An interest in corruption

By Peter Espeut

If Ambassador Tommy Koh, special adviser at the Singapore Institute of Policy Studies, is right - that there is a strong correlation between zero corruption and economic development - then Jamaica's corner is dark indeed, for the perception of corruption in Jamaica is high; nearly 90 per cent of Jamaicans believe our politicians are corrupt, and about half that number hold similar views of the judiciary and the civil/public service. And where there's smoke, there is usually fire!

Ambassador Koh gave this prescription for a country to achieve high economic growth: "Get your fundamentals right. Educate your people well, practise meritocracy, and with the strong rule of law, zero corruption, and a business-friendly economy, you can do it. People don't realise that zero corruption and a strong rule of law are economic strategies".

This is actually Development Theory 101. A highly educated citizenry possesses the initiative of entrepreneurship and creates jobs for itself and others. A highly educated citizenry won't want to cut cane, weed bananas or pick coffee; that is why our plantation interests have not wanted educated rural people. In the past, the planting class was forced to import workers from India and China when labour to do these menial repetitive tasks was scarce locally; and successive governments, needing the support of plantation owners, conformed national policy in their interest by strategically NOT placing traditional high schools in agricultural areas; the plan was to keep rural people illiterate and dependent on agricultural jobs.

MORE WIDESPREAD PRODUCTIVITY IN JAMAICA

At the same time, we declined to industrialise our agriculture, preferring to rely on machetes, pickaxes and hoes rather than mechanical ploughs and harvesters. Not educating our people well has led to declining productivity and reduced production. We would have been better off had we put so-called 'traditional' high schools all over rural Jamaica, created a larger business class, and then welcomed immigrants from other countries (like our Haitian neighbours) to do the manual jobs (like Americans and Canadians hire Jamaican farm workers).

I am convinced that we have never planned to educate our people well, and we have paid the price in underdevelopment.

In a meritocracy, the best persons get the jobs and the contracts, not the party faithful or people with the 'right' addresses, last names or skin pigmentation. The Egyptian masses ousted democratically elected Mohamed Morsi because, among other things, he was putting people from his party - the Muslim Brotherhood - into the plum jobs. Jamaican politicians have been doing the same thing for decades! But the majority of our people and the private sector are not outraged enough, probably because by being affiliated to one party or the other they were able to get a share of the scarce benefits and spoils. They have a pecuniary interest in corruption in Jamaica, and give it tacit support.

If jobs and contracts in Jamaica are distributed on merit, few will need to join political parties or give money to them; for they would seek instead education and experience to qualify for them on their own merit. Therefore, operating a meritocracy is not in the interest of Jamaica's political parties, for they would quickly put themselves out of business.

Students taking Development Theory 101 will learn that Talcott Parsons, the Harvard development scientist, posited that societies which distribute benefits (like jobs and contracts and status) on the basis of 'ascription' (race, class or family connections) rather than 'achievement' will remain primitive and underdeveloped, and Jamaica, it would seem, provides data to support this hypothesis.

A LOT OF WORK TO BE DONE

And there is little likelihood any time soon of advances towards development in Jamaica as elements in the private sector believe that the views of Ambassador Koh (and by extension the theory of Professor Parsons) are not applicable here. It takes at least two for corruption to flourish, and with many corrupters and corruptees - in high and low places in Jamaica - our system thrives, and keeps Jamaica and her people underdeveloped; while only a few prosper.

Income inequality in Jamaica, as measured by the Gini coefficient, is among the highest in the world; the Gini coefficient ranges from zero where all households have the same income, to 100 where one household has all the income. In 2011, the IMF released data ranking Jamaica as being the second most unequal of the 23 Caribbean countries listed. Jamaica had a Gini coefficient of 59.9; only Suriname scored higher at 61.6. Haiti, deemed the poorest nation in the Americas, scored better than Jamaica at 59.2.

If we educate our people well, practise meritocracy, have zero tolerance for corruption, and shackle everyone equally with the rule of law, Jamaica and her people should prosper. Sadly, neither our politicians nor the private sector have any interest in taking us in this direction.

Peter Espeut is a development sociologist and environmentalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com