GMAT Essays (AWA)

"Some people claim that the measure of a successful government is in how well it directly supports the poorer members of society. Others claim that if the government focuses on lifting the wealthier members, the benefits will reverberate throughout the social structure and the standard of living will rise for everyone."
In your view, to what extent should government be responsible for supporting those members of society who struggle to support themselves? Explain, giving relevant reasons and/or examples to support your position.

Some people believe that success of a government lies on how well it can support the poorer members of the society whereas other claim that if a government lifts the wealthier members, the benefits will propogate to rest of the society. The issue appears a controversial one but closer examination reveals that a successful government must give equal importance to all strata of the society. There are several reasons for this.

First, supporting the wealthier sections definitely ensures that other sections will also benefit. If the government can provide appropriate incentives, the wealthier members will ensure the development of the country by providing for industrial growth. They will expand their business and enterprises which in turn will provide more employement to all groups of the society. This automatically improves the health of the society as a whole. However providing support to the wealthier members alone will not suffice.

The government has to ensure that the poorer members are able to benefit from the growth that the wealthier member initiated. For this the government needs to provide facilities that will help the poorer members prepare themselves for this growth. For instance, education is necessary to ensure that the members of the society are skilled to handle the jobs generated. The poorer members definitely cannot afford costly private education. Therefore the government has to step in here with quality public education. The other area will be health where the government has to step in to help the poorer members. This will surely ensure that the poorer members prepare themselves for such a growth.

Additionally a society where one section is supported by the government and the other section is left to fend for itself will be imbalanced. For instance, if the supported section is the wealthier group, this is bound to widen the gap between the rich and the poor leading to lot of dissatisfaction and discontent. This can even result in unrest. On the other hand if the supported section is the poor, this section will definitely get a chance to grow but the wealthier may start becoming frustrated at the lack of progress or the slow progress they are witnessing for themselves. Hence it is clear that no section can be neglected by the government.

In summary though there are arguments to support either side of the issue, it is clear based on the above reasons that the government has to follow a balanced approach. It has to support all sections of the society with a calculated approach and thus ensure a balanced growth which neglects no one. Clrearly the advantages of this approach outweighs all advantages that supporting just one section of the society has. Hence it can be clearly conlcuded that the government has to lift the poor members and the wealthier members inorder to be a successful government.