Submitted by the People’s Democratic Congress (PDC)
The current political economic depression in Barbados, and the depth and duration of it, ought NOT to have come as a surprise to the broad masses and middle classes of people of this country.
As that, a few years before the coming about of this depression, the PDC was warning the public of Barbados that if certain political financial systems remain in existence in this country in the long term, that they were going to substantially cause very staggering and profound amounts of decay and decline in the production and exchange structures in the country.
Furthermore, too, then, the PDC warned the public of Barbados that certain actions that were from time to time being taken by the so-called leaders of the national tripartite social arrangement (esp. those of BLP/DLP Governmental leaders), to disgracefully expand these very systems, such as TAXATION; INTEREST RATES; REPAYABLE INSTITUTIONAL PRODUCTIVE LOANS; IMPORTATION OF THE COST OF GOODS AND SERVICES FROM OVERSEAS; EXCHANGE RATES PARITIES; WORK; etc. (which invariably are some of the same fundamental causes of the massive production and exchange decline that is now being witnessed by many people in Barbados), were going to mean the guaranteeing of political economic recession soon after political economic recession, for Barbados.
Also, during the first year of our party’s existence in the said 2005/2006 period, we reinforced in the minds of the said broad masses and middle classes of people, the notion that if the systems and other relevant ones were not REMOVED TOTALLY once and for all from the the political material financial landscape of Barbados, and were NOT at the same time replaced with modern viable systems, how their continuation would make sure that Barbados would become so much vulnerable to external shocks and turbulences, that the country would certainly accelerate tremendously towards becoming a second rate Third World country in the next 10-15 years (from the mid 2000s) – with all the attendant chronic social illnesses for many to see.
The truth is that whether or not our warnings were taken heed of by many persons in Barbados, as it stands now, Barbados has been in a severe state of political economic crisis since the last part of 2007, with many businesses closing down, many thousands of people being laid off, and there being significant declines in national output, there being substantial increases in the cost of living and doing business in the country, with also crime going up, and increasing hopelessness abounding.
But, as can be gleaned from economic textbooks and from the teaching and practicing of economics (and Western Financial subjects) in Barbados, theories of TAXATION, INTEREST RATES, etc., have long been seen by many people to be integral parts of this dark and discredited discipline called economics.
Make no doubt about it most (80%) of the concepts, theories and principles that are found within the economics discipline are totally obsolete and backward and are antithetical and irrelevant to 21st century national development for Barbados.
So, having studied much economics ourselves, the point must be hammered home that with these above mentioned systems and other ones being responsible for the massive production and exchange decay and decline (soon substantial ruin) in the country, and the consequent worsening social environment, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever continuing to teach and practice political economics any where any time in Barbados – given that the above mentioned systems and the relevant unmentioned others, in theory and practice, are at the core of the economics discipline in Barbados and elsewhere.
That is why the PDC has been letting the broad masses and middle classes of this country know of the absolute need for them to wholly and systematically dispense with most of the concepts, theories and principles making up this very dismal approach called economics.
And that is why, too, we have been asking some individuals from within these said categories of people to take the lead in coming up with a new and relevant people centered discipline; a set of new and rigorous tools of analysis; and a body of fresh and exciting methods, theories and principles, that, et al, would definitely aim to describe and explain multi-farious aspects of the productive, material and income affairs of this and other countries, and that would positively seek to describe and explain countless relationships that would exist between numerous political, social, production, commercial and income related variables.
Indeed, a proper understanding of the history of the emergence of the discipline of economics in the 18th century in Europe and its later development across other parts of the world, is also very necessary in any fundamental understanding as to why the ordinary people in Barbados must evolve a new dynamic and scientific discipline, as a means of not only properly projecting and at the same time substantially reflecting the productive material and financial circumstances of the country, but also as a means of signifying a substantial thrust towards providing greater intellectual political social and financial growth and development.
For, any overwhelming breaking away from the clutches of colonialism, not only means the quest for political independence for a previously colonized country; for a country’s own final courts, but also the doing away with things like economics which are loaded with imperialist oligarchic biases and prejudices.
Since, it is economists and their cohorts (in the political, business, legal, banking and other relevant fields), that have been failing to recognize that it is economics (as well as its political underpinning and structures) – out of all the other disciplines – that has been bringing about the greatest possible harm, destruction and degradation of the national/sub-national affairs of Barbados, it must therefore be the duty of the most keen and knowledgeable practitioners of the other social studies and other disciplines in this fair land to take the lead in creating alternatives to economics teachings and practices in Barbados, and to at the same time continue the process of steadfastly pulling the country out of the big giant mess that it has been put in by certain political people in it.
For, the country cannot now afford to be seen to be committing more of the same egregious blunders as in times gone by when persons like Dr. Frank Alleyne, the late Wendell McClean, Owen Arthur, and other ruled dominated public policy making in this country in the 80s and 90s – and when things political economic now, such as the alarmingly high government debt, deficit financing, etc. are partly as a result of advice and information given to government and private sector officials by them.
Therefore, Owen Arthur, Clyde Mascoll, Anthony Wood, Dr. Brian Francis and others must not appear ever again to be catapulted into the limelight of current events, esp. by the traditional media, when in the country’s search for solutions to its material and financial problems, it is seen that NOT one of them (as economists) in Barbados has brought forward any solutions to the myriad political economic and financial problems we in Barbados are faced with at this stage.
In closing, we would like to ask BU readers/visitors the question: How could Arthur and Mascoll have been reported in recent, different editions of the Nation Newspaper (but in different contexts) as bemoaning the disastrous effects that – as they say- the printing of money (government borrowing from the Central Bank ) can have on the performance of the so-called Barbados economy? when borrowing of money/value by all kinds of entities from other kinds of entities is a common place thing in this country?
Whereas Arthur reportedly termed such action by the Central Bank, as the last desperate step before going to the IMF, if the history of Barbados was correct, Mascoll reportedly stated that this action in the context of the Caribbean economy, was the fastest and deadliest way to undermine stability in a country like Barbados.
However, both these economists must be told that while it is true that such printing of money at very alarming levels can lead to disastrous consequences for the so-called Barbados economy (NOT through any really false and fictitious economic concept of building up inflationary pressures in the economy, BUT really through the cost of use of money going up as a direct result of that type of Central Bank action and other effects) it is absolute rubbish to suggest that money/value when added to other amounts of money/value can anyhow devalue the existing value of the existing money pool in a country like Barbados. What old, archaic economic thinking!!!
The truth is that anytime a PDC Government comes into existence in the future in this country, the government will have the right to borrow up to 35-40% of the then current GDP, in any one given fiscal year, from the core financial system without having to repay such, such within the context of the implementation of a National Institutional Non-Repayable Productive Loan Scheme.
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