"The labour of the fools wearieth them for they know not how to get to the city".
"From he that hath not even that which he has will be taken and given to him that hath".
The three quotes above are taken from the Holy Bible. Human beings trade their talents, skills and expertise which are human resources to acquire material resources such as money, land etc
it is a supposedly obvious fact that if a man applies his energy to a productive task it will pave way for his prosperity. However, also obvious is that a large percentage of the human populace especially in developing countries such as Nigeria experiences abject poverty even as workers either as self employed (artisans, craftsmen, businesspersons, traders, clergy etc).
The question then arises why the reason for poverty if a human being works. In the second quote of this article it is said that 'the labour of the fool wearieth him for he knows not how to get to the city'. The quote acknowledges that the fool is labouring but describes the reason for his weariness; unproductivity, fruitlessness has being unable to go to the city. The city here refers to the civilized setting, the urbane marketplace where the end products of his work are highly priced.
So until the fool has devised a means to take his product/services well packaged for the use in the city, he will be at the mercy of trading his raw materials at low price to the one who has found a way to get his produces to the city. Let's highlight once again what the city is here: it refers to the marketplace that buys the final product. for example; lets say a labourer knows how to dig wells but knows not how to create a construction company that digs bore holes to the water packaging companies or a farmer who plants oranges in his farm in the village who then sells his oranges to a trader who transports the oranges to the city, say Lagos and sells it to a Orange juice processing company which then process and bottles the orange juice for the populace who buys them at shopping malls, supermarkets, hotels and bars where they are sold at high prices.
In the above story, the labourer who exhausts himself physically wears him self out unlike his wiser counterpart who has a large farm with a mechanized process; a processing plant where his farm produce are processed into finished product and equally has a marketing system to sell his finished product to the masses, and gets maximal value from her efforts.
The above story does not seek to look down on any form of labour but to encourage the populace to seek out maximal value for their efforts. It has also been said that to be wealthy, you need the efforts of other peoples, their time, their money/resources, that explains why an entrepreneur (the class to which most wealthy people belong) employs other people to use their time, efforts, skills and still uses their resources such as loans from the bank, communal land etc. for his productive ventures while he pays them stipends. This may be classified as unjust, but the truth is that he chose to carry the higher load of paying their bills while he knows how to get the collective efforts of all to the city: the market.
In the Nigerian setting, the Government is the largest employer of labour sadly and the largest contractor, because adequate systems to promote entrepreneurship and business growth has not been set up. Taking a look at the Nigerian street, you find a lot of idle people loitering the streets going nowhere actually, military and para military officials exploiting and harassing road users especially drivers who are seeking for a means to earn a living.
It therefore becomes imperative to call for a great redirection of labour; the masses have to be awakened to acquire a skill that has commercial value and learn to take it to the market. A look at the richest people and companies in the world shows the meaning of this call.
Apple company sells apple products (ipad, iphones etc) and takes it to the market where it is highly priced and bought. Facebook and Google sells advert spaces on their website which is exhaustively consumed by the marketplace. The Richest musicians etc Dr Dre, Jay Z, Beyonce etc brings their musical talent and packages it to a product: Compact Disc and then put it to the market such as iTunes where its sold. Nike sells fashion items and franchise to the market.
So you my reader! What are you bringing to the market?
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