Michael Manley’s social and economic reform efforts of the 1970s failed to drive economic growth and social transformation in Jamaica and his socialist ideology was “a serious mistake”, a new local think tank has concluded.

In fact, the group, which says it is comprised of Jamaicans from various walks of life, academics and researchers based locally and abroad, branded Manley as “reckless” for his “radicalisation” during his terms as prime minister of Jamaica between 1972 and 1980.

The think tank presented its findings on December 7 at a public forum at Emancipation Park in New Kingston as part of the launch of a broader research project titled ‘Taking Responsibility’.

The rationalé for the project, the group said, was to raise the standard of public discussion on the economy in order to create the environment necessary for Jamaicans, armed with information on all options available to them, to demand challenging decisions from their leaders that will result in a better Jamaica.

According to the group, the research project title is really “a call to arms” to reclaim the hope that existed among Jamaicans on August 6, 1962 when the island gained Independence from Britain.

The think tank was spawned from a group of friends who started meeting three years ago and who would agonise over why Jamaica has not done better economically, even though they knew the island could.

At the December 7 launch, the group presented what it said were three key findings on which several points of consensus have emerged. They were that:

. the relative prosperity of the 1960s was somewhat illusory, as the gains were concentrated, resulting in an unstable political economy;

. the 1970s’ turn towards reform was a necessary tonic to these shortcomings; the turn to socialism by Michael Manley, however, even if it was largely rhetorical, was a serious mistake; and

. the social opening provided by Manley in the 1970s was probably salutary, in that more Jamaicans apparently began to feel that their young state included them, but was largely derailed by the reckless radicalisation of their then prime minister.

Manley’s democratic socialism ideology was blamed for “the largest contraction of economic activity in Jamaica since World War II” resulting from a combination of price controls, restrictive trade policies, inflation, and socio-political programmes.

Hated and revered equally, Manley’s fiery socialist rhetoric was fought with equal fervor by then Opposition Leader Edward Seaga, who believed in a free market, capitalist-driven economy.

Jamaica’s political survival began swinging in the balance, between the Cold War foes, the United States and the then powerful Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

The group’s findings, however, did not go down well with all members of the large crowd in attendance.

The think tank was criticised for heaping the failures of the era solely on the shoulders of Manley, without acknowledging that economic sabotage was led by the private sector at the time.

One participant told the Sunday Observer that his organisation was paid to hoard baby food and sugar in order to help convince consumers that Jamaica was going communist, an argument promoted by the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) at the time.

The result was that the JLP swept the 1980 elections 51-9 in one of the bloodiest campaigns held since Independence.

The businessman also questioned how many external economic factors were considered in the consensus points, while others applauded the group as a forum for discourse.

The group also questioned whether the 1980-1989 era under Seaga was the turning point in the Jamaican economy, given that Seaga’s United States-backed administration’s main responsibility was restoring investor confidence.

“.in view of this, Jamaica was committed to the principles of free market capitalism and would move away from the socialist policies that destroyed the economy in the previous decade,” the think tank said.

“The development of export processing zones (free zones) and the relaxation of some of the trade restrictions imposed in the 1970s largely facilitated this. However, the period cannot be described as one entailing significant trade reforms. In 1983, a directive of the World Bank led to the removal of licensing requirements and other trade restrictions, but this was matched by the simultaneous introduction of higher import tariffs under the introduction of additional stamp duties.”

The think tank said that between 1983 and 1987, the Government consistently added items to the list of goods requiring import licences. However, the trend ended in 1987 when the requirement was removed from all goods except fruits, vegetables, motor vehicles and motor vehicle parts.

“The question is then, was the 1980s a turning point in Jamaica’s economic history?” the group asked.

“The decline in GDP per capita halted and Jamaica was successful in attracting new investments, primarily through the free zones. In addition, the public sector expansion, which began in the 1970s, was reversed as the number of public sector employees declined, facilitating the movement of the fiscal accounts from significant deficits to one of balance and ultimately to a small surplus.”

Labelling 1989-2005 “a period of liberalisation and paradoxes”, the group noted that the market reforms that began in the 1980s accelerated in the 1990s. “However, after a period of small fiscal surpluses in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Government once again entered a period of deficit spending, beginning in 1996,” the group said.

The group also highlighted the Government’s financing of the fiscal debt through the international capital market, the state’s embrace of privatisation and the financial sector crisis before concluding that the 1990s represented “a constellation of contradictions”.

Market reforms, the think tank said, were extensive, but stopped short of complete withdrawal of the Government from ownership of key assets. The group also noted that although GDP stagnated and unemployment remained high at between 15 and 16 per cent, “the poverty incidence actually declined in the 1990s due in part to the containment of inflation”.

Reacting to Scotia Bank CEO William ‘Bill’ Clarke’s declaration that Jamaica was a failed state, the group said the country did not qualify as such because “it has yet to become anywhere near as remote from its citizens’ lives as the model demands”.

Said the group: “It is the view of the researchers of this project that Jamaica is at a critical turning point. It is likely that either:

. Jamaica gets back onto a track of sustained growth and development, in which the state is able to win the resources necessary for it to turn the tide against criminal gangs, [or]:

. it continues to muddle through as it has done for decades, in which case there is a real risk that criminal gangs, able to grow their own resource bases quickly – given the expected future demand in the world economy for the goods and services they produce – will be able to penetrate the political system ever more deeply.”