The Leader of the Opposition delivered a formidable speech this week, focussing on a growing problem in the country. Whereas short-time gains are being registered by the few, poverty is spreading fast among the many.

“The government keeps saying that poverty is not on the rise. Tell that to the 90,000 people at the edge of poverty and hardship. Where is the surplus? Feed them your surplus, Prime Minister,” said Adrian Delia.

From 21% of pensioners being at risk of poverty in 2015, the figure in 2019 is now close to 25.4%, Dr Delia added. That’s one-fourth of our pensioners.

And then what for me was the coup de grace: “The problem, according to the Prime Minister, is that the elderly are living longer. Are you telling them that they should die?”

Dr Delia captured the real situation in the country. Despite the great economic success on paper, the reality is that Malta is openly flirting with large-scale poverty. Sincere Labourites, who support the Labour Party because they believe in Socialist principles, should open their eyes and, if they are coherent with themselves and their principles, take stock of the real situation of the country.

To my mind, Malta might have even begun its descent into third-world country status, where you find the very rich and the very poor. Such situations always have a negative impact on the middle class that is not immune to the poverty of the poor, while it can only dream of the riches of the rich. The path on which Malta finds itself under the government of Joseph Muscat is a path that, in a matter of not many years, will lead to increased stresses and strains, and even hardships, for the middle class.

Why should it matter to the middle class that the poor grow poorer? I think that there are quite a few reasons. Let’s mention a couple.

First, because poverty is like a disease from which nobody is immune. If you’re a businessman or self-employed, your business or activity might – God forbid! – go bust. If you’re an employee, your employer might go bust, or something might happen to you that reduces you to penury. A typical welfare society has some sort of safety net, to help people in distress. “Less developed” societies have strong family networks, that serve the same purpose. “Highly developed” societies tell you “Hard luck, c’est la vie!” and you become homeless and destitute. In almost all societies, Church and other religious organisations try to help – but given the incessant onslaught and attacks on organised religion by the radical Liberals, one wonders whether such organisations manage to realise their full potential.

In other words, poverty is always a potential danger. That 90,000 people in a country of not even half a million are living in poverty, is testimony to the tangible reality of poverty. So, even if you’re middle class, you can never exclude that you might catch the virus of poverty. It is therefore in your interest that the country be well equipped to help the poor.

Secondly, poverty is like a pond of stagnant water, where social diseases breed like mosquitoes. Poverty is one of the major causes of petty and more serious theft, burglaries, etc. Poverty can make neighbourhoods unsafe. Poverty keeps people away from education, leads to extraordinarily chaotic lifestyles for adults and upbringings for children. Poverty can lead to domestic abuse, substance abuse, and so much more. Poverty and social chaos walk arm-in-arm down the badly-lit pavements of their unsafe neighbourhood to go back home and engage in heavy drinking punctuated by domestic violence.

Unless you live in a gated community, you or your loved ones will one day or the other come face to face with the ugly reality that poverty breeds. Only a fool will believe that you can confine poverty to the ghetto. In reality, it’s the other way round. When the locusts of poverty ravage a land, the better off have to lock themselves up in their ghetto. But whereas the locusts will move on once they decimate the land, poverty stays and becomes endemic.

It has been said that the poor will always be with us. That is gospel truth. But nowhere has it been said that their numbers should remain stable. Indeed, we have been urged to feed the hungry, give something to drink to the thirsty, take in strangers, clothe the naked, look after the sick, and visit those who are in prison. To my mind, this is an exhortation to do our best to reduce the percentage of the population that is poor. To my mind, it is the duty of every politician – be s/he Demo-Christian or Socialist – to reduce the number of poor people. Adrian Delia’s speech this week follows this principle to the hilt. Like a good doctor, he is diagnosing the disease (poverty) and urging the owner of the hospital and the pharmacy to cure people from the disease.

It is not obvious whether the typical (Neo)-Liberal politician feels bound by this moral imperative, that is to say helping the poor. For this political beast, poverty is the fault of the poor, and the poor get what they deserve. For this political beast, Freedom is the topmost priority: Freedom to pursue personal gratification, avoid consequences, seek here-and-now pleasure... in a word, live the credo defined in the British rock band Queen’s song that captured the spirit of our Neoliberal times, “I want it all, and I want it now”.

In his fantastic book, Homo Juridicus: On the Anthropological Function of the Law (2005/2007), Alain Supiot writes about many aspects of this freedom, but I want to quote one aspect, and invite the reader to pause and reflect. Supiot discusses the world of “freedom” that we live in, a world that  “look[s] something like a world of angels. Or else a world of wild beasts, since all those who do not succeed in imposing themselves as masters on this deregulated market of social positions will be judged to be alone responsible for their misfortune and will be relegated to a sort of subhumanity unfit to reap the benefits of a limitless freedom” (pp. 38-39).

Limitless freedom is a chimera, a mental illusion. Freedom without limits becomes imprisonment. We are living in times in which we can do most things that our forefathers could not. They call “Freedom”. But this limitless freedom begets untold anxiety. And because we can, Slavoj ?i?ek warns us, we must. Limitless freedom reduces us to slaves: slaves to Freedom.

This obviously goes beyond Cicero’s warning that “if we want to be free, we have to be slaves to the law”. Because if the law itself allows limitless freedom, than the limit Cicero perceived in the law disintegrates. And when there are no limits, there is slavery. To return to Supiot’s image, few will master limitless freedom – the vast majority will belong to the subhumanity that, through its own responsibility, cannot reap the benefits of the limitless freedom.

Joseph Muscat peddles the chimera of limitless freedom, because it earns him electoral revenues. In a way, he hypothecates the future of the country to pay for his political lifestyle, knowing full well that on the day the payment falls due, he won’t be politically around to close the account.

Joseph Muscat has chosen a series of aleatory strategies for Malta. I am not sure if he would have done the same had it been his own company or his family business. I am quite sure he would have been more cautious and his outlook more long-term. But since Malta is a res publica, a thing that belongs to the public, and therefore belongs to everyone but at the same time to no one in particular, he is trying to get away with it. His behaviour is that of a petty politician not of the statesman, the master of statecraft, that he and his sycophantic apologists like to think he is. He works (and achieves) short-term gains while ignoring or even ridiculing long-term risks.

Joseph Muscat is taking serious risks with the future of the country, comforted by the knowledge that he is buttressed by certain civil-rights lobbies that are ready to forsake the country for the attainment of their narrow, sector-limited objectives. Indeed, these civil rights add very little, if anything, to the country’s economic growth. Which is why Malta very quickly reached the pole position in the international league where civil rights are concerned. Because it is economically foolish (but electorally wise) to devote resources to civil rights at a time when the international economic situation is still going through a rough patch. For instance, Germany is extremely worried about its economy. Think about why lending rates are still low, and in some countries they are so low that loans are virtually interest-free... and you will realise that the situation is far from rosy. Malta is happily pumping its (very limited) resources into the edification of economically-neutral civil rights while neglecting the financially vulnerable and playing dice with its economic future.

Dr Muscat’s insistence on building the economy on foreign labour (when a huge chunk of Maltese keep emigrating) is aleatory. With certain sectors facing problems, what guarantees do we have that the demand for foreign labour will continue, and that the (short-term) benefits of foreign labour will be felt for long?

Dr Muscat has become a seasoned funambulist, walking the tightrope of selling Maltese citizenship to dubious foreigners, some of whom landed in big trouble, for fraud and financial crimes, soon after acquiring it.

The banking sector is feeling dark forebodings, mostly because Dr Muscat’s administration has hugely damaged the reputation of the Maltese jurisdiction. Why does Italy survive in the savagely competitive world market? Because its brand “Made in Italy” is untarnished. At the moment, Luxembourg’s government has launched a re-branding exercise for the country, because it is aware that the country’s brand is its lifeline. What is Dr Muscat doing for our national brand? Either not very much or he’s persisting in his policies which are, day after day, turning the “Malta” brand not into a worthless brand but into a negative brand. The reputational damage being done to the “Malta” brand can spell years of disaster.

The Labour Party reacted to Dr Delia’s analysis by claiming that it “was out of touch with the reality being experienced by Maltese families.” Utter nonsense! This “reality” is the short-term benefit accruing from short-term policies. But long-term, unless a number of changes take place, that reality will be very different, and Maltese families will go through real hardships.

No wonder, Joseph Muscat looks so much older than his real age. He looks utterly haggard. His face records every political sin he commits. Who knows what he would give to have a portrait painted of him like that of Dorian Gray, a Faustian portrait that would carry his sins for him!

My Personal Library (72)

Oscar Wilde’s Gothic and philosophical novel The Picture of Dorian Gray immediately courted controversy from its first appearance in 1890. But it is a beautiful novel mostly for – at least in my opinion – its original take on the Faustian theme.

The story is that of a young hedonistic narcissist called Dorian Gray and the portrait that an artist impressed and infatuated by Gray’s beauty paints of him. Gray is swayed by a philosophical view he is exposed to, namely that beauty is the only aspect of life worth pursuing, and he wishes that his portrait would age instead of himself. He later discovers that his wish became true, and his portrait starts registering the numerous sins Gray commits in his pursuit of beauty and pleasure.

Being replete with homoeroticism, drug abuse, et similia, the novel received an avalanche of negative criticism. Though it is still considered a third-rate novel, it does have a wonderful Preface, in which Wilde defends the artist’s rights and the need of art for art’s sake.