A big mistake would be to dismiss Mr Pearnel Charles’ warning of potential popular uprising as just politicking triggered by the current election campaign.

For decades, thoughtful Jamaicans have had similar concerns, even if for the most part they have not said it in so many words.

And Jamaicans dare not forget that at various times over the 53 years since political independence, social tensions and discontent have pushed the nation to the very edge of catastrophe. Each time, the society has pulled back from the edge just in time.

Such considerations, we suspect, would have influenced the coalition of private sector and civil society groups in their five-point letter to Jamaica’s political leaders approaching a parliamentary election. Readers will have noted that among the five demands was insistence on an appropriate safety net for the poorest Jamaicans.

That independent Jamaica has so far been able to avoid calamitous social dislocation, despite widespread poverty, high unemployment, deprivations, and other difficulties, worthy of contemplation.

We suspect that the evolution of a culture of democracy and tolerance in this country has much to do with it. While we can’t provide scientific proof, this newspaper suspects, for example, that Jamaica’s practice and culture of allowing individuals and groups to freely express their frustrations and grievances in every conceivable medium have had the effect of oil on troubled waters.

Yet, there must be more practical solutions. The society must correct as quickly as possible current levels of poverty and unemployment so graphically outlined by Mr Charles.

At the same time, the country has to sustainably pay its own way. The Jamaican nation cannot continue to rely on debt and the begging bowl to support its people.

All well-thinking Jamaicans appreciate that reliance on debt and handouts has reached its tolerable limit. The country must now build an ethic of economic independence or become unviable.

This recognition of the need for debt reduction and economic restructuring with the expectation of eventual economic independence and prosperity led successive governments to the doors of the International Monetary Fund for painful ‘bitter medicine’.

There is no way around it. Jamaicans must bear the pain while the economy is placed on a solid footing once and for all. That’s how the country will eventually be able to achieve prosperity and high employment for its people. We expect that strong economic growth and employment will have positive social spin-offs, not least in combating crime.

It is essential that Jamaicans are told by their leaders that there is no point to hitching and turning back from economic reconstruction. That, we believe, was the essential point the private sector/civil society coalition was trying to make.

Even as they seek to score politically in the current campaign, Mr Charles and his fellow politicians should make sure that Jamaicans understand, regardless of which party wins the upcoming elections, there is no viable alternative to the current course, painful though it is.