Society Snippets - The Apple Tree Metaphor

The Apple Tree Metaphor

There are a lot of rich people in Hong Kong, people who own a number of apartments and can live off the rent with more to spare. Their children are never worried about going hungry of having to find a job with decent salaries, and some may even opt to use their parents' wealth to start lifestyle businesses like funky restaurants or wine trading (so that they and their chums could enjoy the services).

Very much like the libertarian era in the UK during the Thatcher's and Major's reign, these people emphasised that they got rich purely because of their own efforts, enduring their humble childhood and unfavourable environment (compared to Europe and North America), and accumulated wealth bit by it with lots of dramas and ups-and-down along the way, finally amassing the wealth and so they deserve to squander and flaunt however they like. As for their less well-to-do contemporaries and the current young generation, well, they are simply not hard-working enough and so deserve no sympathy, or that they should be thankful for not having to live through the same harsh environment as they had to. This is known as the "Lion Rock Spirit", named after Lion Rock Hill which is at the heart (geographically and culturally) of Hong Kong. There is something not quite right about their attribution of success down to themselves entirely, but explaining is difficult, so I have opted for the "Apple Tree" metaphor.

Once upon a time, there was an apple tree at the top of a hill, which was very hard to reach owing to the steep slopes. The tree was particularly fertile and the crop wasn't particularly high in quality. But gradually, different people in the community started to build roads to reach the hilltop for the apple tree and other reasons, and some experts in agriculture started to experiment on the tree to raise productivity and quality, but again not purely just to reap benefits from this tree. Multiple generations of road builders and agricultural experts worked silently, and they came and went and remained nameless. Then one day, the road was complete and the apple tree bore a beautiful harvest. Some citizens used their own efforts, sweats and tears to race to the top, collect the apples and bring to the market for a bumper sale. Not all apples are equally good and not all apples are low-hanging, and people who had talent in identifying the better from the good and the skilful climbers who could reach for the top were able to get more out of the tree. People who were fast runner could get to the low hanging fruits and still make a fortune, albeit a smaller one as there was more fierce competition. The in-firmed, the road builders and the agricultural experts were too tired or busy and could not collect the apples despite their hard and foundational work. Every year as the apple tree bore fruits, the same ritual repeated itself. But progressively, the wealthier people started to buy tools to reach to the tree faster and climb higher, or developed proprietary knowledge to distinguish the best fruits from the rest. All along, the road builders and agricultural experts were the "silent ones" who were not given any credit or reward, and attempts to give them a share were thwarted with reasons such as "they did not put efforts into harvesting" or "they did not have to go through the same fierce competition and challenges as we had to" or "they had generated no progress in terms of tools, knowledge or practices that resulted in more economic reward". Eventually, the wealthiest even wanted to privatise the ring fence the tree for their own use.

Such is the situation faced by economies which have adopted libertarian mechanism, such as UK, US and Hong Kong. Back then, the societies' inefficiencies might genuinely laid in the harvesting of economic benefits - in the UK, it was the strong labour unions leading to backward practices and refusal to adopt greater automation; in Hong Kong, it might have been the omnipresent corruption and good-old colonial bureaucracy that aimed at taxing the locals out of any domestic and commercial activities. Opening up access and competition would have led to greater incentives to harvest and to build further capabilities to harvest even more.

However, by over-emphasising the inefficiencies at harvesting and over-praising the innovators and entrepreneurs who furthered harvesting techniques, we have given excessive power to the libertarian operators, encouraging them to disregard all others who have paved the way but could not participate in the direct benefit-reaping activities, and those who work silently behind to keep the grounds fertile and productive.

The evidence is not just in the aggressive and unsympathetic stance taken by those who "used their efforts" to build their wealth, and the associated social status and influence awarded to them by the media and the society - a successful venture founder would not just enjoy wealth, but his/her world view and comments would be widely shared and agreed. But more than that, the economies are increasingly tilted towards favouring the "productive" aspects that contribute towards the harvesting of the apple trees, and less and less towards the silent workers who maintain the system and access.

Let's take UK as an example. Over the past decade, social housing and the NHS are increasingly neglected in favour of private housing and healthcare; more and more social housing stocks are privatised without replacement. This is a good "harvesting" technique that translates implicit economic benefits into GDP (hence the harvest), but the social harm it brings are now starting to surface - key workers could not afford to live where they work, and the middle class is paying high taxes but have to endure poor health service as they couldn't afford to go private.

Another UK example is in education - since Blair's government, emphasis on languages, history and arts have been diminishing in favour of the "productive" skills such as mathematics, sciences, engineering and technology. A more assessment-centric and progress-monitoring approach is taken to ensure every schoolchild progresses in attaining those skills along a set path. Doubtless, these skills are important as they could be directly applied in workplaces for high productivity, but history/literature/arts/social studies are important in helping the society find out what's happening and what are the alternatives. They are the silent road builders and agricultural experts in the metaphor, yet they are being scalded and told to join the ranks of harvesters.

There is a second part to this metaphor. With road builders and agricultural experts being told to join the harvesters, the roads become under-repaired and start to crumble, while the tree is getting over-harvested without replenishment and so both quantity and quality start to dwindle. What did the people do? They harvest even more frequently to make up for the reduced stock, and there is now more competition for the harvesters to learn each other's unique techniques so as to out-compete each other. The town started to teach everyone the same skills so as to "upskill" the harvesters, and people who successfully learned the skills and made more wealth (at the expense of the others) were praised even more so that the rest could be motivated in the hope of pulling GDP up.

What does this translate to in the real world? More exploitation, more competition, more pressure at education level, more emphasis on getting "productive" skills, and more disregard towards capabilities that would benefit the society in a less apparent manner. Also, more power appropriated to those "who have made it".

What is the way out? The social trend must shift. When the UK government went into "nationalise" mode, the emphasis was less on wealth creation than on a fair society to shift away the managers vs. worker struggle (and exploitation). It harboured inefficiencies, but it also attempt to harbour the weak so that they could have a fulfilled life. When the UK government transitioned into "privatise and libertarian" mode, the society was encouraged to make and display wealth to spur their neighbours into doing the same. Inefficiencies are bad and if you spot one and correct it, you reap the benefits. If you could offshore some jobs overseas to save money, you take the loot. The poor and the weak need to get stronger so that they can make wealth, the jobs are not there to strangle the wealth-creating corporates and agents. This is the world we are in today.

After "nationalise" and "privatise", what is the next keyword? My current proposition is "mutualise" - the harvesters must become the road builder and the agricultural expert, so that they cannot just take the best and leave the junk to the rest, and that they cannot feel that their aggressive position is justified simply because "they have put in effort to make the wealth". Let road builders become harvester and agricultural experts, let agricultural experts become harvesters and road builders, so that each person is more complete, fulfilled and understand the situation. Otherwise, we will be willing to focus on earning money, getting our children into good schools, but not caring about our lives at a whole, or our children's well being. We are too narrowly focused on a small part, but the wider perspective has come back to haunt us.

Can we materialise this "mutualise" proposition? Not 10 years ago, but maybe yes by now - technology is emerging to allow artificial intelligence to do more on our behalf, there is social media that encourage people to be connected, ways to learn about new skills and knowledge. Why can't we mutualise?