A non-Progressive Agenda

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Ian Boyne, Contributor

The long-awaited, highly anticipated, much-touted Progressive Agenda was finally unveiled - to an apparently widespread "what's that?" yawn among non-partisans and Labourites.

The disappointment with it has been palpable, judging from comments in media. There are several reasons for that. One, as the People's National Party (PNP) has been having a field day kicking around the Golding administration, people have been asking, "What's your alternative?" and we had been hearing about a developing Progressive Agenda. So expectation had built up that this document would spell out alternatives and programmes. The PNP was not stating that, mark you. But this impression had been formed. Weeks before the launch last Wednesday on Garvey's birthday, PNP spokespersons, already sensing that many would be disappointed in not seeing enough specifics, had begun to state very clearly that the Progressive Agenda was "not a manifesto" and that that would come nearer to the election. The Progressive Agenda is a framework, a philosophical outline, an approach to governance, they have been stressing. Fine.

Monumentally deficient

And it is precisely in that context that I find it monumentally deficient. This is a difficult task for me emotionally, because I have known and highly respected Winston 'Winty' Davidson since the 1970s, when he was parliamentary secretary under Michael Manley and I was working with the administration as a feature writer; and Anthony Hylton I have had enormous respect for. These two men are fine, serious intellectuals who have been passionate about their work on the Progressive Agenda. They have also approached their work with the utmost humility and have been highly consultative. So it is hard for me to be as critical as I intend to be and not care about their feelings, but the discipline of journalism demands no less on my part.

The 62-page Progressive Agenda is a misnomer. If you doubt me, send it to any political science department in the world and ask any first-year student what's progressive about it, knowing what progressive means in political science. In fact, this document represents a repudiation of progressive ideas. I can't think of a single page in this document that a sensible Labourite could not agree with in principle. So, philosophically, there is nothing here which separates and marks off the PNP from the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). Now this might not be a bad thing in the thinking of consensus-hungry Jamaicans. But don't market it as distinctly progressive or PNP. It represents no ideological alternative to this Golding administration.

So many of the generalities, platitudes and clichés which inundate this document can easily be found in documents produced under JLP administrations. I know, for having worked as a communications professional with all political administrations since the 1970s, I have read more government policy documents than I care to remember. In fact, without the PNP's trademark on it, and knowing what I know about the PNP from Norman Manley's time, I would not be able to identify this document as a PNP document. I don't think Michael Manley would either!

The document fails to articulate a progressive view of the state at a time when - if the framers were rigorously "data-driven, evidence-based" as they claim - there is an abundance of empirical evidence demonstrating the need for a developmental state in this crisis-ridden era of global capitalism. The section on 'The New Role of the State in the 21st Century' is disappointing beyond description. This so-called Progressive Agenda marginalises the role of the State to the technocratic and facilitatory, mouthing phrases that could easily be written by G2K. In fact, I was wondering whether they had not plagiarised the work of the Golding-appointed Public Sector Transformation Unit! Read pages 38-42.

Manipulation of language

It sees only "a catalytic role for the State in situations where the private sector deems the risks to be uneconomic". This is not a progressive view of the State. The World Bank, in its authoritative World Development Report in 1997, came out with a much more progressive view of the State than the PNP in its progressive agenda!

The State must do more than promote efficiency, transparency, reduce corruption and bridge the implementation deficit, as the conservative PNP advises. It must express a "preferential option for the poor" and it must steer economic and social policies toward a truly people-centred approach to development. You can't outsource that responsibility to the market. And this is what is being passed off as a Progressive Agenda? Only in this partisan and tribalistic society could this manipulation of language take place without an outcry from genuine progressives.

In terms of evidence-based research, much valuable work has been done by scholars such as Joseph Stiglitz, Dani Rodrik, Ha-Joon Chang, Paul Krugman, Erik Reinert and others on the pivotal role of the State in economic development. The framers of this document should have drawn on that international work to make this a truly Progressive Agenda. Instead, what we are served with is unvarnished neoliberalism. How can this be an alternative to the Golding-Shaw model?

Even the conservative Economist magazine, in a special feature it ran in its March 19, 2011 issue on 'The Future of the State' concedes: "In the 1990s, privatisation seemed to have settled the argument. Now state capitalism has returned, sometimes accidentally ... but often intentionally. Many of the new industrial champions of the emerging world are state-owned, and industrial policy is no longer a rude expression, even in Anglo-Saxon countries."

The just-released World Investment Report 2011 shows that outward foreign direct investment (FDI) flows have been increasing from developing countries. You know what's helping to drive that? State-owned enterprises. The "data-driven, evidence-based" research is there, Winty, Tony, and colleague columnist Robert Buddan, who I see contributed to this Progressive Agenda.

misleading label

Says the World Investment Report 2011: "State-owned transnational corporations (TNCs) are an important emerging source of FDI. There are some 650 state-owned TNCs with 8,500 foreign affiliates across the globe." But our progressive PNP sees a "catalytic role" of the state only when markets fail. That is Hayek's model, not Keynes'. In so-called neoliberal paradise, Singapore, the Economic Development Board "develops industrial estates, incubates new firms and provides business consulting services," says the April 2011 edition of New African. Almost all land in Singapore is state-owned and the world's most profitable airline is Singapore Airways - which is government-owned. Right now, a major issue in US politics is the role of government. The Republicans are talking smaller government. Bruce Golding is saying the same thing - but the progressive PNP is offering no alternative. In fact, on Page 39 of its Progressive Agenda, it talks about "smaller and better-managed government".

No problem, if you are offering a neoliberal model, only one more efficient and "less corrupt" than Bruce Golding's. But don't mislead by labelling your offering progressive when it's indistinguishable, philosophically, from what the JLP has.

I don't want anyone to misunderstand me: This document has many good, sound ideas. It is filled with them, in fact. But there is nothing distinctly 'progressive' about this framework and nothing which fundamentally offers an alternative to what Golding is offering. Some mindless PNP tribalist is sure to write about this being an apologia for Golding, but let him undertake the demanding task of reading and comprehending the Progressive Agenda and then engage me rationally on my specific arguments.

More fundamentally, the Progressive Agenda fails to articulate an invigorating and inspiring moral vision for the nation. This nation is in a moral and cultural crisis. (I don't mean moral crisis in any narrowly religious sense). Our social capital is disastrously low. The PNP is on to something on Page 25. It talks about a "progressive individual who is ethically and socially responsible as distinct from a possessive individual who is materialistic, self-centred and hedonistic". Brilliant! It goes on pleasingly, "Communities and shared interests and values are also to be cultivated that respect individual freedoms, along with responsibility to collective obligations to family, community, occupational and civic associations." This should have been developed into an overarching framework.

Jamaica cannot advance with our dysfunctional family life, social anarchy and our American-influenced hedonistic, atomistic cultural values - no matter who is in Jamaica House. This is our pre-eminent crisis. It was presciently identified by Professor Carl Stone in 1992 in his last major work before his death (Winty remembers this work), that memorable paper, 'Values, Norms and Personality Development in Jamaica'. The next indispensable document which should have influenced the Progressive Agenda was Don Robotham's 'Vision and Voluntarism' Grace Kennedy Foundation lecture of 1998.

"The fundamental issue," Robotham said in that immortal lecture, "is how do we strengthen the moral bonds of Jamaican society? How do we give real meaning to the concept 'Jamaica'? How do we re-establish a positive vision of Jamaica?" This was the opportunity for the Progressive Agenda to do so rigorously, but this opportunity was squandered in an all-things-to-all-men appeasement document. A capitulation to the bourgeoisie.

lacking Stimulating ideas

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, a true progressive, says in his 2010 book Freefall: America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy, under the caption 'A Moral Crisis': "The unrelenting pursuit of profits and the elevation of the pursuit of self-interest did help to create the moral deficit." These are the kind of ideas the Progressive Agenda should have explored to excite the imagination of the Jamaican people and to provide an alternative to the JLP's uninspiring economistic philosophy.

Stiglitz continues: "The model of rugged individualism combined with market fundamentalism has altered not just how individuals think of themselves but how they relate to each other."

It is these big philosophical ideas which should illuminate the Progressive Agenda. I am not one of those clamouring for "specifics" and "programmes" at this point. I am fine with a philosophical framework. But it must constitute an alternative to what the JLP is offering.

What's fortunate for the PNP is that the masses are not into ideas and documents anyway, and it can easily go back to the polemical, "Dem lie, dem corrupt, dem incompetent, dem wicked, dem mash up the economy, dem against poor people" line, and that will get them traction.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and ianboyne1@yahoo.com.