Finding Jamaica's Way

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses Jamaica's democratic traditions and economic development. Jamaica has maintained the spirit, and the institutions of the democratic tradition it inherited from the British. At the same time, the Jamaicans have a severe case of nearly every current less developed countries economic disease—high unemployment, and inflation, profound international payments imbalance, foreign debt, fluctuating commodity prices, black markets, dislocated populations, and scarce capital. Schemes for regional cooperation and integration, therefore, offer Jamaica no genuine solutions to its economic dilemma. The heart of that dilemma is that as poor as most of Jamaica's population is, the country as a whole has been living beyond its means at least since 1974. As a result, in 1977 and 1978, it came under an austere International Monetary Fund regimen to reduce consumption as a proportion of gross domestic product, thus, making available resources to stimulate production, and investment in the private sector. The most important political fact about Jamaica is its maldistribution of income

Political science · Caribbean history, culture, and politics

• The impact of intergovernmental commodity on the final consumer

  Michael G Schechter•International Interactions•1979

  Add to list