Making Notes: What is Caribbean Dependency Thought? Part Three

Where does CDT stand?

For Greene (1984) it is classified among the main theoretical streams in Caribbean social science which include cultural pluralism, plantation, and Marxism.

For Bernal, Figueroa, and Witter (1984) it is placed within the “critical tradition” in Caribbean economic thought, locating it as the stage that followed W. Arthur Lewis’ work on Caribbean industrialization and preceded Marxist political economy.

It has also been characterized as:

-An ideology of epistemic and economic decolonization and of economic nationalism. But which values and interests were served by the new ideology, those of the nation as a whole, of the validating elites, or of the dispossessed black masses?

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-An ideology of the first post-colonial generation of Afro-Caribbean males intent on taking political power from the “Afro-Saxon” elites who inherited political power from the colonial authorities, and on wresting the levers of economic control from white expatriates.

-A model of intellectual “creolization” as proposed by Lewis (1983) “whereby [metropolitan] modes of thought were absorbed and assimilated and then reshaped to fit the special and unique requirements of Caribbean society … [giving] birth to an indigenous collection of ideas that can properly be termed Caribbean sui generis.

-An element in a wider global process of counter-hegemonic resistance to Eurocentric thought.

-A connection with broader intellectual currents in the era of decolonization by which the people of the global South asserted the right to their own interpretation of their history, reality, and vision of the future. It is a source of intellectual capital in providing alternatives to the universalistic, context-free, ahistorical, asocial, and apolitical neo-classical economics that underpins neoliberal globalization.

- One of various manifestations of resistance in the behavioural, religious, ideological, and philosophical spheres that such an experience engendered among those who were the objects of that history but who sought to become the subjects of their own history.

-A critical and counter-hegemonic thought in the region and in the global South.

[Notes from Girvan, N. (2006). “Caribbean Dependency Thought Revisited,” Canadian Journal of Development Studies. 27, 3: 328-352.]

References

Amin, S. (1974) Accumulation on a World Scale,New York: Monthly Review Press

Beckford, G.L. [and K. Polanyi Levitt] (2000a) The George Beckford Papers: Selected and Introduced by Kari Levitt, Mona, Jamaica: Canoe Press, University of the West Indies.

Beckford (197/) (1972) Persistent Poverty: Underdevelopment in Plantation Economies of the Third World,London: Oxford University Press.

Beckford, G.L. and M. Witter (1982) SmallGarden, Bitter Weed: The Political Economy of Struggle and Change in Jamaica,Morant Bay, Jamaica: Maroon Publishing House.

Bernal, R., M. Figueroa, and M. Witter (1984) “Caribbean Economic Thought: The Critical Tradition,” Social and Economic Studies33:2,5–96.

Best, L. and K. Polanyi Levitt (1969) Externally Propelled Industrialization and Growth in the Caribbean,4vols. Montreal: McGill Centre for Developing Area Studies, unpublished MS.

Blackman, Sir C.N. (2003) “Lloyd Best and the Plantation Model: Afterthoughts,” in S. Ryan (ed.) Independent Thought and Caribbean Freedom: Essays in Honour of Lloyd Best,St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago: Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, University of the West Indies, 397–404.

Frank, A.G. (1967) Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America, New York: Monthly Review Press.

Girvan, N. (1970) Multinational Corporations and Dependent Underdevelopment in Mineral-Export Economies, Social and Economic Studies19:4, 490–26.

Greene, J.E. (1984) “Challenges and Responses in Social Science Research in the English Speaking Caribbean,” in H. Goulbourne and L. Sterling (eds.) “The Social Sciences and Caribbean Society (Part 1),” special issue, Social and Economic Studies 33:1, 9–46.

Lewis, W.A. (1954) “Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour,” in Manchester School of Economic and Social Studies22 (May):131–91.

Lewis, G.K. (1983) Main Currents in Caribbean Thought: The Historical Evolution of Caribbean Society in its Historical Aspects, 1492–1900, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Odle, M.A. (1975) “Public Policy,” in G.L. Beckford (ed.) Caribbean Economy: Dependence and Backwardness, Mona, Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies, 130–46.

Prebisch, R. (1950) The Economic Development of Latin America and its Principal Problems, New York: United Nations Department of Social and Economic Affairs.

Thomas, C.Y. (1965) Monetary and Financial Arrangements in a Dependent Monetary Economy, Mona, 
Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies.

Wallerstein, I. (1979) The Capitalist World Economy,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Making Notes: What is Caribbean Dependency Thought? Part Two

The Policy Dimension

The policies associated with CDT were primarily in the area of economics.

The main point of agreement was the desirability of establishing an economy that is propelled by its own internal dynamic.

Three main policy streams identified were:

(1)    Proposals for regional economic integration/regional cooperation. This was due to the agreed belief that the small size of Caribbean economies was the key reason for dependence. “Economic federalism” was seen as an instrument of economic decolonization. Questions remained as to whether dependency derived from issues of size or of cultural/institutional factors.

(2)    Proposals for institutional and structural reform centred on changes in ownership in key sectors of the economy.

a.       Best and Levitt (1969) called for localization of ownership to promote inter-industry linkages and local decision-making.

b.      Beckford (1972) argued for the nationalization of foreign-owned plantations and comprehensive land reform in order to transfer productive resources for the use of the mass of the population.

c.       Girvan (1974) proposed the nationalization of the foreign-owned mineral-export sector to capture its surpluses for investment in the local economy and to promote local value added industries.

d.      Thomas (1974) proposed that state ownership under the rule of a worker–peasant alliance would provide the political and institutional basis for the transition to socialism.

(3)    Economic self-reliance in accumulation, production, and consumption.

a.       (Thomas 1974)

b.      (Beckford and Witter 1982)

c.       A strategy of “delinking” from the international capitalist system by means of national economic self-reliance, planning production to satisfying the basic needs of the population, and diversifying external economic relations to other Third World countries and to the socialist bloc

Impact of Dependency Thought

Dependency thought flourished from around 1963 to 1975, giving rise to a considerable quantity of published material.

In the mid-1970s the school was regarded as “the leading tendency in Caribbean scholarship”.

Throughout this decade there was a rise in ideological and political radicalisation with the advent of:

-         -  Rastafarianism (1968 Rodney Riot in Jamaica)

-         - Black Power (1970 Black Power Revolt in Trinidad and Tobago)

-         - Cuban Revolution (1970 and 1974 Declaration of “Cooperative Socialism” of the Forbes Burnham administration in Guyana and of “Democratic Socialism” by the Michael Manley administration in Jamaica respectively)

-          - National liberation movements in Africa and Asia

-          - Marxism-Leninism (1979 Marxist-Leninist stance of the Maurice Bishop-led People’s Revolutionary Government that took power in Grenada)

-          - Third World economic nationalism (Post-1973 Nationalistic economic policies of the Eric Williams administration in Trinidad and Tobago)

The contribution of dependency thought was to provide a body of ideas and literature based on research on the Caribbean, a theoretical and programmatic basis for radical politics and policies that was rooted in the Caribbean experience.

Critiques of Dependency Thought

Major debate with (1) Caribbean Marxist Left which sought to establish itself as a rival system of radical thought. (2) Non-Marxist mainstream in social sciences.

The wholesale rejection of imported knowledge as opposed to rejection of prevailing orthodoxies. Beckford (1972) argued that the interests of the dispossessed (black) population should be the point of departure.

The “theory of change” and the role of the intellectual were never fully explored.

The Caribbean Marxist movement went through an internal crisis over the question of the applicability of classical Marxism after the implosion of the Grenadian Revolution in 1983.

Blackman (2003,) posited that the Best-Levitt theory of plantation economy was more successful in diagnosis than in prescription, providing a general theory of Caribbean underdevelopment but not a theory of development.

Decline of Dependency Thought

Leading dependency writers turned their attention to political activity, or accepted governmental roles, or addressed academic topics that branched off from their earlier work.

Younger radical scholars were attracted to

Classical Marxism, which was offered as a more “scientific” guide to analysis and political practice.

Dependency thinking also internationally fell out of favour; it was increasingly judged as less a theory of underdevelopment and more a method for the study of underdevelopment

Developments in Guyana, Jamaica, and Grenada fed ideological polarization in the Caribbean and associated dependency with economic mismanagement and political authoritarianism.

By the 1980s, neoliberal economics, embodied in the theory and policies of the Washington Consensus, asserted a claim of universal applicability to all economies.

The paradox is that the actual dependence of Caribbean economies became much more acute in the era of structural adjustment and globalization of the 1980s and 1990s.

The new dependency associated with globalization is presented as interdependence in the effort to obfuscate its asymmetries. The wheel has come full circle from the 1960s, and there is a new orthodoxy that calls for a renewed critical analysis from an updated dependency perspective.

Writing Notes: What is Caribbean Dependency Thought? Part One

Caribbean Dependency Thought (CDT) is a part of a broader international currents of radical thought.

Dependency thought in the anglophone Caribbean emerged in the early post-colonial period of the 1960s and 1970s.

It attributed the problems of development to the region’s continuing economic, cultural, and epistemic dependence on the metropolitan world, and it called for an extension of political decolonization to these spheres.

Its influence diminished after the 1970s, but in recent years there has been a revival of interest in light of the growing disenchantment with neoliberal orthodoxy.

Central issue at the time was questions related to the types of development strategies which should be pursued after independence and the kind of international alliances to be made.

Independence defined

A major topic of debate was whether independence should be interpreted merely as a change of legal status (constitutional) or as an opportunity for more radical social and economic changes that addressed the legacy of colonial rule.

Cold War Ideologies introduced

Overshadowing this was the ideological competition of the Cold War, introduced into the region by a series of events, including the Cuban Revolution in 1959, and the growth of social and political unrest in several territories.

The goal of CDT was to create a home-grown development model that avoided the “false choice” between the capitalist and socialist paths.

New World Group

Established in Guyana in 1962, it grew into a pan-Caribbean intellectual movement with a stated mission to change the way of thinking and living in the area. This movement was the principal progenitor of CDT.

New World thinkers argued that the root of the Caribbean development problématique lay in epistemic dependence.

Epistemic Dependency - the reliance of regional elites on “imported” concepts and theories of limited relevance to actual conditions in the region.

For the New World Group (NWG), change in the Caribbean would have to begin at the level of ideas.

The practice of the New World movement centred on the preparation and discussion of papers and the publication of journals and pamphlets. However, direct political action was eschewed.

Economic Dependence

Caribbean Structuralism

Caribbean structuralism drew on the Latin American structuralist tradition pioneered by Prebisch (1950) and of the succeeding generation of structuralist writers. However, the Caribbean version was informed by an acute sense of the dependence that resulted from the small size, high degree of openness, and recent colonial past of Caribbean economies.

NWG developed a body of work documenting and analysing the asymmetrical relationships of Caribbean economies with the rest of the world in trade, investment, finance, and technology; the low degree of inter-industry relations within the economies; and the limited ability of governments to plan and influence economic activity.

Dependency was also applied to the study of particular sectors of the economies, for example:

“Monetary Dependence” – where the local currency is tied to a metropolitan currency and the banking system is foreign-owned, with negative effects on economic stability and development (Thomas 1965)

“Fiscal Dependence” – where Caribbean public finances were reliant on foreign loans and grants (Odle 1975)

“Technological dependence” –a consequence of foreign direct investment and the strategies of multinational corporations in Caribbean economies

Historical/Institutional/Structural Approach: The Plantation School and Multinational Corporations

Historical and institutional influences were held as the major factors explaining the structure and functioning of the contemporary economy.

The chief historical influence was the nature of the economy established during the era of slavery in the Caribbean, and the chief institutional influences were those of the joint stock trading companies set up under mercantilism, the slave plantations they created, and the multinational corporations of the modern era.

For Best and Levitt (1969), the plantation economy exists across historical time and across sectors.

For Beckford (1972), it exists across space: plantation economies are those economies in the Third World where plantation agriculture is the dominant activity.

For Girvan (1974) it was the operations of multinational corporations in the region, which had become structured around the export earnings and fiscal revenues generated by the exploitation of mineral resources by foreign companies, characterized as “mineral-export economies”.

Converesly, the dual economy model (1954) of their economic predecessor Lewis posited that the growth dynamic lies in the capitalist sector, which reinvests its surplus and eventually absorbs the traditional sector.

Plantation theorists argued that multinational corporations ended up draining capital from the local economy through repatriation of profits, and promoted dependency on imported intermediate inputs and on capital-intensive technology. This was why the policy of promoting foreign investment had failed to solve the unemployment problem.

Dependency as Peripheral Capitalism

Beliefs of World-Systems theorists Frank (1967), Amin (1974) and Wallerstein (1979) argued that the historical development of capitalism since the 15th century has resulted in a single, interconnected world capitalist system with developed “centres” and underdeveloped “peripheries.”

Dependency as proposed by World Systems Theory is NOT Classical Marxism as it believes peripheral economies are incapable of independent development

Neiter is it structuralism as its unit of analysis is at the global, rather than national level.

It can also be argued that Best and Levitt’s (1975) theory of plantation economy was essentially a theory of peripheral capitalist development in one of its concrete formations.

Best and Levitt (1975) approach differed from classical Marxist analysis of capitalism on two fronts:

(1)    Marxist historical materialism is a determinate system in which capitalist development obeys certain historical laws, while Best and Levitt employed a method of a posteriori historical interpretation

(2)    Marxist analysis was centred on the role of relations of production, while the Best and Levitt models of plantation theory focused on relations of exchange

Social and Political Theory of Dependency

Beckford analysis how race and class made the plantation society a sort of ‘special case’ in the history of social formations. He posited black labour in plantation society takes the place of the proletariat in classical Marxism, and class exploitation takes the form of black dispossession.

The use of the Marxist categories of class was vigorously and consistently opposed by Best, who argued that in Caribbean society the relevant divisions were those of “tribe” or “ethnicity.”