The only thing that money can’t buy

Money, it is said, makes the world go round. It buys happiness, success, love, health, politicians. It sways elections and manipulates markets. It is a tool of control and influence. The only thing money can’t buy is poverty.

This statement might sound like a cruel joke at the expense of the less fortunate but it is a mirror reflecting society’s deep-rooted cynicism and the bitter realities of life.

Consider the insidious irony here: money can buy justice. The wealthy can marshal an army or armies of lawyers, manipulate the intricacies of the legal system and emerge unscathed from scandals and crimes that would crush the ordinary man. For the poor, justice is a fickle, distant dream. The scales of justice are tipped not by righteousness but by the weight of one’s wallet.

The disparity is stark, even in the field of health. The rich have access to the finest medical care while the man in the street languishes for hours on end, forgotten and neglected in overcrowded clinics, his ailments aggravated by apathy, jaded medical staff and understaffing.

Education, often touted as the great equaliser, is another domain where money flexes its muscles. Elite institutions with world-class facilities are the playgrounds of the rich. Money buys not just education but connections, opportunities and a polished CV. The man in the street, constrained by his circumstances must settle for whatever crumbs of knowledge he can scavenge, his dreams stifled by the impossible cost of upward mobility.

The wealthy can’t buy poverty but will encourage poverty. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

The irony lies in the fact that poverty is both a by-product and a requirement of the current economic system encouraged by the government. It is the fuel that powers the engine of capitalism. Cheap labour, affordable goods and the constant churn of economic desperation are essential for the system to function smoothly.

Without cheap imported labour, who would do the jobs deemed too menial or low-paying for the Maltese? Who would keep the wheels of the construction industry, the hotel and catering industry, supermarkets, hospitals and transport, to name a few, turning for minimal compensation, while the wealthy – the entrepreneurs, the so-called new middle class, reap disproportionate profits?

The statement “the only thing money can’t buy is poverty” highlights the inherent contradictions of a society where wealth and poverty are two sides of the same coin. The wealthy can’t buy poverty but will encourage poverty because they need poverty to exist in order to increase their wealth.

Poverty is the shadow that wealth casts, a constant reminder of the imbalance that money alone cannot remedy.

John O’Dea – Mosta