sir arthur lewis: an economic - Caribbean Centre for Money and

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SIR ARTHUR LEWIS: AN ECONOMIC AND
POLITICAL PORTRAIT
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SIR ARTHUR LEWIS
SIR ARTHUR LEWIS: AN ECONOMIC AND
POLITICAL PORTRAIT
Ralph Premdas and Eric St Cyr
Editors
Regional Programme of Monetary Studies
Institute of Social and Economic Research
University of the West Indies
Mona, Jamaica
© Institute of Social and Economic Research 1991
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
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mission of the authors and the publishers.
Regional Programme of Monetary Studies
Institute of Social and Economic Research
University of the West Indies
Mona, Kingston 7, Jamaica
Fax: [phone]
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF JAMAICA
CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Sir Arthur Lewis: an economic and political portrait
Bibliography: p
1. Caribbean Area - Economic conditkOls - 1945-
2. West Indies - Economic conditions - 1945-
3. Lewis, Sir William Arthur - 1915-
I. Premdas, Ralph R. II. St Cyr, E.B.A.
III. Caribbean Studies Association Conference (14th: 1989:Barbados)
330.15'5
ISBN 976-40-0028-2
PREFACE
Apart from the introductory essay by the editors the papers included in this
volume were all presented at the Fourteenth Annual Conference of the
Caribbean Studies Association held in Barbados in May 1989 on the theme
"Caribbean Visions: A Tribute to Sir Arthur Lewis." We are heartened by
the renewed regional and world wide interest in the thought of this
distinguished Caribbean son, moreso because a mature judgement of his
work now seems to be emerging. We trust that the debate is advanced by
this work.
The editors record their thanks to the University of the West Indies
for a grant from its Research and Publications Fund and to Mrs Ava George
who diligently prepared the typescript for publication.
Ralph Premdas and Eric St Cyr
Editors
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I: Sir Arthur Lewis: Symbol of Democracy,
Defender of Human Rights, Friend of
the Poor ................................. 1
- Ralph Premdas and Eric St Cyr
Economics
CHAPTER II: The Persistence of Lewis' Theory of
Unlimited Supplies of Labour ................ 13
- Stanley Lalta
CHAPTER III: Export-Led Development and the
Lewis Model in Haiti .................. . .. 33
-Alex Dupuy
CHAPTER IV: Beyond Lewis: Alternative Long Run
Strategies for Caribbean Economies .......... 51
- Eric StCyr
Politics
CHAPTER V: The Politics of Inter-Ethnic
Accommodation in a Democracy:
The Lewis Model ......................... 71
- Ralph Premdas
CHAPTER VI: Arthur Lewis and the Moyne Commission ...... 93
- John LaGuerre
CHAPTER VII: Arthur Lewis and the Development of
Middle Class Ideology .................... . 107
- Percy Hintzen
BIBLIOGRAPHY 117
I
SIR ARTHUR LEWIS: SYMBOL OF
DEMOCRACY, DEFENDER OF HUMAN
RIGHTS, FRIEND OF THE POOR
Ralph Premdas
and
Eric St Cyr
Known mainly as an eminent economist, Sir Arthur Lewis is rarely dis
cussed as either a social or political thinker. To be sure, he has been often
reviled by radical Caribbean political economists especially of the New
World group as an unwitting tool of imperialism.l Left-wing political
economists even in the University of the West Indies system exclude Lewis
from their sy llabuses so that many UWI graduates are practical illiterates in
their familiarity with the scholarship of Arthur Lewis. He is frequently
portrayed politically as a conservative suffering from a severe identity
crisis misplacing his talents in the service of multi-national corporations
and rabid capitalism. To a large extent these charges tell less of the authentic
Lewis and more about the ideological biases of his detractors. Lewis is an
unqualified West Indian patriot and nationalist. He often found himself in
lonely combat with colonial officials as he tried to obtain a better deal for
West Indians. As a black man, he faced discrimination from early in his
career when he was excluded from entering engineering which was his first
career choice. As fate would have it, the field of commerce, which was
almost diffidently chosen as his alternative, won him the Nobel Prize. But
he never forgot the early slur on his humanity as a Black person. He never
deviated from his commitment to struggle, in his way, for the betterment of
oppressed in the Third W orId.
In this introductory note, we wish to focus only on certain aspects of
Sir Arthur's political and economic thought. We shall begin by examining
his views on human rights and democratic freedoms. Lewis' repugnance of
colonialism inspired much of his work. His approach was systematic and
reformist. He did not seek revolutionary upheaval to transform colonial
society. As a pragmatist, he sought sure-footed and incremental changes to
consolidate the gains of directed social policy.
1
Sir Arthur is an ardent democrat. His main intolerance was for
repression and authoritarian rule that so often followed the winning of
independence in the Third World. Hence, when Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou
Toure and others instituted the one-partly system to monopolise power
Lewis said: "It (the one-party system) is party the product of hysteria of the
moment of independence when some men found it possible to seize the state
and suppress their opponents."2
For some persons, the one-party system is not necessarily anti
democratic.3 But for Lewis, the facts show that it was rare to find a one-party
state that was not authoritarian, limiting the choice of voters to decide their
preference for their rulers and programmes. The single-party system
claimed many advantages, but in fact concealed its failures. For instance, its
proponents argued that the single party promoted unity in a multi-ethnic
environment lacking in consensual values. To this, Sir Arthur pointed out
that the truth of the matter showed that the single party rarely was able to
raise itself beyond its own preferred regional or ethnic base. It, therefore,
provided a convenient camouflage for domination. Said Lewis, then, "the
single party fails in its biggest claim, that it is the appropriate vehicle for
resolving regional differences.
"4
Advocates of the one-party system also point to the advantage of
stability that it seemingly bestows on a deeply segmented state. On the
surface, this appeared convincing. Lewis argued instead that "the absence
of an alternative party means not only great instability, but grave errors of
policy.'" Sir Arthur, democrat that he was, envisioned that correct policy
as well as efficient use of scarce resources, was at the heart of the politi
cal process and responsible rule, and for this to be attained, divergent
views often generated by opposition parties is required. Concluded
Sir Arthur: "Free criticism is required to scrutinise waste, inefficiency,
and corruption."6
As a strongly committed democrat as well as a realist, Sir Arthur did
discuss his preference for an innovative democratic system within the
practical context of the plural societies in the Third World. For Lewis, the
biggest obstacle that had beset the ex-colonial countries was their internal
cultural pluralism. It was not residual capitalist neo-colonial structures nor
scarce resources, important as they were, that constituted the foremost
problem in the Third World. Argued Lewis: "The fundamental problem of
the Third World is neither economics nor foreign policy, but the creation of
nations out of heterogeneous peoples."7 Lewis assigned priority then to the
political problem of unity.
Pivotal to the challenge of creating these unified nations was the
appropriate structure of the political system. The critical problem was to
2