by Geoff George Paxton

Created on: April 18, 2010

Poverty! Poverty!

Debt! Inflation!

I was walking through town yesterday. There is a shop which has electrical appliances in its windows - radios, CD players and similar stuff, all at reasonable — but mostly unattainable — prices. The owners import most of their stock directly. As I walked past I saw a group of four young men, clustered, ogling the stuff which they felt an urge to buy, and they will do everything in their power to get, even if they have to steal it.

I live in South Africa which is a third-world economy with first-world aspirations. In our black communities — the history of apartheid / separateness still means there is largely enforced racial separation, although the choice now exists to move out — the dynamic of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ is very real.

The reality is that the vast majority of people are living with unemployment. Because of the insistence on black economic empowerment a black man can walk out to the taxis and trains one day, and drive home that afternoon in a car, because he is now gainfully employed. The priorities — remember, the first-world aspirations — are that the car must be a powerful, expensive BMW or Mercedes — to show the neighbours that he has arrived at last. Affordability? No ways! Status and power!

This may not represent the reality of first-world thinking, but it is their perception of the value-systems of the first world, learned by watching the behaviour and values of affluent whites.

This conflict between third-world reality and first-world values has the effect of ensuring that poverty wins, hands down, every time.

God was a wise old bird. He knows human nature better than we do. In the wilderness of Sinai he gave Moses ten commandments. In relation to spending we break the first and last of these, ignoring the peril.

God said, “You shall have no other gods but me.” What do we do? Money becomes our god — worshipped so that it enables me to break the last commandment, “You shall not covet.”

We want what money can buy, so money, and the acquisition of more money becomes the raison d’etre. Money is our god, our motivating force. The worship of money means we are permanently confined to poverty. As soon as we have any money we spend it on the things we desired. If we do not have enough, we use credit.

In South Africa, in recent years, a major phenomenon is the rise of a money-lender industry, which is quite separate from the banking system. If one has a pay-slip one can go, no questions asked, and borrow, during the month, almost all the money you will be paid at the end of the month. Say one needs 10,000. It is 15 days to pay day. They will lend you 10,000, all you have to do, on pay day is repay 10,000 plus interest at 20% per month = 1,000 for those 15 days. Expensive money? Yes, but that is the logical mind thinking. If one needs it, the cost is irrelevant. Nice business to be in? Yes, if you can live with yourself.

Wasteful spending — particularly spending money you do not yet have — bears the bondage of poverty.

Learn more about this author, Geoff George Paxton.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.