Managing pain, ignoring the cause

Kua Kia Soong

When Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim says the cost of living must be “managed” and its impact “curbed,” he is acknowledging a reality that ordinary people already experience daily: prices are rising, and livelihoods are tightening.

But the language matters. To manage is not to solve. To curb the impact is not to confront the cause.

This is the politics of our time where symptoms are treated, but the structure producing them remains untouched.

The usual story – that Malaysia’s cost-of-living crisis is about “inflation” or “global pressures” – is too convenient. Prices are not rising in a vacuum.

What people are experiencing is a class problem: the cost of reproducing everyday life (food, housing, transport) has risen faster than wages.

The rising cost of living is not simply the result of global shocks or temporary supply disruptions. It is the outcome of how the economy is organised.

Food, housing and transport are not just necessities; they are profit centres. Every ringgit a household spends passes through layers of pricing, mark-ups, debt and rent extraction.

By the time a family buys cooking oil, pays rent or services a car loan, they are not just consuming but also sustaining a system that continuously takes a share of their income at every step.

So, when traders say gradual price increases are affecting them, they are not wrong. But they are also part of the chain. Rising costs cascade downward: from producers to wholesalers, from wholesalers to retailers and finally to consumers.

At each stage, margins are defended. And the burden accumulates at the bottom.

The government’s instinct is predictable. Convene the cabinet. Consider targeted subsidies. Perhaps tighten price controls on a few essential goods. Offer reassurance.

These are politically necessary moves, but they are also deeply limited. They help households cope with high prices without asking why those prices are persistently high in the first place.

The structural diagnosis

Wage suppression: Malaysia’s growth since the 1980s has depended on cheap labour, including migrant workers, weak unions and state discipline of labour.

The result is expected: productivity rises, but wages stagnate. Workers produce more value but receive a smaller share.

Commodification of necessities: Basic needs are organised for profit.

Housing becomes a speculative asset. Food is controlled by supply chains and middlemen. And transport is car-dependent and profit-driven.

This means capital extracts rent from survival itself.

Oligopoly and politically connected capital: Key sectors are dominated by large conglomerates, government-linked companies and politically connected firms. This is not a “free market”, but managed capitalism where profits are protected.

The illusion of current policies

Under Anwar, the policy response has focused on cash transfers, targeted subsidies and mild wage adjustments.

But these do not solve the problem. They merely subsidise capital by helping workers afford high prices without changing why prices are high. Cash aid, in effect, becomes a transfer from the state to workers, back to the companies via consumption.

Cash transfers and subsidies provide immediate relief. But they also allow the underlying system to continue as before. Money flows from the state to households – and then quickly back into the same channels of rent, interest and profit. Relief becomes a stabiliser, not a solution.

Take housing. It absorbs the largest share of income for most households. Yet prices are driven less by construction costs than by land speculation, financing structures and market positioning.

Or transport. A car is no longer just a purchase, but a long-term financial commitment shaped by loans, fuel costs and infrastructure that leaves few alternatives.

Even food, the most basic necessity, is embedded in supply chains where value is added and extracted at every stage.

In this context, to “manage the impact” is to accept that the structure remains intact.

Treating necessities as profit centres

A more honest approach would begin by asking harder questions.

Why are essential goods treated as avenues for profit maximisation?

Why does housing function as an investment vehicle before it serves as shelter?

Why must mobility depend on private ownership that locks households into years of repayment?

Addressing the cost of living requires more than cushioning its effects. It requires reducing the extent to which everyday life is exposed to profit extraction.

That means expanding genuinely affordable public housing, not just facilitating home ownership at high prices.

It means building reliable, accessible public transport so that owning a car is a choice, not a necessity.

It means ensuring that essential goods – food, utilities, basic services – are priced with social needs in mind, not just commercial returns.

None of this is easy. Each step runs into entrenched interests, institutional habits and political constraints.

But without confronting these realities, the cycle will repeat: prices rise, relief is offered, pressure builds again.

The danger is not that the government is unaware but that awareness stops at management.

Ultimately, a society cannot subsidise its way out of a system that makes living expensive. It can only change the system – or continue paying for it.

Dr Kua Kia Soong, a former MP, is the director of human rights group Suaram.

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