Dr M’s questionable priorities
By Dr Toh Kin Woon, The Nut Graph
I REFER to the latest posting in (Tun) Dr Mahathir Mohamad's blog, in which he criticised non-Malay [Malaysians] for asking for more concessions from state policies.
In response to these demands, the current prime minister (Datuk Seri Najib Razak) has liberalised rules pertaining to equity ownership in some service sub-sectors and promised to set up a scholarship based purely on merit, beginning from next year.
Dr Mahathir has found all these to be unacceptable, as they are tantamount to the government helping the relatively better off non-Malay [Malaysians], taking even more from the relatively poorer Malay [Malaysians]. To substantiate his point, he went on to assert that non-Malay [Malaysians] now own around 50% of the share capital while Malay [Malaysians] own only 20%, far from the target set in the New Economic Policy of 30%.
I find Dr Mahathir's arguments to be objectionable on three grounds. Firstly, quite apart from the accuracy of his statistics on share ownership according to ethnic group, his focus on this particular issue is a case of wrong priority. We all know, and I am sure Dr Mahathir does too, that shares and even high-value urban properties are owned only by a small proportion of the total population. This is true of all communities, not just in Malaysia, but in countries all over the world, including the US and Japan.
For the bulk of the population, share ownership is far removed and irrelevant to their lives. Their concern is with obtaining a just return to their efforts and labour, i.e. with egalitarianism. Instead of focusing his concern on how wealth and income can be redistributed from the upper strata of all communities to the lower strata of all ethnic groups, Dr Mahathir chose instead to concentrate on redistributing wealth from one socioeconomic elite group to another.
