Suchergebnisse

The reflections provided in this article were presented in the 4th Sam Moyo Memorial Lecture, delivered at the SMAIAS/ASN Summer School in January 2021. The article focuses on the critical tradition of economic knowledge and thought about the socio-economic development of the Caribbean, which began in the last decades of the colonial era. The advances made through the early Independence period were concerned with the problems of individual countries and the region as a whole. The objective was to improve the material economic welfare of the broad masses of Caribbean people while generating the requisite economic growth to sustain an improvement in the general conditions of life. From the thought of W. Arthur Lewis to the Plantation Economy theorists and subsequent critiques, a rich critical tradition emerged, only to be displaced by the onset of the debt crisis and neoliberalism. This article reviews the main elements of this critical tradition, its advances, and retreats, as well as the new challenges presented to it today.

The Caribbean has experienced an overlapping and interconnected series of challenges, including economic, social, and environmental, which pose an existential threat to the region. This article focuses on the nature of this threat as it evolved before and during the pandemic crisis. Under neoliberal globalization, Caribbean economies transformed themselves rapidly into service providers, most having resorted to developing a tourism sector, while some moved into oil production. In all cases, traditional agricultural exports declined with the loss of protected markets where they earned preferential prices. The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the Caribbean's existential crisis and revealed the inextricable links among the environment, economy, and public health. This article focuses on these links and suggests a way forward for public policy in the short, medium, and long term.