Will Jamaica Reach for Last?

Gleaner

John Rapley

Will Jamaica reach for last?

Published: Monday | August 19, 2013 8 Comments

In my last two columns, I pointed out that Jamaica now finds itself in an increasingly small group of countries left behind, while most of the Third World, after decades of relative backwardness, have started growing so fast they are starting to catch up to the rich countries.

Moreover, despite all the explanations we have piled up to blame our stagnation on external forces, from slavery to colonialism to neo-imperialism, other countries which once made the same claims have since decided to leave us behind and jump on the growth train. We're the ones who chose to stay behind, lonely and complaining about the bad service of a punctual train when it was we who turned up late.

Our efforts to engineer growth from above have failed where others have succeeded. South Korea, Taiwan and many others used state-led growth to transform themselves. Whatever its social achievements, Jamaica's 1970s experiment with state-led growth was an economic catastrophe. Our experiments with industrial policy since have been unremarkable. Yet Jamaica, like these countries, had a skilled bureaucracy with the capacity to manage growth. It wasn't the lack of capacity which caused our failures.

One of the things which comparative study has revealed is that countries in which there was strong consensus within the leadership were able to repress incomes and, thereby, raise investment during their 'sowing' phase. Now they're reaping their bountiful harvests.

growth distribution

The laggards were characterised by deep divisions, in which case leaders distributed the benefits of growth - including future growth, via debt - in order to build and retain support. Sound familiar?

'Motty' Perkins used to say Jamaica created its own tribes. But the country also inherited severe class and racial divisions from its plantation past. Slavery is far from irrelevant to our current travails. Nonetheless,...