Unbalanced economy reduces upward mobility for young people
Updated: 2012-11-24 06:37
By Hong Liang(HK Edition)
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Having lost the 2012 presidential election, the Republican Party of the United States might have also lost what some political analysts called "the culture war".
In an commentary on CNN Opinion, contributor William Bennett, who was secretary of education during part of the Reagan administration, cited a breakdown of election exit polls and contended that the Republicans have lost touch with young people between the ages of 18 and 29.
The Republican's perceived stance of siding with business is losing appeal among young voters. More and more of those voters favor socialism to capitalism, according to Bennett. He noted that results of a Pew Research poll taken in 2011 showed that 49 percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 have a positive view of socialism while just 46 percent have a positive view of capitalism.
Reading this made me wonder if the decidedly pro-business Hong Kong government has also lost a culture war when the young people of this free-market economy are becoming increasingly agitated by what they see as the failure of free market forces, favoring only the super-rich who make up one or two percent of the population. The government has conceded that its traditional hands-off social and economic policy is showing its age. But it has disappointed increasingly impatient young people by failing to articulate a credible vision for change.
Nobody in Hong Kong is known to have polled our young people's views on capitalism. Past success seems to have convinced policy makers that capitalism, in its rather elementary form, is best for Hong Kong.
It is with a sense of pride that the government talks of itself as the "facilitator" of economic development. In its narrower sense, the "facilitator" does not consider a matter for its concern the distribution of the fruits of economic growth. Instead it trusts market forces to ensure a trickle down of wealth. But the notion that creating an economic environment that allows the top one percent of the population to get richer will increase employment and raise workers' wages has proven to be wrong in Hong Kong and elsewhere.
To be sure, unemployment has not been too big an issue in Hong Kong in the past several years. But what people consider as "good" jobs, which pay decent salaries and promise prospects of reasonable career advancement, are becoming scarce outside the confines of the financial and property sectors. This has greatly dampened the hopes and expectations of a growing number of families, especially those in the middle-class struggling with the escalating apartment rental and property prices.
Although the economy is growing, it is widely seen to have benefited only the small minority at the top of the economic ladder. Indeed, the wealth gap has been widening through the destruction of the middle class by the unbalanced economic structure that is too dependent on finance and property.
Capitalism in Hong Kong is not entirely without heart. Other than favoring businesses, the government traditionally has focused its social services spending on providing housing and other subsidies to the poorest segment of the society. Nearly half the population is now housed in government-built apartments at heavily subsidized rents. Like all Hong Kong citizens, these individuals enjoy nearly free medical service and 11 years' of free education for their children.
In the past, many entrepreneurs, business leaders, professionals and senior civil servants came from modest families in government housing estates. In those days, the manufacturing-based economy was conducive to social mobility. Capitalism, even in its rudimentary form, worked in Hong Kong and market forces could be counted on to facilitate an acceptable trickle down of wealth.
But the young people of today are frustrated to see that the door for social and economic advancement is closing on them through the functions of the unbalanced economy. I remember that as a younger man in the early 1980s, I once felt immensely proud to be a Hong Kong person walking down the cavernous Central subway station thinking that I had contributed, even in some remote way, of making this happen. I wonder if there is anything in Hong Kong that can make a young man feel as proud of himself and as confident about his future. If you can, please let me know.
The author is a current affairs commentator.
(HK Edition 11/24/2012 page3)