Skip to main content

Mathew Effect




“The poor are poor not because the rich are rich,” says Robert J. Samuelson in his Washington Post column reproduced in The Hindu. 

In 1968, the sociologist Robert K. Merton coined the phrase ‘the Mathew Effect’ for the phenomenon of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.  The name Mathew came from the Bible.  Jesus said, according to Mathew’s gospel, “For to him who has more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away” [Mathew 13:12]. 

Jesus did not live in a time which promoted capitalism and its wealth-creating ideology.  Jesus was far, far from being a capitalist.  In fact, he would have been the ideal communist, had he been allowed to have his way by the various leaders of his time (political as well as religious).  What he meant was that those who have the spirit of life in them will be given more of that, and those who are just bullshit will get lost.

But religious scriptures can be interpreted in myriad ways.  Even as I did above.  And Robert K. Merton interpreted it the way Robert J. Samuelson does it now, half a century later.  All interpretations are correct so long as the frameworks are prepared by a carpenter who knows his job.

So, the poor are poor not because the rich are rich.  Samuelson’s argument is that the rich got richer and the poor got poorer because of the situation prevailing in the world.  The rich flourished because of the access they have/had to wealth-creating avenues such as car dealership, real estate business, and computer software business.  More people wanted cars, houses and the digital technology.  So those who had access to such business ventures got richer. 

Who remain poor today?  Those who don’t know how to exploit the prevailing situation?  Or those who don’t have the resources?

The answer may be ‘both’.

Samuelson doesn’t say why such people have no right to live their life.  Isn’t this coming down to Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest? 

If only the fit can survive, what does human civilisation mean?
Who are the fit?  Those who have the resources to manipulate the given system? 
Was the savage the fit person in the olden days?
Was the witch-hunter and the heretic-burner the fit person in the medieval days?
Is the property-dealer the fit person today?

I’m attaching the link to a video which I had put up in my blog earlier too.  I’m putting it up again because it is more, far more articulate than I can ever be ...
Gaaon Chhodab Nahin

It asks the same question: Who is fit?
Will I be more fit a writer if I can get some businessperson to sponsor my writing so that I can quit teaching?  [I intend to do it!]
Is the forest dweller less fit a person because he doesn’t know how to use the digital technology?


Top post on IndiBlogger.in, the community of Indian Bloggers

Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. Mon.EspritFebruary 5, 2014 at 9:31 PM

    I agree to what you are saying - it might well be true that poor are getting poorer because they don't have the resource rich people can avail with resources.

    The failure of our society has been the ineptness in creating a social balance, utilize the potential.

    I have heard the song myself before - love it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 6, 2014 at 12:19 PM

      All that talk about corporate responsibility, Abhra, I wonder what happened to it. The new CEO of Microsoft is to be paid Rs112 crore, according to the latest news. See the kind of inequality that the system creates. Its fallout is terrible: we create a group of people who will start stealing, cheating, plundering...

      Delete
  2. PurbaFebruary 6, 2014 at 5:02 AM

    And God forbid if you're poor in India, you're not even treated as a human being.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 6, 2014 at 12:20 PM

      Exactly, Purba. And they start asserting their humanity, start demanding dignity, in socially undesirable ways...

      Delete
  3. UnknownFebruary 6, 2014 at 12:47 PM

    Well Said.
    Who remain poor today? Those who don’t know how to exploit the prevailing situation? Or those who don’t have the resources? I agree with you on this. Poor are poor always and nobody cares to uplift them.

    Politicians say that minimum amount to survive in a city is Rs.32 or whatever. But we the common man knows how much we need to survive here and we are all fighting to survive. (Survival of the fittest)

    Ultimately those who knows how to exploit the system will win !!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 6, 2014 at 3:31 PM

      And quite a lot of the ordinary people don't know how to exploit the system...

      Perhaps, exploitation existed in one form or another throughout human history. In the present situation, with its rapid changes, people become quickly rich and quickly poor. There must be a way of protecting the interests of the vulnerable sections.

      Delete
  4. AnonymousFebruary 6, 2014 at 1:03 PM

    I don't thnk society is entirely to be blamed here. Yes there is no balance but a poor man doesn't have to remain poor. Hard work, intelligence and opportunity does play a role.
    I am speaking of experience. My father has a huge constructions company today. And he had started from "zero".
    No I am not boasting. Just saying,the rich do get richer but poor not necessarily have to be poorer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 6, 2014 at 3:33 PM

      thanks for the example from personal experience. But I'm sure it wasn't all that easy for your father. First of all, he must have had the necessary backing from a few sectors - finance, connections, and some expertise.

      Delete
  5. UnknownFebruary 6, 2014 at 2:27 PM

    I totally agree to your post!!
    www.eatoutsdelhi.net

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 6, 2014 at 3:54 PM

      Thanks, Aditya. You're most welcome to disagree too :)

      Delete
  6. ekta khetanFebruary 6, 2014 at 6:28 PM

    very well written!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Saru SinghalFebruary 7, 2014 at 11:04 AM

    I was thinking just that yesterday. Are we a poor nation? No! Wealth is concentrated in few hands. Thanks for sharing 'Mathew Effect', I was not aware of it. About being fit, I think no one has an accurate answer for it. But inequality is a big misfit in our society and destroying the fabric of it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 7, 2014 at 4:07 PM

      We are a rich nation of poor people, Saru. A little modification of the system will solve a lot of problems. A paradigm shift will revolutionise India. But... let me not be accuse of living in utopian dreams.

      Delete
  8. Saru SinghalFebruary 7, 2014 at 11:11 AM

    I checked the video and felt really sorry when they said 'we' are drinking colas and bottled water and they are left with dirty water. :(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 7, 2014 at 4:08 PM

      If you actually walk into the villages, as I sometimes do, you'll see that the video is no exaggeration.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ayodhya: Kingdom of Sorrows

T he Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom. Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy. Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid. Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad. Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure peo...
39 comments
Read more

Bharata: The Ascetic King

Bharata is disillusioned yet again. His brother, Rama the ideal man, Maryada Purushottam , is making yet another grotesque demand. Sita Devi has to prove her purity now, years after the Agni Pariksha she arranged for herself long ago in Lanka itself. Now, when she has been living for years far away from Rama with her two sons Luva and Kusha in the paternal care of no less a saint than Valmiki himself! What has happened to Rama? Bharata sits on the bank of the Sarayu with tears welling up in his eyes. Give me an answer, Sarayu, he said. Sarayu accepted Bharata’s tears too. She was used to absorbing tears. How many times has Rama come and sat upon this very same bank and wept too? Life is sorrow, Sarayu muttered to Bharata. Even if you are royal descendants of divinity itself. Rama had brought the children Luva and Kusha to Ayodhya on the day of the Ashvamedha Yagna which he was conducting in order to reaffirm his sovereignty and legitimacy over his kingdom. He didn’t know they w...
30 comments
Read more

Liberated

Fiction - parable Vijay was familiar enough with soil and the stones it turns up to realise that he had struck something rare.   It was a tiny stone, a pitch black speck not larger than the tip of his little finger. It turned up from the intestine of the earth while Vijay was digging a pit for the biogas plant. Anand, the scientist from the village, got the stone analysed in his lab and assured, “It is a rare object.   A compound of carbonic acid and magnesium.” Anand and his fellow scientists believed that it must be a fragment of a meteoroid that hit the earth millions of years ago.   “Very rare indeed,” concluded the scientist. Now, it’s plain commonsense that something that’s very rare indeed must be very valuable too. All the more so if it came from the heavens. So Vijay got the village goldsmith to set it on a gold ring.   Vijay wore the ring proudly on his ring finger. Nobody, in the village, however bothered to pay any homage to Vijay’s...
47 comments
Read more

Empuraan – Review

Revenge is an ancient theme in human narratives. Give a moral rationale for the revenge and make the antagonist look monstrously evil, then you have the material for a good work of art. Add to that some spices from contemporary politics and the recipe is quite right for a hit movie. This is what you get in the Malayalam movie, Empuraan , which is running full houses now despite the trenchant opposition to it from the emergent Hindutva forces in the state. First of all, I fail to understand why so much brouhaha was hollered by the Hindutvans [let me coin that word for sheer convenience] who managed to get some 3 minutes censored from the 3-hour movie. The movie doesn’t make any explicit mention of any of the existing Hindutva political parties or other organisations. On the other hand, Allahu Akbar is shouted menacingly by Islamic terrorists, albeit towards the end. True, the movie begins with an implicit reference to what happened in Gujarat in 2002 after the Godhra train burnin...
10 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
16 comments
Read more