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What the debates missed
Published in the Jamaica Gleaner: Sunday | August 12, 2007
Ian Boyne
In a fascinating and ironic twist of history, the People's National Party (PNP) is sounding more like the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the JLP is sounding more like the PNP.
So it's the PNP charging the JLP with reckless populism these days, dismissing its election platform and manifesto as merely consisting of "promises, promises". It is the PNP asking "How will your social welfare programmes be financed?" That's what the JLP used to ask of the socialist PNP when it was known for its bold social programmes which irked the fiscally conservative. Now it is Omar Davies lecturing the JLP about not busting the budget, being fiscally responsible and not pursuing 'unfinanceable' distributionist and welfarist policies.
Doing enough for the people
The JLP is now blasting the PNP for not doing enough for the people and for not giving them free education and free health care. And while it was the JLP which in the 1970s lambasted the Michael Manley administration for spending wildly on social welfare programmes while ignoring 'fiscal prudence' and 'macroeconomic stability' (or its '70s equivalent), now that charge is being levelled at the JLP. How have times changed!
Ironically, too, while previously the business class and the power elite would not associate itself with distributionist or welfarist policies, today that group is largely supporting the JLP and hoping that its promised people programmes will sway voters away from Portia Simpson Miller, from whom they feel alienated.
What I find interesting, if deeply disappointing, is to hear some left-leaning PNP apologists ridiculing the JLP's social welfare proposals when the PNP has always been branded as the party of the people, the party with a socialist orientation. This speaks to our intensely tribalist and partisan political culture, where people's values are trumped by party loyalty or party antipathy.
Similarly, some of the people who were most vociferously associated with fiscal responsibility, monetarism, minimalist Government, etc., now become great advocates of "the people", making lofty speeches that universal access to health care and education are "non-negotiable". But when Michael Manley was talking these things, he was despised and labelled a communist.
But what the two parties will have to reckon with, though none of them is paying sufficient attention to this in any of the debates, is the global context within which they have to operate.
It matters little what the PNP or JLP manifesto says or what is promised on any political platform. What will matter when the next government gets elected is what the international capital markets think, how they react and what the rating agencies will say. The JLP can make any number of promises and Portia can pledge any degree of commitment to the poor. Both will come up against the hard and harsh reality of a globalised economic system which is not sympathetic to social welfare and do-goodism.
The JLP can always promise a level of health care access to the poor which not even the United States has. When Moody's, Standard and Poor's, etc., start to downgrade the ratings and when the IMF begins to issue dire warnings about the effects of our welfarist policies, then you will see what will happen to all the investments which the JLP is hoping to attract to create the jobs it says will be at the centre piece of its economic strategy.
In all these debates which the Jamaica Debates Commission has kindly facilitated, there has not been enough focus from either journalists or debaters on the overriding global economy and the influence of exogenous factors. We are debating oblivious to the fact that a lot of the crucial decisions having to do with the lives of our people are not being decided in Kingston but in Washington, Geneva, Brussels, New York, Beijing, and Tokyo. There is a constraint on our wish lists imposed by powerful international actors.
This is not to say we have no wiggle room or any autonomy for policy action.
The country's opportunity
But the Jamaican people need to know that we cannot have the welfare state that either party would like to give us without certain things being in place. We have to judge the parties to see to what extent their polices afford the country the opportunity to put those things in place. This is why the neglect in the two manifestos of the overarching issue of social capital (values and attitudes) is so tragic and short-sighted.
If we don't stem our high crime rate, investments will not flow into the country, no matter how many mega-agencies the JLP sets up, how many incentives are given to producers, how efficient is our bureaucracy and how much we fast-track the business process. Despite the massive growth in tourism which the PNP Government likes to boast about and the large numbers of rooms to be added in the next few years, those rooms will remain empty if we don't stem crime and violence. And if you believe that stemming crime and violence is only about creating more jobs, then I have a bridge in Poor Man's Corner to sell you.
Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Can the jobs be created while the crime rateis so high, and will the crime rate decrease before sufficient jobs are created?
What if we asked ourselves what makes the vast majority of poor, underprivileged and marginalised people not to turn to crime? If we studied those factors and tried to replicate them in the at-risk population while we try to get the jobs, wouldn't that be a good idea? If people knew how to control their frustrations, how to cope with suffering and poverty while striving mightily to escape it; if people had means of self-esteem and self-worth outside of material possessions, status or employment; if people learnt how to control their anger and resentment and how to channel those negative emotions in creative ways, then wouldn't that help us to begin to rebrand ourselves in the eyes of the world, rather than be seen as the crime capital? And wouldn't that help to spur investments and make foreigners feel that Jamaica is the place to really live, work and rear their children?
The PNP is talking about moving to a developed country status within a generation. If that is to be more than a joke, then we have to at least work toward building a more tolerant, broad-minded, respectful and less tribal society.
How near are we to living in a developed society when a letter-writer can seriously suggest that my presence as moderator on the leaders debate is a cause for consternation because I hold a senior position in the Government information agency and have to work closely with the Prime Minister and, therefore, could never be trusted to moderate any debate between her and the Opposition Leader, but would almost necessarily be unprofessional toward him?
A developed society should be characterised by cosmopolitanism and genuine respect for ideological pluralism. Victimising and stereotyping people because of whom they work for and associate with is an indication of backwardness and Dark Ages thinking; not a mindset associated with a developed liberal democracy.
Corruption is major problem in Jamaica. If you believe that onlyone set of people are prone to corruption, then I have a whole city in Europe to see you! We have a problem not just politically but nationally with corruption. Unless we deal with that at its roots, it does not mater the lofty plans of the political parties or what their manifestos say, we will continue to be defeated by our challenges. These critical issues of values and social capital are being marginalised by both the PNP and the JLP. The debates have missed this central, fundamental issue.
JLP's manifesto
At least we have for discussion the serious and far-reaching governance issues which the JLP (through Bruce Golding's influence) has put on the table. The PNP Party President boasted - accurately, I believe - at the launch of her manifesto on Thursday that the PNP has always been at the forefront of change and progressive ideas. But in another ironic twist of history, the PNP now runs the risk of losing that status to the JLP, if we are to use the JLP manifesto as a guide.
Forget about the social welfare promises. When it comes to the governance issues and the issues of the use and distribution of power, the PNP has to reckon with the very serious and creative ideas which the JLP has placed in the public square. The PNP is sounding more programmatic and pragmatic than philosophical, while the JLP is sounding more ideological and welfarist. How ironic!
In 1998 Professor Don Robotham gave a seminal Grace Kennedy Foundation lecture titled "Vision and Voluntarism". I have quoted this more than any other document produced by a Jamaican social scientist. It should be required reading for everyone running for office.
The people writing the PNP and JLP manifestos would have served their parties and the country well if they drew on it. Sadly, they did not. "Every man and woman for himself or herself seems to be the slogan which is expressed in all departments of Jamaican life. We are witnessing a fundamental shift in the values of the Jamaican people and one critical aspect of that shift is the abandonment o attitudes and the replacement of these by a narrow individualism based on a shallow understanding of what a market economy necessitates."
Robotham went on in that memorable lecture: "(There) is a sense that the common bond among ourselves as citizens is becoming weaker and weaker". What the PNP calls in its manifesto a "quality society" and the JLP's society of "justice, liberty and prosperity" will be frustrated if the country's social capital and cultural norms remain as weak as they are.
Yet the debates have been filled with a lot of nice-sounding and politically correct words. While paying insufficient attention to overweening global conditions and stifling national cultural defects. We continue to debate and change governments while our fundamental, overarching problems remain.
Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at ianboyne1@yahoo.com
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