The criticism of Saudi banks by Deputy Crown Prince Muqrin this week set-off a barrage of commentary on social media bashing banks, insisting that these banks should reinvest some of their record profits back into Saudi society by helping the needy through charitable projects.
While I agree that Saudi banks do make huge profits and that it would be nice if they gave back to society, under the capitalist system that we have in the Kingdom, they are not obligated to do any such thing. What the government should do is introduce taxes on corporate profits. That way the government would collect this income and reinvest it in better education and health care for all Saudis.
It is well known that there are many Saudi families struggling to make ends meet and who need better job opportunities. That is why a national minimum salary needs to be urgently established by the government. All industrialized and most developing nations have minimum salaries. In the US the minimum salary is only adjusted every few years, while in Brazil it is indexed to inflation and rises every year. This issue has been raised several times already, but Saudi businesses have always been against setting a minimum salary, claiming that it would be too onerous to implement.
A story that I read on the same day Prince Muqrin’s comments were published, gave me hope that Saudis have not yet become slaves of the banking system. It reported that 98 percent of financial transactions in the Kingdom are still done in cash and not by credit card. This is good news as the lure of supposedly easy credit offered by credit cards often lands people who use them with huge debts, because of the high lending fees charged, that they can take years to pay-off completely. In Brazil and the US, many people often have several cards that they max out in their attempt to live beyond their means and keep up with all the demands of our consumer society. The other day while I was waiting in line to pay for a purchase at a store, I overheard an elderly Brazilian man ahead of me casually and rather proudly mention to the cashier that he had 15 credit cards! I was astonished at the high number. Many people have several credit cards, but 15?
Apart from a minimum salary, the government should extend the unemployment benefits that it pays to unemployed Saudis and include the thousands of young Saudi women that graduate from our universities every year but who cannot find decent jobs in our economy.
Of course a works program to employ Saudis, both men and women, would be a much better way of helping them than just giving them a monthly handout to stay home. After all, we want productive members of society, and not low-achievers who just accept government help and stay home doing nothing worthwhile.
As a society we need to have a national debate about our social values and what we want Saudi Arabia to be like. Unbridled capitalism with greed and profit as its sole purpose does us harm. We as Saudis need to learn that we have to pay fair prices for goods and services in order to give decent lives to those who produce them. The US has become addicted to cheap, imported goods that are often produced in sweatshop conditions. We need to see the link between cheaper prices, lower salaries and the exploitation of workers. Saudi business owners would do well and realize this in order to stop their addiction to cheap, foreign labor. A cut in their profits would help employ more Saudis and reduce our dependency on cheap labor.
- The writer is a Saudi journalist based in Brazil.
