*Another Note: I, however, encourage you to read everything if you are not a Cambodian. Or Laotian or Thai who shares similar tradition, culture and religious belief. Still, whether or not you are one, do read it if you can. Very useful information provided.
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Never before have I been so fascinated by Economics. Writing this article is the only way I can think of to express my impression on an awesome story I had the opportunity to witness with my own four eyes. The story I am going to tell you is about the birth of a small market economy driven by the laws of supply and demand and other factors that could make it happen.
Let me start by giving you a bit of an overview of Cambodia and poverty within this country. Cambodia is one of the developing countries of the global south. We are, however, very fortunate to have such a resilient country which persists and thrives despite the really bumpy road. I am proud to be a Cambodian, but being proud should never be on the same line as being arrogant. There are still many challenges now and in many years ahead. I see the many flaws the country has and the improvements to be made.
Just throwing in some facts. According to the most recent data by Asian Development Bank (ADB), the total number of population in Cambodia is 14.7 million (2013), and about 25% of the entire population is living under the set poverty line of $1.25/day while the poorest 20% only share about 7.9% of the national income. The data from the UNDP also gives us a more inclusive indicator called "multidimensional poverty" which is complementary to the traditional poverty indicator that is solely based on income. This new indicator measures poverty based on three primary aspects: Income, Health and Education. The data shows us that 45.9% of the population is living in multidimensional poverty. That means they are not just poor in terms of having little money, but also in terms of poorer health and education. For more details, please consult google.
Not to take it too far because the whole point of mentioning those basic facts is just to give you an idea of the current state of Cambodia from the half-empty-glass point of view, so we can figure out ways of how to fill the empty part.
Poverty, to be specific, is what I have seen everyday after leaving home to go to work, having a cup of coffee with friends, going for a ride along the riverside, going to restaurant... I am not even talking about what I have witnessed in the rural areas yet. It has become so apparent to me simply because poverty and affluence are occurring along side each other. At night, on the same street, you can see a family in their luxurious and high-class Range Rover, and you can see another family sleeping helplessly on the side of the street struggling to survive each day while suffering from chronic hunger, meaning they wake up hungry, they feel hungry the whole day, and they go to sleep hungry. The scary thing is that such contrasting states of being has become so familiar to us, to the people here, that we have started to become oblivious of it while some have chosen to ignore it.
Enough of this. I will now take you along with me to Prek Ta Tun village, Ksach Kandal district, Kandal Province. We are going to a pagoda named "Botum Raengsey" to join with many people there on a special religious festival called Pchum Ben or Ancestors' Day, which lasts for 15 days, celebrated by Cambodians every year to pay respect and make in-kind offerings to the deceased relatives up to 7 generations.
During Pchum Ben, almost everyone brings food as an offering to their ancestors who are believed to be released, for a period of 15 days, from the underworld in search of their descendants who brought along food-offerings for the starving ghosts of their predecessors. It is believed that by doing so, it is also a kind of merit-offering that is able to release their ancestors from their agony in hell so they can have peace in heaven. What if we do not make any offering at all? We will be cursed! I hope not. I do not know the detail. The explanation has never been very clear to me.
What I want to point out is just that there is normally lots and lots of food in pagoda during Pchum Ben period. You see, I do not know if ghosts exist. If they do, I do not know if they eat physical food, but I know for sure, with absolute certainty, that actual living people do. So, many of the poor gather in pagoda during the 15-day festival hoping to get something to fill their stomach and get some money from people who have become more generous because of the festival effect with the final destiny, heaven, as their incentive.
It works most of the time for the poor. I mean that is why many poor, or less-fortunate, people, especially children, go to pagoda during this religious festival period. Sometimes, to get more than just food, they beg (for money). It works better than on a normal day, but still, they do not get much, and they are often ignored and shunned by the better-off people (or so they seem).
A gloomy article it may seem, a cynical author you may say. However, starting from this point on, we will experience together how Economics can help make even a small change that can improve life quality for the poor, during Pchum Ben day at least.
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The story goes like this... (It is a true story, and this is where it gets interesting)
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| A woman praying to the Buddha statue |
Welcome! This is a typical scene inside any Buddhist temples, at least here in Cambodia. You can see a woman praying to the Buddha statue in the picture. Well, there were many more people at the food hall (because it was lunch time!). Did I mentioned that the food hall is also a holy place in pagoda? Pretty much everywhere, except the restrooms.
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| Here we are, the Food Hall. Told you so! It was crowded! |
Anyway, I am pleased to introduce you to our protagonist and his friends today (see the below picture and its caption). Let us call him Sok, a very typical Cambodian name. Of course, that is not his real name. I was stupid enough to forget asking him for his name. Still, this picture below is enough because a picture is worth a thousand words. Not to say his real name is that long. I hope he is not going to sue me in the future for posting it here. I did ask for his consent to take and post the picture... but without his signature. I doubt he understands what I meant when I said "May I post this on the Internet later on?". He will soon learn, I do hope.
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| Meet Sok (Red shirt on the left) and his friends! Sok said "Hello" to you too! |
For some unknown reason, about an hour later, Sok seemed to have realized something, or maybe he was simply tired of walking around begging for money from people, with little success. His action caught my attention because he suddenly sat down at the entrance of the food hall in which the monk were chanting before having lunch offered to them by the people. Of course, everyone had to get into the food hall to listen to the unintelligible Sutta (in Pali language).
So what was he doing sitting at the entrance like that? Was he too tired of standing and walking? and just decided to sit and beg instead? Not really.
You see, for Buddhists, when going into a sacred place, we take off our shoes to show our utmost reverence for the Buddha and the monks.
This creates a problem. Poverty, Shoes. Povery, Shoes. Poverty, Shoes... Poverty, free Shoes... you got that?
Ain't nobody has the time to keep their eyes on their shoes. Most of the time, they are too busy concentrating on the chanting, whether or not they understand any of that. So shoes are there at the entrance for anyone brave enough to grab a few of them to sell and earn some bucks or riels (Cambodia's currency). Just a side note, since Cambodia is a partially dollarized country, we use both riels and dollars. Anyway, you see the problem. You go in, you lose your shoes, and worst of all, they don't go to your ancestors. Win-lose situation. Nobody likes it.
Sok somehow realized this problem that people were facing. Like many economists said, in an economy, the scarcest resources of all are knowledge and insight. Two working as one. Those with the right knowledge and insight at the right time and the right place, with the courage to initiate and the strong will to persist, will prevail regardless of who they are. This is what happens most of the time. A poor farm boy can even become the richest man of great sophistication because of his employment of his own knowledge and insight.
Tired of begging (probably), Sok might have at first done it out of his goodwill. He saw the problem, and he tried to solve it. He set up a spot where he would just sit and watch over people's shoes. As you have seen in the picture above, He and the other kids did not realize, at first, that this simple problem-solving service will not just help the people but the sole supplier of the service, Sok.
By the way, Sok was the only one who did the job at first. His friends (the three kids in the picture) just joined in for the photo shot.
I was very interested in Sok's initiation. So, I took a picture hoping to see something interesting happened. I wanted to turn it into something that could change his day. I waited and observed what would happen next. Suddenly, a woman walked out of the food hall and handed Sok 500 riels (about a dime). That is my friend, an incentive! Every business needs incentive to continue its operation. Where there are demand and supply, incentive will be made visible through the transaction.
At first, the other kids were just running around, playing, and begging for money from the passers-by from time to time like they usually do. That gave me an idea! I then kept walking in and out several times. Each time, I kept repeating the same act. I handed the shoes to Sok when I entered. When I left, I took the shoes back and gave him 500 riels as a thank for his service. By my 3rd or 4th trip, this act of passing benefit to Sok, the service provider, caught the other kids' attention.
About half an hour later after the fact, this was what happened.
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| Wait wait wait... they are not Soks! There cannot be more than one Sok. They are 2 other kids offering the same service. |
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| 4 more inside of the food hall? 5? So about 7 in total doing the same thing as Sok does. |
Yes, a bunch of other kids started to imitate Sok and opened up their own shoes-keeping business, in hope to gain or surpass Sok in terms of profit! They have now become Sok's competitors!
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| "Where did they come from? They are taking away my customers!" Sok thought (I made this up). |
Sok was not very happy about this (See his face? ha!). But sorry kid, this is free market, and for this particular type of competition, we can call it a perfect competition in which businesses offer identical products or services with no barrier to entry and exit. As Sok realized his profit, he could not hide it from the eyes of the other kids who were also profit-seeking individuals. Sok could not monopolize the business because the demand was too much for him to handle alone, and there was no rules or regulations stating that only Sok can provide the service. Plus, he could only watch over limited number of pairs of shoes if he did not hire other kids to work under him (and he did not). As the shoes-keeping business, which existed on the same timeline and place, offered greater incentive than standing around beeing, begging now incurred a huge opportunity cost (a huge loss of money that could have been made by entering into the tiny shoes-keeping industry). Consequently, several other kids ended up in the same business.
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| Before the shoes-keeping business took off! Lots of shoes in risk of being stolen! We need Sok! |
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| Lucky him that Sok started all this. |
Moreover, to attract more customers, they had also thought of ways to provide better quality services. Sok and the other kids neatly arranged the shoes in order, and for my patronage, Sok even put my shoes (the biggest black pairs on the right of the pink shoes) at the front (He told me that). What a nice kid! Due to this privilege he gave me, I was also more inclined to further use his service. What a great entrepreneur Sok is!
Is this the end of the money circulation in that small economy? Not really. So where will the money go next? Probably to the ice-cream seller in the right picture.
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| See the street vendor in the middle of the picture? |
This is just a small economy that has been improved to an extent thanks to one kid with a great entrepreneurial spirit. I salute you, kid.
I consider myself very lucky to be able to witness such an improvement in people's income, even if for a day. This shows us that the law of economics, the law of supply and demand, applies to every level of our society. I, thus, urge the development workers to start thinking economics and employ solutions to poverty that consist of 5 elements:
- Relevance
- Effectiveness
- Efficiency
- Impact
- Sustainability
The use of economics to improve life quality can meet the 5 conditions while being much less costly than the traditional solutions which do not factor in much of economic thinking.
Once again, this article could not be made possible without Sok and his friend. I still am fascinated by what I have observed, and this particular experience has reassured me of the crucial role economics plays in development and life in general.
Thank you for spending time reading this article, and I will see you again next time with an even more amazing piece of economics!
All the best.
Sources used:
http://www.kh.undp.org/content/cambodia/en/home/countryinfo/
http://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/pub/2014/basic-statistics-2014.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pchum_Ben
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