Political Science

In her 2001 film Life and Debt, Stephanie Black conveys a message about the suffering society and economy of the Jamaican people.  Black focuses on the lives of individual Jamaicans who are forced to depend upon the economic agendas of outsiders, such as US Americans and other foreigners.  This documentary portrays the ways in which foreign bankers and capitalists serve to undermine the power of the Jamaican people in order to serve their own interests.  There is a persisting legacy in the colonial past of the island.  Although the Jamaican people are in theory thought to be free, their lives are to a great extent sadly still controlled by the rich and powerful forces of outsiders, the foreign elitist influence.  As Jamaica Kinkaid says in her narrative, when wealthy tourists sit down to eat their delicious seafood meals in the beautiful beachside restaurants of Jamaica, many of them do not realize that this food is imported directly from the United States.

Jamaican politicians such as Former Prime Minister Michael Manley may have stated that the Jamaican government would not accept foreign dictates and bribes, but this is exactly the current social and economic problem facing Jamaica today.  He was forced to sign a loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund in 1977 due to the lack of alternatives, and Jamaica is now over 4.5 billion dollars in debt to the IMF, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank.  The unfortunate fact is that the promised development has not yet manifested in the lives of Jamaicans and has actually created a negative impact on most of the island citizens.  The country increasingly pays out more that it receives in financial resources, driving down domestic consumption and turning to foreign investment, and causing increased unemployment, corruption, illiteracy, violence, prohibitive food costs, dilapidated hospitals, and increased disparity between rich and poor.

In looking to what it means to have Free Trade Zone, Black focuses her attention to factory workers who sew five to six days per week for American corporations and earn the legal minimum wage in Jamaica, which translates to 30 US per week.  Over 10,000 Jamaican women work for foreign companies under substandard work conditions, and the Jamaican government has outlawed any attempts at unionization.  Jamaican women who have been brave enough to speak out against their low wages and poor conditions have been fired from their jobs and blacklisted to prevent them from further employment.  Free Trade Zones are supported by the United States, utilizing nearly 50 million US tax dollars to persuade American companies to relocate to Jamaica.  However, many of these bleak yet needed jobs are being lost to Mexico, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic.

In another part of the documentary, Black calls attention to a local chicken plant which had a thriving business selling high grade chicken to the domestic Jamaican market.  This business has recently been destabilized by US discarding of low quality chicken to Jamaica.  Even though there are significant laws in place which protect US citizens from poor quality imports, there are often no holds barred from poor quality exports from the US.  Agreements such as NAFTA and the Caribbean Basin Initiative serve to insist on this shocking injustice under the pretext of free trade.  Another instance of this same type of domestic destabilization occurred when local dairy farmers in Jamaica became threatened by the imported milk products from the US and EU.  Foreign dairy farmers are so heavily subsidized that Jamaicans could not compete with the foreign companies, and domestic sales dropped significantly.  One year after liberalization in the early 1990s, millions of dollars of unpasteurized local milk had to be dumped, 700 cows were slaughtered prematurely, and several dairy farmers shut down operations.  Currently, local dairy farmers have been forced to downsize nearly 60, and the future appears grim.

Black calls attention to severe social and economic problems within Jamaica, in which unfair government and company policies serve to bolster the power of the wealthy and reduce the power of the poor.  Human dignity and ethics are at stake, as no part of the world is truly healthy in a situation where some people greedily reap much more than their share while others are barely provided with enough to survive.  Shameful government policies and dishonest banking and company practices are at the root of the problems found in Jamaica and other third world countries, and government and company democracy is regularly and deliberately stifled in these regions.  This is a story not only of the US and Jamaica, but of rich and poor, big and small, and the intricacies of the human heart as it beats across the world.

The solution to this grave social and economic catastrophe is to promote a sense of democracy and justice within government and company (including banking) policy making.  When individuals are empowered to speak their mind about what is right for them, their families, and their communities, what is right for the governments and companies in which they participate and contribute precious time and energy, then true solutions are able to be achieved for all people.  The problem with both local and global markets which fail to meet the needs of the people who work within them is most often an absence of true citizen and worker participation.  When governments and companies are able, or forced, to relinquish the destructive power and control of elitist tendencies, then all members of society are able to voice their beliefs, and humanity is able to thrive with a sense of common dignity and ethics.