Getting freed from pathogenic greed

MR. Harun ur Rashid, in his post editorial article in the Daily Star (June 26), lamented the bane of greed in our national politics. His allusion to the problem was thought provoking but brief. The problem is deep and wide-spread. It is not endemic to Bangladesh; many other countries have been afflicted by this scourge. Poor countries like Bangladesh can ill afford to bear the effects of the problem. As it happened, Bangladesh was unfortunately buffeted by this terrible malaise in the recent past.
Acquiring is a basic human instinct. People acquire material resources for consumption, investment, and bequeathing purposes. Consumption is broadly defined in this write-up. It includes not only consumption of goods and services of tangible nature, but also sensual pleasures, and utility derived from charity and emotional fulfillment. The essential requirement is that one has to consciously feel that he is getting perceptible utility from such activities.
Investment is a benign option for using one's asset; its outcome is value addition, provision of employment, and welfare augmentation of citizens. Investors, of course, earn profit, a part of which they save for further investment.
The prodigal will be interested more in extravaganza and wasteful expenditure. He may squander away huge resources without understanding its social and economic implications. His activities run counter to the interest of society and people at large.
How much money does a person need to lead a fabulously decent life in Bangladesh? I have discussed this issue with many people. If a person does not indulge in hard drinking, he can blithely maintain a family of six with a monthly income of Tk 100,000.
If he is a free -- wheeler type he will need more money, but not exceeding Tk 200,000 per month at any rate. If he needs more money, he is either an extremely bad manager or a wretched sucker deserving no sympathy.
On the contrary, his activities are suspect and should be closely watched; they may be linked to the criminal world, as happens more often than not. With a heftily surplus income at his command, a person may soon be tempted to buy influence to protect his income and indulge in self-aggrandisement.
He thinks he can get away with any thing, however heinous that action may be. As he gets deeper into these unethical or illegal activities, his appetite for money and material resources is whetted beyond limit.
Those who amass huge resources are likely to spend a part of it on undesirable activities, except a few who are endowed with intense ethical values. The latter usually prefer to spend a part of their assets on charity. This is an acceptable proposition as it is based on good intention.
Some people develop a fixation, a mania, for acquiring money and material resources for the sake of it. They really do not know what to do with it, all they know is that they have lots of assets, and can spend as much money as possible whenever they want to.
They enjoy the kick that comes from a sense of ownership of huge assets. This may be called "minomania," a kind of psychological impairment that afflicts a human being selectively. We have heard of a first lady who collected a few thousand pairs of shoes, most of which she even did not have a chance to see. She just enjoyed the ownership.
This sort of ownership is a dead loss to the society because no one consumes the items and no benefit is derived from them, except the perverse psychological satisfaction of the owner. One may argue that perverse satisfaction is also a kind of satisfaction that benefits at least one economic agent; so it should be counted as a positive benefit to the society.
This is a flawed argument in that such benefit to a maniac comes at the cost of many other individuals, who are adversely affected in the process of acquisition of wealth by the greedy exploiter.
Somebody may derive benefit through satisfying his criminal instinct. Such a tendency has to be arrested to protect the life and property of citizens. The acquisition instinct also should not be allowed to cross its limit, lest it turns into a social opprobrium.
Left to itself, an extreme acquisition instinct soon degenerates into killer instinct, oftener than not in the figurative sense, though the literary sense is not ruled out.
It is reported in the press that some people have amassed wealth worth billions of Taka, stashed away at home and abroad. From my knowledge about the intelligence and education of some of these people, I have reasons to believe that they cannot even count five hundred sixty two thousand four hundred forty three Taka, let alone higher quantities involving millions and billions of Taka.
Managing a fund of this dimension is simply beyond their capacity. They trust some near and dear ones to manage it. All that they are interested in is the smooth flow of money and material whenever they need them.
Their prime consumption comprises acquisition of landed properties, houses, luxury flats, costly vehicles, clothes, ornaments and gizmos, and travelling abroad with friends and relatives when they go on a shopping binge. The fund managers and the cronies make sure that their whims and caprices are taken care of during their visits abroad.
A few industries are also established in their names, though the real management authority is exercised by their cronies. Once out of power, they soon lose control over these industries because of inadequacies and complications in the relevant documents.
Ownership of fabulous resources is prone to breed hubris and power hunger, which may in turn lead a person to persecute his opponents at any cost and in any manner he deems fit.
In extreme cases, he is ready to annihilate the rock-ribbed opponents. Acquisition of enormous wealth is, therefore, a potential source of big crime in the country.
In Europe, particularly in the Scandinavian countries, a movement has started for limiting the acquisition of wealth by an individual. The corporate executives who draw a staggering amount of compensation are the targets of this campaign.
The proponents of the campaign contend that a person needs only a limited amount of wealth to lead a decent life, to meet the need for his health security, for all types of sensual pleasures, charity, bequeathal, and old age comfort included.
The unnecessary heap of money is the source of many evil doings, they hold. The company and the society would be greatly benefited if the compensation package could be appropriately shaved off to a really necessary level. A similar line of thinking is discernible in China as well.
Some political caucus has started questioning the extravaganza, which is demonstrated by the filthily rich people in that country. Such extravaganza is vulgar, and an affront to common citizens, and it should be severely restrained.
In our country, we have seen how unmitigated greed destroys the social fabric and what a great cost it imposes on the nation. Unearned income, huge unproductive wealth, and the concomitant power hunger, must be contained through concerted efforts.
The entrepreneur, the risk-taker, should have adequate incentive to go for productive enterprise, and be allowed to lead a high quality life as defined earlier.
He should also be encouraged to reinvest and earn normal profit, which should, however, be heavily taxed once it crosses the ceiling defined for an individual. In short, income should enable a person to lead a healthy, peaceful, secure, decent, benign, and joyful life.
It should not be allowed to push him into desolate idleness, or spur him into criminal pursuit. The world will be a much better place to live in if the problem of income obesity can be appropriately addressed.

Dr. Sadaat Husain is Chairman, Public Service Commission.