Barbadians have become accustomed to notions of progress expressed in terms of ever increasing and improved standards of material well-being and social mobility. That dream may be temporarily stalled as the country looks to another year of very slow if not negative growth.
In spite of the abundant traditional Yuletide messages of hope, the prospects for 2014 are pretty bleak. We have witnessed a trend where we seem to trivialize the downgrades from the various rating agencies, but the recent statement by Moody’s on December 20, 2013, should lead no one in any doubt concerning Barbados’ dire economic circumstance.
Our debt and deficit remains extremely high, and as Moody’s points out, our foreign reserves continue to decline. The recent downgrade means that our falling credit worthiness makes it more difficult to borrow or forces us to borrow at exorbitantly high interest rates.
Let us hope that those responsible for our future grasp the reality and stop the wishy-washy wishful thinking. This DLP Government should do what it has to do to save the country, because let’s face it, this administration has lost much of its currency and is hardly re-electable for a third term.
This writer has always stressed the confining effects of the worst global recession in 80 years.
That environment continues to confine. An Economist correspondent described an ostensibly reviving British economy as “firing on only one cylinder”. The Barbados finance ministry has not proven himself to be one in which one can invest an abiding confidence.
Caution is one thing but a persistent dithering and failure to confront reality is another. Even the most fair-minded Barbadian has grown weary and wary of the inaction and inertia that has characterized Government and governance.
But therein rests the deep winter of our discontent and the source of our oppressive gloom. By and large it does not seem that the Opposition BLP can offer us a credible or sure path out of our present danger. For example it has long been held by the most creditable of our intellectual class, the likes of Sir Courtney Blackman, that a civil service which in 2011 stood at 27 073, is too large, inefficient and unproductive.
Similarly it has been long recognized that the deficit on current account is unsustainable. No one believes that cutting 3 000 jobs will solve all or even most of Barbados’ financial problems. But one has to start somewhere.
Presumably a BLP administration would make no cuts at all and the Opposition Leader has already promised to restore University tuition fees. One grows tired of what Robert J. Samuelson called the “feel your pain populism” that in his words “manipulates the very people it purports to help”.
Indeed Barbados’ problems are almost certainly more systemic and deeply structural. They proceed far beyond the “phantom solutions” and “disembodied slogans” proffered by third-rate economists. As a cultural determinist I would contend that some may have their roots in our culture, in a weak work ethic, excessive consumption, a silly sense of entitlement, low productivity and a growing level of institutionalized incompetence.
For years we have heard the “long talk” about restructuring, or revamping or strategic repositioning the economy. Now we appear to be incapable of rolling out a national Budget far less refashioning an entire economy. An August Budget that was supposed to represent a substantive agreed upon agenda appears now to be anything but.
Barbados seems to lack a truly innovating culture. James Dyson, inventor of the Dyson vacuum cleaner, notes that an innovative culture comes from a sense of anger and discontent with things that do not function well. Part of our problem may be that either we are too satisfied with things that don’t function or we are too often simply prepared to grumble and grumble.
My own sense of despondency about Barbados’ bleak prospects as we enter 2014, focuses more on the possible unravelling of our social fabric than on the purely economic narrative. The inherent wealth or “wellness” of Barbadian society has largely rested on its social stability, its civility and relative peace. One’s concern is that prolonged and deepening economic adversity will destroy that wellness as people sense of hardship leads them to do things they would not hitherto have done.
If Barbados is to recover in 2014 and beyond, we must face some inconvenient truths. Recovery will mean pain and sacrifice, let no politician fool you to the contrary. What should be the model going forward? We may have to rethink the welfare state, not to abolish it but to ensure greater individual responsibility.
Whatever the model, it must call for less consumption, greater productivity, increased social discipline, a better brand of politics and yes, a more engaged and credible leadership. To quote former New York Mayor, now Senator Corey Brooker, “Power should not be about position, it must be about purpose”.
• Ralph Jemmott is a retired educator and social commentator.