The Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) often refers to its members as ‘Comrades’. Yet it may be more of an anachronism, considering the current political flavour that prevails within the PNP and the country.

Comrade, according to one description in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, is ‘a fellow Socialist or communist’. But the PNP, which declared that it was democratic socialist under then Prime Minister Michael Manley in 1974, has seemingly dropped its left of centre posture to a more right-wing approach, promoting a more capitalist path since the 1990s.

Is there still a place for democratic socialism? The Jamaica Observer put the question to president-designate of the PNP, Dr Peter Phillips, during a recent interview.

“We don’t reject our history, nor the principles that formed us, and democratic socialism was an essential foundation of the party’s history … an essential element,” Dr Phillips said.

“Slogans mean different things to different people and they have to be made to fit the times. We are not committed to any notion of the State dominating the economic life of the country. We recognise and we have moved this country forward most on the basis of creating a viable market-driven economy, and we will remain committed to that. But we are also a party that has always believed that the State needs to act in support of the aspirations of the majority of the people; that the State needs to be the vehicle of affirmative action, if you will, on behalf of the marginalised.

Democratic socialism, as articulated by Manley, was a non-revolutionary political system that sought to maintain the democracy of the State on the one hand, and meet the needs of the majority and not just to create bigger profits for a few by broad-based ownership of the means of production on the other.

But Manley, political analysts often argued, did not get far with his philosophy, as many of the structures upon which the political system could have been built were not in place, nor were the resources readily available to reform the economy along socialist lines.

“We have to take on a role that makes certain that the landless can get land, because from 1838, freedom never meant access for us, the majority of the people. So all those thousands of people who live on so-called squatted land for generation after generation, it is the obligation of the country to allow them to own their piece of the Rock,” Dr Phillips stated, emphasising the need for agrarian reform.

But what is the next PNP leader’s position that less than 10 per cent of the population owns more than 90 per cent of Jamaican businesses, real estate, and other entities?

“We are not against anybody who owns things. We want to open the ambit for ownership; that’s why we are for broadening the scope of ownership through the stock market, that’s why we are the party that introduced the land reform effort during the time of (former Prime Minister) Comrade (PJ) Patterson with LAMP (Land Administration and Management Programme). We want to accelerate it. We want to find ways of getting the people who have lived on squatted lands for generations to get the land. That’s why we introduced Operation PRIDE in those times. We want to deepen those efforts to create a stakeholder society where you don’t have a country divided between haves and haves not, but that everybody will have enough,” the incoming PNP president said.

Ownership through cooperatives, too, is not something that Dr Phillips has ruled out, should his party regain State power.

“Cooperatives are necessary where appropriate and where people are organised. We promoted Employee Share Ownership, not to ram it down anybody’s throat, but as a viable means for sharing the benefits of ownership and creating a society with greater solidarity among the elements,” the political economist said.