Today, being the start of a new year, we are all hopeful that 2021 will be a better year than 2020. We will still be feeling the consequences created by the havoc which the coronavirus has generated but we also hope that from now on, things should only get better. Probably this is a sentiment that is being felt not just in this country but around the world.
This seems to make us look at matters more positively. However, for things to look really positive, we need to start addressing certain issues with a sense of urgency and purpose. It is hoped that 2021 will be truly marked by realism and sobriety. Thinking that we can just go back into the future will be most foolhardy. There are two reasons for that. First, our behaviour, our expectations, our priorities and our attitudes have changed as a result of the coronavirus. This means that we have become more accepting of certain things but we have grown to tolerate less certain other things. Second, we need to resolve issues that were affecting us before the onset of the coronavirus.
What the coronavirus should have taught us is that we need to start working to ensure that our economy becomes more sustainable – sustainable from a social perspective and sustainable from an environmental perspective. During the last nine months, persons who felt they had a secure job with a relatively good income suddenly found themselves unemployed or have had their income severely reduced.
The same thing can be said about the business sector. Successful businesses suddenly found themselves in difficulty. This did not happen just in Malta but also everywhere else.
The common good can no longer be cast aside for the benefit of some greedy people
Sustainability from a social perspective requires us to address elements that render our society less cohesive. One element is income inequality. We all seem to be happy that the number of persons living below the so-called poverty line is diminishing, but this does not address the issue of income inequality. Income inequality is not measured by the number of beggars we see in the street.
For example, we have to face the fact that many young people are finding it increasingly difficult to find affordable and adequate housing through their own resources. They are increasingly turning to their families for help. This has happened while property developers have raked in millions through speculation. This is a measure of income inequality.
A second element of sustainability from a social perspective is governance. The lack of governance and respect for law and order eats away at social cohesion and eventually brings economic growth to a halt.
A great deal has been written this year about the sense of impunity which some people tend to have. Such persons are not only those that have attracted public attention, but also persons who believe that they can construct buildings illegally or who bully their way around and who have managed to remain out of the public eye.
From an environmental perspective, the economy requires us to ensure that our infrastructure can sustain the various economic activities that we have. Water generation, waste management, drainage and electricity distribution infrastructure all need to be seen to.
We also need to protect our heritage, our countryside and our coastline, or else we risk running the economy to the ground. Too much damage has been done already so that a few people could gain at the expense of the rest of us. The common good can no longer be cast aside for the benefit of some greedy people.
Thinking that managing the economy requires us to focus only on the growth of the gross domestic product is short-sighted. Unless we ensure that economic growth is sustainable in the longer-term, we would be ignoring the responsibility we have towards today’s young people and future generations.
We need to put humans at the centre of our economy and we need to assert that the value of the human person cannot be judged just from what one earns. To achieve this, we need to have a strong dose of realism and sobriety during 2021.