The issue of privatisation was one that surfaced in the 2013 elections. Regrettably it became more of a political football than a legitimate and serious policy initiative.
The BLP appeared to be the party favouring the privatisation of certain sectors of the Barbadian economy although it never quite spelt out the details of a coherent privatisation strategy. The DLP, perhaps not surprisingly held up the privatisation idea as a kind of bogeyman. Remember the elderly lady on the bus facing the prospect of paying higher fares? Privatisation by a BLP government would, it was implied, bring an increased burden on the poor and the elderly. It was largely a political ploy and to some extent, it worked.
The issue is again current, with the DLP’s Donville Inniss ostensibly its most vocal proponent. The legitimacy of a privatisation policy rest predominately on justifiable claims of economy and efficiency. Economist Charlie Skeete keeps pointing out that the much hoped for growth in the Barbadian economy is contingent on a return to macro-economic stability. Small vulnerable economies such as Barbados can no longer afford the runaway expenditures associated with inefficient parastatal organisations that persistently require extensive subsidies and unaffordable supplementaries.
In the debate on the Transfer Management and Vesting of Assets Bill in late January, it was revealed that Barbados Port Inc. was “struggling with liabilities that outstrip assets four to one.” In addition it had gone over its overdraft limit of $14 million. On February 8,
the Minister of Industry and Commerce claimed that government was subsidising a handicraft business to the tune of $20 000 per month. Ineptitude in public enterprises is not always a discredit to the notion of statist governance, but follows from the politics of clientelism and patronage that inhibits efficiency.
Conversely apart from the legitimate claims of economy and efficiency there are the equally appropriate claims of society, of social equity and equilibrium. After 1937, regional labour parties tied to the trade unions became the legitimate defendants of the working class. The historical legacy of white capital and black labour still plays against private capital and allows privatisation to be used as a bogeyman for partisan interests.
Recently the “white shadows” bogey resurfaced after a long period of quiescence. It is interesting that this should have come from someone who is currently the most vocal advocate of divestment. Then, there is the suspicion of the increasingly predatory nature of “swashbuckling” capitalism and the global trend towards socio-economic inequality. The fear increases when corrupt capital is protected by political malpractice.
For those genuinely concerned with equity, the increasing privatisation of wealth is a problem. In Barbados there is a lingering fear, real or imagined, that privatisation would mean the accretion of wealth either in white minority hands or under foreign control. For some, this can become an ideological obsession, but it is difficult to get private enterprise to assume a growth-oriented role if it is held in suspicion and not taken into confidence with sustained communication. Private-public sector partnership of one sort or another is an unavoidable developmental imperative.
Privatisation and state ownership are not binary opposites. There are areas of a small capitalist democratic polity where the state should have a pivotal role, not excluding some private sector participation. These are spheres where the interests of the mass of the population have a key life-sustaining concern. They would include health and sanitation, the education and public transport sectors and control of the air and sea ports. Of course an efficient government should ensure that subsidies to the health and transport sectors are not out of control, resulting in increasingly unsustainable deficits on current accounts. When the macro-economic situation worsens, the taxpayers will have to pay up. It also diminishes the capacity of private enterprise to access credit in the promotion of growth, the longer the macro-economic indicators remain negative.
So much of contemporary discourse is marked by left vs right posturing. To attempt to strike a balance is to be accused of “sitting on the fence”. But it is important to strike a balance where there are obvious competing legitimacies. Robert Nisbet opines that one question since the 18th century has been how does human society with its innate passions, fashion a collective order that guarantees justice, productivity, legitimacy and above all sheer survival. These are complex questions. The doctrinaire, particularly those who have never been entrusted with the task of running anything, often ignore the ambiguities and paradoxes of economic, political and social life.
The legitimate claims of the economy should not entice us into buying into the excesses of the market mechanisms of neo-liberal orthodoxy. We end up pursuing frenetic but often socially uneven economic development. Similarly, claims of social equity must be founded on economic stability. As Ms Mia once said, the ostensibly opposing claims of the economy and society raise “a false dichotomy”. On issues like privatisation there is often the need for what Thomas Sowell calls “pragmatic trade-offs.”
• Ralph Jemmott is a retired educator and social commentator. Email rajemmott@caribsurf.com.