Perhaps the most successful political trick that’s been played in Pakistan has been to make people believe that survival is a personal responsibility.
asserted
survival → play → Pakistan
When electricity becomes too expensive, a household is told to consume less.
asserted
household → become → less
When the petrol rate rises, people are advised to travel carefully.
asserted
people → rise → ?
When food prices climb, families are expected to adjust their kitchens.
asserted
families → climb → kitchens
When water does not arrive, those who can afford it arrange a tanker.
asserted
who → arrive → tanker
When public hospitals fail, people find a private doctor.
asserted
people → fail → doctor
When public schools fail, they pay for a private one.
asserted
they → fail → one
The citizen is continually asked to become more economical, more patient, more resilient, as though the country’s economic problems begin and end inside the household.
asserted
problems → ask → household
This is how a political failure becomes a private inconvenience.
asserted
failure → become → ?
And perhaps this is why the Pakistani middle class is so difficult to see.
asserted
class → see → ?
It is not poor enough to be counted among those who require immediate relief, nor wealthy enough to escape the consequences of a failing public system.
asserted
who → count → system
It works, pays taxes, sends children to school, pays its bills and keeps going.
asserted
It → work → bills
Its hardship rarely arrives as a dramatic collapse.
asserted
hardship → arrive → collapse
Pakistan’s middle class is being squeezed, not just by inflation, but by the growing cost of privately securing the essentials for an ‘ordinary’, everyday life.
asserted
class → squeeze → life
As electricity, water, education, healthcare and transport become increasingly expensive or unreliable, households are repeatedly told to adjust and become more resilient, turning what should be political questions into private calculations
It appears instead as a gradual narrowing of life: the savings that do not accumulate, the treatment that is postponed, the house that remains rented, the child whose education becomes a financial calculation, the young graduate who begins to regard departure from the country as an economic necessity rather than a choice.
asserted
who → become → necessity
We have become accustomed to discussing the cost of living as though it were the weather: unpleasant, unavoidable and beyond anyone’s control.
asserted
it → become → control
They are decisions made by governments, negotiated with institutions, shaped by powerful interests and ultimately paid for by citizens.
asserted
They → make → citizens
Pakistan’s latest household data makes the contradiction difficult to ignore.
asserted
contradiction → make → ?
The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics reports that average monthly household income from 2024-25 was Rs82,179, against an average monthly consumption expenditure of Rs79,150.
asserted
income → report → Rs79,150
That is not a measure of poverty in itself, and national averages conceal enormous differences between households, but it tells us something about the fragility of ordinary life.
asserted
it → conceal → life
Once the month’s necessities have been paid for, there is very little room left for the future.
asserted
necessities → pay → future
A medical emergency, a period of unemployment, a rise in school fees or a major household repair can turn a seemingly stable family into a borrowing family with remarkable speed.
asserted
emergency → turn → speed
Yet, we continue to call this class ‘secure’.
asserted
we → continue → class
The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics reports that average monthly household income from 2024-25 was Rs82,179, against an average monthly consumption expenditure of Rs79,150.
asserted
income → report → Rs79,150
That is not a measure of poverty in itself, and national averages conceal enormous differences between households, but it tells us something about the fragility of ordinary life.
asserted
it → conceal → life
Once the month’s necessities have been paid for, there is very little room left for the future.
asserted
necessities → pay → future
WHEN PUBLIC FAILURE BECOMES PRIVATE COST
The question becomes more serious when the costs of the things a household cannot reasonably live without are considered.
asserted
household → become → things
Electricity, for example, has become one of the most politically revealing household expenses in the country.
asserted
Electricity → become → country
Pakistan’s power sector remains burdened by circular debt, inefficient distribution and costly generation, while consumers are repeatedly asked to absorb the consequences through tariffs and surcharges.
asserted
consumers → ask → tariffs
In February 2026, Reuters reported that proposed changes to the tariff structure under Pakistan’s International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme could place a substantially greater burden on middle-income electricity consumers, with analysts warning of sharp increases for some households, even as industrial users were considered for lower rates.
uncertain
users → report → rates
Electricity is now woven into the ordinary conditions of life: cooling a room through an increasingly severe summer, preserving food, pumping water, working from home or studying after dark.
asserted
Electricity → weave → dark
To tell a household simply to consume less is to overlook the fact that the modern household has been built around electricity.
asserted
household → tell → electricity
Therefore, the question is not only how much electricity people use, but why the cost of using an essential public service has become a recurring source of economic insecurity.
asserted
cost → use → insecurity
Water carries the same contradiction in a different form.
asserted
Water → carry → form
Karachi, a city whose relationship with water has been shaped by shortage, unequal distribution and a large tanker economy, offers perhaps the clearest example of what happens when a public necessity becomes a private purchase.
asserted
necessity → shape → example
Research by the International Growth Centre found that Karachi households spent an average of roughly Rs2,500 a month on domestic water and another Rs736 on drinking water, with the burden falling proportionately more heavily on lower-income households.
asserted
burden → find → households
The city has effectively developed parallel systems of provision: one for those connected to reliable infrastructure and another for those who can purchase their way around its absence.
asserted
who → develop → absence
The political absurdity is easy to miss because it has become ordinary.
asserted
it → miss → ?
A citizen can pay for a public service through taxes and charges and then pay again when that service does not reach the household.
asserted
service → pay → household
The wealthy can absorb the second payment.
asserted
wealthy → absorb → payment
…and 146 more, not listed.
The Aporia
