OPINION: PPP is a party dedicated to human development and human security

Last Updated on Tuesday, 17 October 2023, 8:57 by Denis Chabrol

By Dr. Randolph Persaud (Randy), Professor Emeritus

Dr. Randolph Persaud

I write in response to a letter in the media (10/13/2023) in which the current PPP is accused of diverting from its ideals established seventy-three years ago when the party was founded by Cheddi and Janet Jagan, and others. The said argument by Hamilton Green demonstrates that neither he nor the PNC/APNU, have any idea of what is going on around them in Guyana, in the Caribbean, and in the global political economy. Mr. Green’s letter is nothing but jabs in the dark. Let us take a closer look.

First things first. Green is oblivious to the fact one of the fundamental pillars of the PPP throughout its history has been an unshakable commitment to both liberal and social democracy. Unlike Mr. Green’s party, which has a record of rigging elections, the PPP has expended all its intellectual, economic, and political capital in agitating for and protecting democracy. While Green draws intellectual nourishment from Kari Levitt, I prefer to begin with Amartya Sen, whose position that democracy precedes, rather than follows economic development, has been universally accepted. Green and his PNC/APNU comrades, of course, do not have much respect for liberal democracy which is the basis for free and fair elections, and for the protection of individual rights regardless of race, color, class, religion, gender, or sexuality.

The so-called democracy that the PNC/APNU wants is based on disbanding free and fair elections and replacing it with a regime of unelected, hand-picked elites, under the rubric of “shared governance.” They believe in throwing out the democratic process so much, that they went all the way to Washington DC to advocate the same. As you might have learnt, their unconstitutional idea of shared governance was rudely dismissed. Like the Americans, and other democratic political systems, our Constitution is the basis of governance.

Mr. Green makes the foolish case that Canada is being exploited by the United States. His story is built around Professor Kari Levitt’s “Silent Surrender,” a book that emerged out of the tradition of dependency theory, and the debates around critical political economy in the 1970s, a good deal of it influenced by her uncle Karl Polanyi’s book, “The Great Transformation.”

While Silent Surrender had remarkable insights at the time, the world has changed, and so has the relationship between Canada and the United States. Green talks about what Pierre Trudeau and others did to change the US-Canada relationship. What the PNC Elder does not seem to know, is that the contribution of the “primary” sectors to the GDP in Canada has remained remarkably constant over the past sixty years. In 1965 it was 20% and in 2020 it was still 20%. What has changed is that “services moved up from 56% to 71%.

Hamilton Green is unaware that although the relationship between Canada and the US was indeed one of “dependency,” that this same relationship helped Canada become one of the richest and most desirable countries in the world. Green, the Elder, should know this because Canada was one of the top choices for Guyanese who fled the PNC dictatorship, economic bankruptcy, and vindictive governance.

What is more, and contrary to Green, the PNC Elder, the Canadians moved even closer to the US over the decades. In 1994, Canada joined the USA and Mexico in the monumental NAFTA arrangement. That arrangement was renewed only recently in 2020, in the renegotiated USMCA in 2020. In 2021, Canada was the destination for a whopping $US 61 billion in FDI. The US State Department website notes that “Canada encourages foreign direct investment…by promoting stability, global market access, and infrastructure” https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-investment-climate-statements/Canada/

Hamilton Green should pay careful attention to what the State Department has on its website regarding foreign investment. First stability is important. Second, building infrastructure is also key. But, of course, Green is not interested in the real story of Canadian political economy. Rather, he is keen on standing on a platform of self-doubt, negativity, and resignation. He prefers to be an unreconstructed ideologue, spouting sacrosanct ideals from a bygone era that have little resonance with the people, including those from his own party.

As Dr. Ashni Singh said recently on the Dr. Randy Persaud Show, and elsewhere, the PPP has had certain constants from its founding in 1950, through the dark twenty-eight years of PNC dictatorship, and then from the era of Democratic Reconstruction in October 1992, right through to the current administration of Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali.

These constants are – an unwavering commitment to political democracy, protection of individual rights, guarantee of equal opportunity, economic policies aimed at human development and human security, protection of the vulnerable, responsible management of our natural resources with an emphasis on environmental sustainability, constructive relationships with foreign investors, and not least, governance of the economy based on sound monetary and fiscal policies.

Notwithstanding the historical importance of Levitt’s work, I highly recommend that Hamilton Green and his colleagues read Amartya Sen’s theory on “capabilities equality.” It would prove more fruitful than rehashing irrelevant populist credos from bygone eras. We have the basis to build a country within a framework of what I shall call ‘Social-Democratic Liberalism.’ Tentanda Via.

Dr. Randolph Persaud (Randy) is Adviser in the Office of the President, Guyana