The second instalment in a series giving snippets of life in Jamaica 50 years ago.

After being elected to office in February 1972, Prime Minister Michael Manley rattled the country’s ruling class with social policies that appealed to the working man. On November 20, 1974, he declared democratic socialism as his Administration’s doctrine.

Manley, president of the People’s National Party (PNP), made the brow-raising announcement in Parliament. It was his boldest move yet, one that fuelled his opponents’ fears that he was steering Jamaica toward communism.

In his address to Parliament, Manley outlined his Government’s new path and called on the private sector to support his nationalistic programmes.

According to Manley, the private sector should be “a full, integral partner in the national economy”, adding that, “the Government must supervise the running of the economy by a combination of direct ownership, control by participation, regulatory machinery and by creation of appropriate incentives and opportunities”.

Tony Bogues, a professor of Africana Studies at Brown University in Rhode Island, has written extensively about that period in Jamaica. He said while Manley had considerable middle-class support in 1972, he gradually lost that backing by late 1974.

“Before the declaration of socialism in ’74, what did you have? You had property tax, you had the National Youth Service, you had Project Land Lease, the bauxite levy. And you had a feeling among the upper class and upper-middle class that their power was eroding,” Bogues told the Jamaica Observer. “It wasn’t the socialism that pushed people from the PNP and Manley, it was a set of policies, particularly the property tax and National Youth Service. The elite people would say, ‘Yuh mean my little Johnny going have to mix wid di gardener bwoy pickney?! No, no, no! Dat not going to happen.”

The private sector was not enamoured by Manley’s plans which many of its members believed would result in State control. Resistance also came from the conservative Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), which had formed the Government from 1962 to 1972.

In its editorial of November 21, The Gleaner newspaper noted that the PNP, which was formed in 1938, had a socialist platform since 1940.

“Leaders are often both evangelists and ventriloquist. The test will be performed; and the people generally — at every level of income or status — are, it seems, prepared to give the new democratic philosophy a fair trial,” the editorial read in part.

Manley, a graduate of London School of Economics and a fiery trade unionist, revived the PNP’s socialist mantra after being elected its president in 1970.

He admired the initiatives of progressives like Chancellor Willy Brandt of West Germany, President Fidel Castro in Cuba, and President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania. Interestingly, Nyerere visited Jamaica in September 1974 and expressed admiration for Manley’s social programmes.

One day after Manley’s speech in Parliament, the PNP launched an educational campaign about democratic socialism in downtown Kingston. Leading this drive was Senator Dudley Thompson who oversaw the issuing of pamphlets with the banner, ‘Socialism is Love’.

“Socialism means sacrifice, while capitalism means exploitation; capitalism means selfishness while socialism means each man is his brother’s keeper,” Thompson told PNP officials and supporters who gathered at the statue of Norman Manley, the party’s first president and Michael Manley’s father.

Bogues, who became an advisor to Manley in his second turn as prime minister during the early 1990s, said while democratic socialism was discussed at the executive level, not everyone in Manley’s Cabinet was thrilled with his radical direction.

“I would say there was some unease among some members of the Cabinet but this wasn’t voiced publicly because the party had a socialist tradition,” Bogues explained.

Manley’s socialist agenda gained momentum in 1975 with the establishment of the National Housing Trust, which paved the way for homeownership for the working class. His Administration also drafted the Employment (Equal Pay for Men and Women) Act which came into law on January 1, 1976.

In December 1976, the PNP easily defeated the JLP for a second term that vindicated Manley’s embrace of democratic socialism.

He died in 1997 from prostate cancer at age 72.