-?- : ECONOMIC POLICY THE POOR AND THE POWERLESS AND CHANGE IN THE CARIBBEAN TO 1986 by CLIVE Y, THOMAS Director InstItute of Development Studies University of Guyana. 1986. I: THE POOR AND THE POWERLESS : ECONOMIC POLICY AND CHANGE IN THE CARIBBEAN TO 1986 Introduction 1 Part 1: Roots 16 JAPTER 1: Conquest, Settlement. and Slavery: The Makings of the Cblonial Economy. 17 The Treasure of the Indies: Conquest, Plunder and Rivalry 17 Colonial Settlement: Slavery and the Rise of the Plantation. 30 CHAPTER 2: Transition: From Colonial Slav Economy to Centre-Periphery Relations. 48 Collapse of the Colonial Slave Economy and the Rise of the Peasantry. 49 Imperialism, Dependency and the Rise of the Mass Movements.. 59 CHAPTER 3. Revolt and War: The Caribbean Circa World War II. 72 Part 2: Independence and the Nationalist Alternatives 92 CHAPTER 1!: Colonialism and Nationalism: Alternative Economic Strategies. I: The Colonial Office View of Development in the British West Indies, II: National Independence and Economic Strategies. 111 II: CHAPTER 5: Puerto Rico to the Rescue: Industrialization by Invitation. :1_17 The Rationale. 117 The Practice0 126 The Results0 160 CHAPTER 6: The Caribbean "in Boom": Oil and Bauxite. Survey. 160 Policy. 169 CHAPTER 7: Foreign plantations, peasants and state: The Struggle for Land. 174 Introduction. 1714 Colonial and Nationalist Strategies in Agriculture. 179 The State of Agriculture. 186 Conclusion. 203.. CHAPTER 8: The Search for New.P2oles of Growth: Tourism and Off-Shore BankIng. 208 Introduction. 208 Tourism Policy. 210 Statistical Profile. 215 The Results0 231 Off-Shore Banking. 245 2514 CHAPTER 9: The State and Institutional Reform. Part 3: Crisis of the Nationalist Models and Social Experimentation 270 CHAPTER 10 Social Structure, Ownership and Control : The Basic Issues. 272 Social Structure and Class. 272 Ownership and Control. 286 - CHAPTER 11 National Experiments: The "Radical" Options. 310 Democratic Socialism and Conservative Reaction: Jamaica0 310 Non-Capitalist Development/Socialist Orientation: Grenada0 351 Cooperative Socialism : Guyana. 376 CHAPTER 12 Nationa Experiments: The "Conservative" Option0 f412 Intensification of the Capital-Import Model: Barbados. 4 12 Oil "boom" and "bust" : Trinidad and Tobago. 433 CHAPTER 13 Small Countries in a Big World: Metropolitan vs Caribbean Integration. 471 Introduction. 471 West Indian Federation: The Colonial Initiative0 474 From Carifta to Caricom0 481 Performance, 487 Fvaluation, 503 CHAPTER 14 Crisis, Reaction, Response: The Caribbean Circa 1986. 517 Crisis. 517 Reaction/Responses (structural adjustment; privatization, CBI/Caribcan/Lome; militar- ization, ideologization). 524 t .CHAPTER 15 Conclusion : Another Development? 564 Introductiofl witnessed the explorations The close of the 15th century of of the systematic penetration of Columbus and the beginnings While it may not have Europeansinto the western hemisphere. era this encounter heralded a new been appreciated at the time, has been variously described as of human development, one which "the birth of capitalism", and 'the dawn of the modern period", five centures later it is tthe rise of the New World". Today, the situation in the Caribbean is no exaggeration to claim that determining that of any other region in it least as pivotal as self_destruct, or advance to a whether as a spècies we nuclear among other things there would more humane civilisation, where us. Situated in the geo-political be no poor and powerless among the world's leading capitalist backyard of the United States, confrontation with what the Reagan power, at a period of intense commufliSm' 1aces administration describes as "international Puerto Rico, Haiti, Suriname, like Jamaica, Grenada, Cuba, Guyana and the Dominican Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, momentous social upheavals of global Republic conjure images of an analysis and interpretation proportions. This book attempts World development of the region since of the course of ecronomic variety and complexity of the region War ii. However, given the I have make the subject matter manageable as well as the need to methodological devices some of which resorted to a number of aid the outset, as I believe this would I refer to at the direction and thrust of the book. reader's appreciation of the 2. To begin, while this ib a study of economic change the is target audience is not economic specialists, (although it useful). hoped that this category of readers would find the book persons with The audience I have aimed at is the large number of realise no specialist training in economics, but who nevertheless reality, it that in order to comprehend contemporary Caribbean and material is imperative to have a grasp of how the economic It basis of the region's societies is organised and reproduced. would find the is therefore intended that a iide range of persons studies, text useful either as a point of departure for further trade oras reference material. Among these I would include organisations unionists; workers and activists in non-governmental cooperative (churches, professional associatiofls, community and in groups, etc); students; managerial and executive peronnel parties both the private and public sectors; activists of political groups, human and social movements such as, women's groups, peace etc; rights organisatior, environmental protection bodies, and participants in the decision making structures of regional with the multilateral institutions either exclusively concerned who live area or having regional programmes; Caribbean people developments outside the region and sustain an active interest in this within the region; and social scientistsgenerally. From designed rather long list it should be evident that the book ,is workers, this to serve an educational role among intellectual that is, as category being construed in its broadest meaning, comprising all those persons who regardless -of their level of formal training deal with ideas, either as part of their liveli- hood, or as an expression of their commitment to some voluntary social activity. The reader may conclude from this that the book is simply written for the "lay-person". While in a sense this is true, I would caution however, that this does not mean it is by design either simplistic, or intellectually illiterate. No ffo:'t, has been made to dilute the presentation of any of the ideas or insights which I might have to offer. The process of simplification has been by and large confined to keeping the technical language, jargon of economics, and statistical detail to the barest minimum. One of the major reasons why I have found that this task has not been as daunting as it might at first appeir is that a standard, compartmentalized "economic" analysT of Caribbean would be truly meaingless. The force of historical ..ircumstances has made it impossible to separate politics, sociology, law, culture, science and technology, and history itself from the analysis and interpretation of economic issues. The primary method of the study is therefore multi-disciplinary, or as it is sometimes described I have used a "political economy" approach. Because of this multi-disciplinary, or political economy approach, I believe that almost all the persons in the groups listed above would find that from the standpoint of their own experience and/or training, that there is one or more vantage points of familiarity from which to follow the contents of the book. A second poInt of method I wish to refer to, is that as the title of the book suggests the point of departure is the interests of the poor and the powerless. The reason for this is simple. Throughout the region's recorded history these groups have always made up thé majority of the population. As the saying goes "the poor have always been with us", but while this is the stark truth, the poor have taken many forms over the past five centurics: the indigenous inhabitants of the area, the early waves of European Immigrant settlers, African slaves, indentured workers, the small peasants, urban and rural workers as well as the unemployed of the post-slavery period. By the powerless, I refer to all those groups in these srcieties who under prevailing social and institutional relations have been unablè to xercise control over the machinery of state or other established institutions of authority. In other words they do noii make up the dominant or ruling political group(s) or class(es). With rare exceptions, throughout the region's recorded history the dominant class(es) has always comprised a small fraction of the population, and the powerless the vast majority. Within the region, it may be argued that by and large the poor and the powerless have always made up the same constututenc3 of persons. It should not, however, be inferred from this that the position taken in this book is that the poor do not make up a powerful social group. To the contrary, because they have always comprised the bulk of the work force, the producers of social wealth, they command a tremendous amount of social power. Except, however, for a few very brief insurrectionary interludes, over the past five centuries and more this has not been trans- lated into their taking control of state power as a necessary step in the direction, of re-ordering social priorities with the view of eventually securing a permanent end to their continued poverty and subjugation. Because for so much of the region's history it has been colonized by one or other European power and then later fallen under the domination and sway of the United States, powerlessness has to be conceived at both the national level (in the sense that the colonial and imperial powers have historically oppressed 2 all groups and classes in a given territory depriving them there- with of effective control of the machinery of state) and at the internal social level or class level, where in this structure some groups and classes are better placed than others.