Income inequalities: The root of most evils

Kohinoor earns 800 dollars a year. She works in one of Dhaka's garment factories, stitching world-class wears for consumers in the West.  The all-powerful person on the factory floor, production manager, she works under manages a take-home pay of around 1,000 dollars a month (US$12,000 a year). The sum the MD takes as honorarium is a matter of only guesswork for the sector-insiders. The top-bottom difference is the gulf.
Nomanur Rahman, a class-four employee, will get a pay worth about 120 dollars a month. The top-grader in the bureaucracy will receive no less than 1315 in terms of the greenback per month under the new pay scale. A policeperson at entry point now gets about 92 dollars a month. How much a businessman/industrialist  he provides security makes annually is a matter of inference that may be drawn from the calculations the particular firm submits to the revenue authority (if a substantial part not stashed away).
Income inequality is the root of most evils interpersonal relations, society, country and the entire world are plagued by. The situation has come to such a pass where a sense of deprivation, class distinctions seems to be at a breaking point.
Conflicts of interests at individual, familial, societal, national, regional and international levels are more inimical now than ever before.  
Income inequalities are a socioeconomic phenomenon as old as the emergence of human society in the process of evolution of mankind. And this divisive process is based on deprivation and exploitation, according to social scientists. It began with serfdom--the mighty and moneyed one enslaving the common multitude in their forcibly established fiefs. In the fiefdom started the ballads of 'land slaves' held by feudal lords.
This stratified society progressed into industrial economic system with scientific innovations developing the means of production. But production relations again digressed, with the workers virtually rendered into 'wage slaves'. That bondage based on debasement of 'Industrial Revolution' assumed a cosmopolitan dimension when most aggressive capitalists born out of the advances in economic field invaded and colonized other countries.
With the emergence of nation states through the catastrophes of the Second World War, the shocking episodes of enslaving nations at large found a geophysical cessation though neo-tactics of seizing and sucking wealth continued to hang on.
These, in brief, are the origins of income inequalities and resultant status bars at individual, national and inter-state levels.
A new in-equalizer has come out, nowadays, as a spinoff from wonders of science and technology. This is 'digital divide'. It has created super-genius super-rich like Bill Gates, who has minted some US$79.2 billion as per 2015 account by Forbes.
The divide has not only created the gulf of difference in wealth accumulation by individuals but also by countries. Individuals, countries having their exclusive hand on sophisticated technologies are getting elevated to unreachable heights, leaving the tech have-nots on a depth where frustrations and desperation can only grow.  
Such desperation may erupt into unsettling irritants for the rich--both individuals and nations. The invasion of Europe and America, to a little extent, by war refugees from the Middle East and job-seeking youths and victims of ethnic cleansing from the East in recent times is one such troubling happening. The other comes from what is called Islamists who threaten to upset the Garden of Eden on earth. Most daunting challenge comes from the IS or Islamic State.
It's time we did introspection through soul-searching to see the outcomes of income disparity among people of different social strata as well as uneven world order. Trouble comes from two thrusts--one inward, another outward. The ongoing chain of violence inside the country, in the final analysis, appears to be an outcome of the income disparity.
The sense of deprivation gets such intense as Bangladesh was liberated in 1971 from Pakistani rule on the slogans that boil down to demand for an end to deprivation and disparity. This traumatic feeling can easily be fuelled into a violent antagonism against the establishments and whoever stands against this change when the mission is perfectly fused with two noble attainments of life here and hereafter. 'If you live through the success of your action, you are victor in the holy war on infidels; if you don't, you're blessed with the status of a martyr,' this is the rousing mantra that draws youths into daring action.
Here, in Bangladesh, a new dimension has muddled up the situation to the extent of great confusion. This, say analysts who have eyes at their back, stems from a wounded sense of being deprived of full democratic dispensation. Again, democracy was dominant war cry in 1971 and a main pillar of the national constitution. As ruling-party leaders say, and many agree, a longstanding diplomatic row works as a stimulant. This zoomed with the killing of two foreign citizens and attacks on a number of foreigners.
Come round to the theme of income inequality, where serious thoughts ought to be given on remedies. First, a diagnosis has to be done as to how it was created. There was a basic bid for removing it through the post-liberation nationalisation of private undertakings on the economic front as per the constitutional concept of socialism. The apple cart was finally upset.
Reversal began with the change of political wind. The denationalisation process in industry, newfound wealth in natural gas as well as great strides in agriculture generated huge public wealth. But those public resources hugely landed in private hands.
Why so happened can be summarized in the absence of application of a balancing economic terminology: redistribution of wealth. This is equally important in both national and global perspectives. It takes all sorts to make a world. None can get away seizing excessive opulence and live in an ivory tower in this increasingly interdependent world.
A trade-union leader elaborates on the harms that can be done by income inequalities. Abul Hossain says sense of deprivation results in less production, lower quality and, ultimately, labour and social unrest.
"Disparity disrupts social harmony and lowers productivity and quality both. So price competitiveness is also hampered," he said.
Happily, addressing income inequality and ensuring equal opportunities for all is stipulated in the newly adopted UN charter for all nations. Execution of this single one of the 17 basic objectives laid down in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can help resolve many of the nagging problems we are confronted by.
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