If we accept that we are on a voyage from the past and development is the Promised Land we seek, then at this juncture there is reason for despair.  It is not that we started in a leaky vessel, but the seas are rough; it is not that we cannot describe the land we seek, but it would appear that we are without a map; it is not that the crew are less than able, but that successive captains have failed us. Indeed, all of Jamaica’s key economic indicators seem to be pointing in the wrong direction – negative growth, a massive and ever increasing national debt, deteriorating balance of payment position, a ballooning fiscal deficit, persistently high interest rate; double digit inflation, soaring unemployment and a recent return to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Perhaps, the words of Chacko, the disillusioned uncle in Arundhati Roy’s award winning novel, The God of Small Things, best describe our situation – “Our dreams have been doctored. We belong nowhere. We sail unanchored on troubled seas. We may never be allowed ashore. Our sorrows will never be sad enough. Our joys never happy enough. Our  dreams never big enough. Our lives never important enough. To matter.”

More than any other indicator, the one that evokes the greatest concern is economic growth. Since 2000 the global economy has grown at average annual rate of 4%; emerging and developing economies as a group have sizzled at 6.4%. However, Jamaica has only been able to muster a paltry 1.4 %. For sure Jamaica’s unflattering economic growth is not a reflection of what is happening in the rest of the Caribbean. Over the period, Barbados grew at an annual rate of 2.2% and Trinidad and Tobago registered an impressive 7.8%. While economic growth is by no means a cure for all of society’s ills it is essential. With economic vibrancy the formidable debt problem can be tamed; unemployment can be minimized and the chronic internal and external economic imbalances arrested. The granite fact is Jamaica has terribly underperformed.

It is therefore in this context that it is timely to revisit two development theories that have shaped Caribbean economic thought over the last six decades in order to get a sense as to the direction we should take.

What we are witnessing in Jamaica today is really a ‘recession within a recession.’ In the past decade Jamaica has only been able to muster a paltry 1.4 % average annual economic growth due largely to a weak macroeconomic multiplier and high levels of import in relation to GDP. Achieving higher growth rates with stability will require transforming the pool of unemployed into a productive force with an export focus; embracing innovation, quality and productivity; a renaissance of the ideas of Lewis and proponents of Plantation Economy theory; and the exploration of new ideas.

About the Author

Cedric Wilson

Economist

Cedric Wilson, an economist, lectures at the Mona School of Business and writes a weekly column for the Jamaica Observer.