Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, and the International Corporations

The fact that US progressives are considered as inconsequential little flies on the fringe of the political system is roughly the same thing as the fact that in countries like Haiti only right wing pro international corporation politicians are allowed to govern without being assassinated or deposed (thus for example the Aristide episode). Never think that what goes on in "that dirt poor country" has no corollary in much wealthier countries.

In one of my numerous Internet travels I within the last year stumbled on a Jamaican forum which was dominated by right wing, well off Jamaicans. One thread I looked at was where the right wingers were making light of and belittling Michael Manley, who in the first of his two terms as Jamaican Prime Minister (separated by an interim) during the 1970's dabbled with policies that would rein in the corporations somewhat in favor of ordinary Jamaicans. About 30 years later, all these right wingers could do was make petty fun of Manley's efforts toward and belief in protecting the common people from the ravages of international corporations.

Ha ha ha, that's really funny, someone wanting to help ordinary people, only a small fraction of which in Jamaica (or Haiti) have ever benefitted from the huge corporations that make the right wingers well off. That’s very, very amusing.

Today, the main reasons why Jamaica is somewhat better off than Haiti are:

(a) International corporations (and of course small business people looking for an exotic place to invest) prefer English speaking countries with half way decent infrastructure to a Creole French speaking country with bad infrastructure, so Haiti has simply not gotten all that much investment by the corporations even though financial and trade policies were rammed through in their favor. It seems that the corporations reserve the right to say: "Thanks, but no thanks." And

(b) Jamaica has stubbornly retained a small but functioning public sector which prevents the corporations that operate in Jamaica from achieving total control and domination over the Jamaican government and the Jamaican people. The corporations and the international organizations that do their bidding have to settle for relative control in Jamaica because total control is denied to them there. This prevents Jamaicans from being as dirt poor as Haitians.

The trend over the last 50 years is clear: generally speaking, the more control corporations have over a country, the poorer it is, and vice versa.

Meanwhile, in Cuba, probably the most important long term result of the Revolution of all was that the international corporations have been for over 50 years now very restricted there. Ironically today, corporations are itching to operate without restrictions in Cuba because Cuba has a reasonably good infrastructure and a well educated population. Corporations can only benefit so much from dirt poor wages alone, thus their hesitation with respect to Haiti and other dirt poor countries with poor infrastructure.

Comparing on the one hand the huge corporations' relative reluctance to invest in dirt poor Haiti despite there being no restrictions on their doing so to on the other hand their licking their chops at the thought of investing in Cuba if and when they ever are allowed to, it seems that corporations don't know what is good for them. They would be better off in the long run if they refrained from crushing indigenous governments and industries by pressuring international organizations like the IMF to in turn pressure countries to pass anti people and pro corporate policies.

To see a detailed spreadsheet showing international investment by country, click here.

The above was in response to this article.
-----------------------
Comments are very appreciated. Comments are moderated but all comments will be approved except for those that do not belong on Unity-Progress. For example, comments that contain any commercial advertising and ones that contain objectionable hatred will not be approved. Many comments that appear will receive a return comment by Unity-Progress.

The email address for Unity-Progress is
unity.progress.mail at gmail.

Use this address for all communications, including requests for link exchange if you have a good economics or political site.