruption and distributing favour. Thus, a vicious circle develops 鈥� a regime that resorts to more election manipulations becomes more beholden to its cronies, allowing them to plunder the state.
Undoubtedly, this process reached its zenith during Sheikh Hasina鈥檚 rule. Unchecked corruption, tax evasions and financial crimes such as defrauding bank loans enabled Bangladesh to become the global leader in wealth growth during 2010鈥�2019. New York-based research firm Wealth-X, reported a remarkable 14.3 per cent annual increase in the number of individuals with a net worth exceeding $5 million, surpassing Vietnam, which ranked second with a 13.2 per cent growth rate.
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Neoliberalism and the demise of democracy
BANGLADESH is not alone in witnessing widening income and wealth gaps and consequently democratic backslides. This is a global phenomenon coincided with the embrace of the neoliberal economic philosophy of privatisation, liberalisation, deregulation and globalisation dictated by the interests of the corporate power.
In the process of multinational corporations-driven globalisation, the civil society simply became apolitical NGOs, happy to receive crumbs from the donors to engage in so-called development activities. Citizens became 鈥榮take-holders鈥� together with the large corporations and donors, instead of 鈥榬ight-holders鈥�.
Bereft of rights and no longer an end itself of development, citizens are now 鈥榟uman resources鈥�, an epitaph cleverly designed to hide that they are simply fodder for the profit machines of corporations. In a deregulated economy, workers are dehumanised, constrained to socialise and participate in political activities.
Should one be surprised in the falling share of wages in the national income, stagnating or falling real wages and tragedies like the 鈥楻ana Plaza incident鈥�?
Under the corporate globalisation, schools and universities 鈥� both public and private 鈥� are no longer places of learning where youths are transformed into enlightened citizens and agents of change, and where visionary future social-political leaders are produced. They are simply factories for mass-producing so-called 鈥榡ob-ready鈥� certificate or diploma holders, apathetic to social, economic and political issues.
An additional boost to accelerating inequality in Bangladesh comes from a three-stream education system (Bengali-medium national curriculum, traditional religious curriculum and English-medium overseas curriculum). It perpetuates inter-generational inequality.
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Which way out?
ONE can get some cue in AK Sen鈥檚 observation that 鈥榓 country becomes fit through democracy,鈥� and democracy versus development is a false dichotomy. Sen defines development as freedom 鈥� freedom from hunger and poverty; freedom from fear and persecution; and freedom to express, associate and participate. In sum, freedom to enhance one鈥檚 capabilities to attain one鈥檚 full potential as a human being.
Sen insists that political and civil rights are ends in themselves. Their denial cannot be acceptable even if it promotes economic growth and some well-being as such a development path is not sustainable. Suppression of political and civil rights results in growing income and wealth inequalities, where obnoxious, luxurious living by the few coexists with a large populous struggling to survive. This fuels a sense of relative deprivation contributing to violent social conflict.
Therefore, the first step is strengthening democratic institutions or consolidation of democracy. This requires the depoliticisation of administration an