Toffy’s Divide Themes: 1 — Inequality & Mass Poverty

The disparity between the haves and have-nots continues to grow and shows no sign of slowing down.

Inequality is a major theme in both my books — PRESS PLAY and TOFFY’S DIVIDE.

And there’s a reason why.

It was the exposure to the wealth in silicon valley that really heightened this sense in me.

I had thought about using business and economics advancement as a job creation tool, particularly in the context of the African continent.

The richest 1% own almost 46% of the world’s wealth, while the bottom 55% of the world’s population hold just 1.3% of global wealth.

With my experience as a process optimization engineer, spending years on the factory, I thought the answer was manufacturing — industrialization. I saw how economies in small towns were built around the factory.

I thought “this is is going to be my contribution”

I left my job to go get a MBA in sun-shining, entrepreneurial, and adventurous silicon valley.

That adventure took me to an internship at a Ghanaian furniture factory in Accra.

Factory Work

The factory, which was in its prime in the ‘80s, had been hit with a myriad of problems in the 2010’s–Spotty electricity. Raw material shortage. Unhappy customers. Unmotivated employees.

I thought I’d apply my 8 years engineering experience + 1-year MBA knowledge to turn the fledgling factory around.

I put my “MBA hat” on.

“Let’s focus on management.”

After spending months with the team with no major improvements. I was discouraged.

One day at the factory, I was just sitting around talking to one of the skilled artisans. That’s when I learned something very crucial.

The employees had not been paid for more than a month. Ooohhh, NO. 🤯

I wonder why they are not motivated.

I finished that internship, left Ghana, and went back to Palo Alto. It was two different worlds.

I had just spent two months with talented artisans that were struggling to make their ends meet (my last week there ended in an attempted workers strike), and now I’m back to picture-perfect Palo Alto with the tech folks talking about millions, billions, and impact.

Something was off.

It was difficult to turn a blind eye to the disparity.

I started seeing it everywhere. Even in the rich, technologically-endowed silicon valley — where the homeless are camped out at the bottom of the steps of high-valued technolohgy start ups and established companies.

When I graduated from y MBA program and started splitting my time between Nigeria and the US, I couldn’t help but notice the economic disparities between and within both places.

Babylon S**tstem

There has always been the power structure that stratifies human societies into hierarchies. From early civilizations, we see the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’, irrespective of location.

Usually, “a select few” at the top try to retain the structure because it favors them.

Why would someone secede their power, privilege, and influence?

But we’ve also seen that it gets to a point in time when that hierarchy or structure becomes unstable.

This erupts sometimes in revolutions, social movements, uprisings, labor strikes, swings in political philosophy.

Labor is one of the most contentious aspects of the structure. In a capitalist structure, the masses provide the means of production while “those at the top” control the means of production — with capital, influence, or power, or all three.

This *coughs: babylon* system sees capital accumulate faster in the hands of those that own the capital than those that provide the means of production to generate more capital.

So if you have wealth and don’t lose it, you can keep building it.

When inequality was at its peak in the US, during the gilded age, we saw a rise in labor unions.

They coordinated efforts to demand for more.

I saw this happen at that factory in Ghana.

When the unions started breaking down, once again we saw a rise in inequality.

What About Now?

I’m not sure whether the unions are the solution but now on average, the CEO of a company in the US makes 235 time the median pay of their workers.

The richest 1% own almost 46% of the world’s wealth, while the bottom 55% of the world’s population hold just 1.3% of global wealth.

On a global scale, using the Gini Index, which is a measure of spread of income in a country, South Africa has the highest level of inequality.

Was there a structure that separated the majority from access to wealth? Hmmm.

Nigeria, my home nation of 200 million people, now has the highest number of people living in poverty.

Are there remnants of a structure that feeds the wealth from the resources to a few in and outside the country?

Why is most of the wealth in Europe and the US?

Perhaps it’s centuries of wealth accumulation where other nations or colonies provided cheap and sometimes free means of production, while the capital accumulates in the hands of those that could further their influence through technological advancements and domination?

Over the last 30 years, we’ve made tremendous advancements in technology, particularly communication technology. The digital divide between those that have and those that don’t is becoming even more glaring now.

The pandemic has poured a lighter fluid on this flame of inequality and we’re yet to see exactly where we’ll land.

But if we know anything from history is that most people in power do not want to let go.

Mass Poverty in Toffy’s Divide

Now imagine a world where that power is consolidated in the hands of not a few but one person.

A world that is so divided that there is a clear ‘visible’ line in the ground as you move from one world to another.

Where those that have are so nervous to lose their position, fearful they’d never climb back in status. While, on the other side of the line, those that ‘don’t have’ are engrossed in a darkened world. Bombarded with illusions and fear. Rendered completely useless by automation.

The same automation that was supposed to make everyone more productive.

That’s what I envisioned in TOFFY”S DIVIDE.

The divided city is a reflection of what could be and what is unfortunately already happening in certain cities if you examined them some more.

is there any hope?

But we can be hopeful, that people will collectively build tools and processes, coming from a state of abundance, rather than scarcity.

That we can collectively build around a consciousness of “there’s enough for everybody.”

We can move away from the colonial and imperialist “take, take, take, and exploit” attitude and begin embodying a more inclusive attitude of building wealth not just for ourselves but for others too.

This might be more important as we move more into the automation age where repeatable tasks will be outsourced to software and robots, displacing the current structure of the labor market.

As we will rely more on the soft-skills of humans — creativity, communication, empathy — how do we build a world where everyone has the ability and is empowered to learn these skills. Feeling more empowered to build wealth for themselves and their community.

These are the hopes we have for the Toffy’s Domes NFT Project.

Get your own Toffy’s Domes Token here!