This week there was the yearly meeting of the Italian NGO Communione e Liberazione in Rimini, which the Italians refer to colloquially as Il meeting di Rimini. At one of the debates, a speaker said that we have succumbed to the dictatorship of profit. He was referring to Italy and, most probably, the rest of Europe.
However, his statement triggered my thinking, and I believe that what he said applies to Malta as well, as we have effectively succumbed to the dictatorship of money. Profit would refer exclusively to the business sector, while money would refer to individuals as well. Not only have we allowed money to assume a dictatorial role, but we have also started to idolise it.
In Malta, we have been regaled week in, week out, with stories of greed on the part of building contractors. One can mention the commercialisation of Comino and the protests organised by Moviment Graffitti; the development next to the old chapel of Manikata; the application to construct an eight-storey building in Wied Għomor; or the music in Valletta at night.
Each of these was motivated by one thing and one thing only – money. Money is revered as the king, and we have allowed this king to become a dictator. Money is no longer a tool to support our economic relations but has supplanted the human being and has become the focus of our economy.
In his first apostolic exhortation, Pope Francis wrote: “The worship of the ancient golden calf... has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose.”
He increases the dose by writing: “today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills”.
Today, it has become common that certain economic activities generate negative economic externalities, with the result that society (which means us) is paying for the negative impact of these activities, while the few benefit and rake in the millions.
Money is revered as the king, and we have allowed this king to become a dictator
We have made the fundamental mistake of equating well-being with how much money a person has. This has happened to the extent that a phrase one hears often is: “Ħalliħ ħa jaqla’ lira” (freely translated as “let him be and let him earn money”), or “Mhux kulħadd għandu dritt jaqla’ lira?” (freely translated as “everyone has the right to earn money”), simply to justify damage to our environment and to us as individuals.
The culture of giving, solidarity and, most of all, the common good are values that have been discarded by the few who in turn have managed to make everyone believe that they are worthless values because they do not help you earn money.
It is generally accepted that the global economy will be entering into a recession thanks to the increase in inflation, the disruption in the supply chain that has not yet been rectified, political uncertainties and conflicts, while we are still licking the wounds caused by the coronavirus pandemic. We can add to this the impact of climate change on the economy and society in general. Malta will not be exempted from the impact of this economic recession or the impact of climate change.
The world has been through economic recessions before and economic recessions generally bring about greater income inequality. I do not think that, this time round, this will be allowed to happen. The significant growth of the so-called populist parties in a number of countries needs to be seen from this perspective.
The expectation will be that we break down this dictatorship of money and that we place the human person once more at the centre of the economy. This will mean a revolution, and one hopes that this revolution will be a peaceful and bloodless one.