The Agony of the Eight Revisited

• Author: Courtney Blackman
• Pages: 273-288

THE AGONY OF THE EIGHT REVISITED

273

Sir Arthur Lewis was, throughout the 60s and the 70s, a living

example of the biblical quotation, ‘A prophet is not without

honour save in his own country.’ His recommendations for

economic development were dismissed as ‘industrialization by

invitation’, and he himself was derided as an ‘Afro-Saxon,

conservative neo-classical economist’. In the best Caribbean

traditions, we discovered his intellectual qualities when the people

‘from away’ honoured him with the Nobel Prize. But it is still

wonderful that, within his lifetime, we are honouring him for his

tremendous contributions to the social sciences.

As an economist, I have been most enlightened by Lewis’s

celebrated paper, ‘Economic Development with Unlimited

Supplies of Labour’,1 a classic in the literature of development

economics. As a policy maker, I have been most influenced by The

Principles of Economic Planning,2 which stripped the market of its

mystique and revealed it as merely a social device for inexpensively

allocating resources, and therefore to be preferred unless there

are compelling reasons to do otherwise.

Today, however, I have chosen as my point of departure Lewis’s

obscure tract, The Agony of the Eight, which describes his gallant

attempt in 1960 to persuade the ‘Little Eight’ to federate.3 The

‘Little Eight’ included Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica,

14

THE AGONY OF THE EIGHT

REVISITED

THE PRACTICE OF ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT

274

Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent, and

Montserrat. Immediately prior to retirement from public service,

I was the object of the malevolent attention of the ruling Barbados

Democratic Labour Party. Compared to other governments in the

region, the hostility of a Barbadian administration may appear

almost benign. Yet, I can confirm, it is most unpleasant for any

individual citizen to be subjected to the wrath of the state. I

recalled the following passage from The Agony of the Eight:

[T]he maintenance of good government requires a federal

structure. In a small island of 50,000 or 100,000 people, dominated

by a single political party, it is very difficult to prevent political

abuse. Everybody depends on the government for something,

however small, so most are reluctant to offend it. The civil servants

live in fear, the police avoid unpleasantness; the trade unions are tied to the

party; the newspaper depends on government advertisements; and so on. This

is true even if the political leaders are absolutely honest. In cases where they

are also corrupt, and playing with the public funds, the situation

becomes intolerable. The only safeguard against this is federation.

If the government in island C misbehaves, it will be criticised openly

by the citizens of island E. The federal government must be

responsible for law and order, and for redress of financial or other

abuses. (Emphasis added)4

My paper focuses on those features of Caribbean societies

which militate against freedom, justice and democracy. Like Sir

Arthur’s paper, it starts with the observation of the existential

problems facing citizens in society, eschewing those grandiose and

over arching theories which bring intellectual delight to Caribbean

academics but do not advance, but frequently obstruct, our

progress towards a better society.

I have identified three factors which militate against freedom

and democracy in the Anglophone Caribbean: A heritage of

authoritarianism; the primacy of politics; and a predilection for centralized

government. These mutually reinforcing pathologies are