The two costs of success

Success, in general, generates rewards exclusively for the achiever. But in a best-case scenario, success yields benefit for society as well. Thus, we can say that success yields two primary benefits: one for the achiever and the other for society.

That success comes at a cost goes without saying. The principal cost that success extracts is hard work. But there is one more principal cost, as implied in the headline, that one has to pay to achieve success. Let's discuss who is this cost imposed on and borne by – and how?

Moreover, if there is any other cost of success, besides the necessary one i.e. hard work, what could the costs of failure amount to?

The outcomes largely stem from the nature of the costs paid to achieve success. When attained through honest labour and legitimate means, individual, group or institutional success tends to produce inclusive gains for society. However, when success is obtained through dishonest or illicit means, it imposes a double burden on ordinary people. First, it directly deprives rightful individuals of their rights, labour and sweat. Second, sustaining that success further erodes their potential prosperity and future opportunities. Such "success" thus extracts two distinct costs from the public: one through the immediate theft of what belongs to them, and the other through the long-term loss of the broader fortune and progress they might otherwise have enjoyed.

Though successes at individual and institutional levels might be worth celebrating, one should not shy away from examining their true outcome - or who success truly benefits. Is it for the people, or only for the interests of the ruling elite? Who ultimately shoulders governmental failures and crises - planned or otherwise?

In our part of the world, where rules and laws are subjected to servitude, success barely ignites hope for inclusive public prosperity. When individuals and institutions exceed their legitimate bounds and resort to questionable means - brute force, flattery and the trade of conscience, soul, pen morality, and law - their achievements, however much they are claimed in the name of the people and the country, only cost the people.

Most timely successes - or their pretense - in Pakistan radiate failures and pain for the people while delivering gains to the powerful. They mask governmental failures, excesses and illegitimacy, while helping further reinforce the deep-rooted stakes and contested interests of the powerful. The ill-gotten successes of individuals and institutions are often paid for with - and sustained by - the potential fortunes and rights of the public.

This is clearly seen in the government's swiftness to impose a petrol price hike on the people without meaningfully sharing the sacrifice in testing times. The slack official response to relieving people's burdens reveals how public interests are viewed in the power corridors. Pakistan's significant regional and global leverage is rarely translated into inclusive prosperity. Instead, the fruits of all successes end up as added stakes and coffers of the powerful, gradually eroding democratic and public stakes as well as civilian space in the country. Thus, the costs of most successes are exclusively borne by the people, while the rewards are reserved for those in power - individuals and institutions alike.

Similarly, the costs of failures - whether deliberate or stemming from incompetence and apathy - are squarely shifted onto the public. This way, both successes and failures cost the people while benefiting the elite. Had it been the other way around, masses would have lived a prosperous life.

Today, people dread failures and crises. Yet they should fear such success even more - for it extracts a double cost from the public, erodes their stakes and fortifies the powerful, while both triumph and tragedy burden only the masses.

Unless the costs and rewards of both success and failure are shared equitably by the rulers and the ruled, the cycle will persist. For that purpose, an elected, accountable and responsible governance structure is a must. Without accountability, power remains self-serving, and the public continues to pay for both the failures and successes that were never theirs to begin with.