COMMENT Professor Robert Merton, one of the founding fathers of modern-day sociology, argued that “a false definition of the situation evokes a new behaviour which makes the original false conception come true”. We are accustomed to several economic facts that we accept as the norm, although it might be different elsewhere. It is embedded in our mind that farmers and fishermen would be poor and only white collar workers are entitled to a life of luxury.

Why is it that our local farmers and fishermen - providers of food that is essential to our survival - mostly live in poverty while their counterparts in Europe earn a decent wage and live a better life? There’s a Polish proverb that expresses this: “If the farmer is poor then so is the whole country.”

So, why is that the providers of non-essential goods and services such as cosmetics, jewellery, automotibiles and so on, are super rich? Things are equally bad for our rubber tappers, some of whom survive on less than RM500 a month, even though rubber is one of Malaysia’s prime industries.