Before Greece There Was Jamaica

[unhappycamper]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Before-Greece-There-Was-Ja-by-Michael-Roberts-Assets_Austerity_Debt_Food-150710-630.html



Before Greece There Was Jamaica
By Michael Roberts
OpEdNews Op Eds 7/10/2015 at 17:24:44

~snip~

Today, it's Greece; in the mid-1970s it was Jamaica. And the same techniques of internal destabilization and unjust and unfair policies that were rammed down the Jamaica government's throat are at work today in Greece. The formula of draconian cuts to social spending that disproportionately negatively impacts mainly the poor and working class, unfair trade regimes that favor multinational business corporations, austerity measures that target reductions in education and health spending, and the large-scale privatization of national assets were "field tested" in the Jamaican and Caribbean incubators long before it was Greece's turn to bat.

In both the Jamaican and Greek contexts the IMF and World Bank loans were conditional on structural adjustment policies. In both cases these "bitter pills" required that the countries undertake major economic reforms that included trade liberalization, privatization and currency deregulation. Trade liberalization in the Jamaica case resulted in the death or local industries that could not compete with United States goods that were heavily subsidized by the United States government.

Hardest hit were the livestock industry, the farming sector, construction and small businesses. The benefits of the austerity program never materialized and Jamaica found itself saddled with a $4.6 billion debt. In some cases the Jamaica private sector was complicit in undermining the Michael Manley government that it saw as too Left-leaning and not towing the United States corporatist line. They embarked on a program of creating artificial shortages by deliberately hoarding key food items thus adding to the internal unrest.

One remembers the infamous "pots and pans" marches by irate housewives because of the recurring shortages of food items on supermarket shelves. Up to the time of his passing Manley remained highly critical of the IMF and World Bank and accused both of them of attacking the sovereignty of small, defenseless former colonized countries. The World Trade Organization today completes the troika that undermines democracy and acts as agents of the rich countries and their corporate elites. Manley also pointed squarely at the IMF and World Bank saying that their system of dealing with the so-called Third World nations was "akin to imperialism and neocolonialism."