Jamaica: The Way Forward

Abstract

The article on Jamaica by Harvey O'Connor in the January and February issues of MR is well informed, and the analysis is penetrating. But it suffers from a defect similar to that which I observed in the excellent article on Puerto Rico in the February 1951 issue: failure to appreciate that in a Caribbean colony the road to socialism must traverse a great deal of pre-socialist territory. Mr. O'Connor cheerfully proposes to transform the Island in ten years by turning the wasted labor (the unemployed 30 percent of the adult population) into the "needed capital," and to convert part of the sugar (export crop) lands to production for the local market. The problem is not so simple.

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