SURPLUS LABOUR AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN JAMAICA: THE DIALECTICS OF POLITICAL CORRUPTION. 1966 - 1976.
Item
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Title
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SURPLUS LABOUR AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN JAMAICA: THE DIALECTICS OF POLITICAL CORRUPTION. 1966 - 1976.
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Identifier
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AAI8023681
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identifier
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8023681
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Creator
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WILSON, BASIL WINTHORPE.
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Contributor
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Irving L. Markovitz
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Date
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1980
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Political Science, General
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Abstract
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Jamaica began experiencing a serious problem of surplus labour in the latter decades of the nineteenth century. This particular phenomenon forced workers to migrate to the urban centres outside of Jamaica. The massive exodus of workers to the United Kingdom during the 1950s helped to keep the unemployment rates from reaching dislocative percentages. After 1962, Jamaican workers could no longer migrate freely to the United Kingdom and the condition of the unemployed became even more desperate. By the middle of the 1960s, unemployment rates were hovering around 20-25 percent.;Internal self-rule and independence gave the political leadership the opportunity to engage in more energetic attempts to industrialize the economy. From 1944-1974 both the People's National Party and the Jamaica Labour Party pursued a strategy of industrialization by invitation with the expectation that the unemployment problem could be contained if not solved. During those decades, Jamaica experienced unprecedental economic growth concomitant with high unemployment. By the middle of the 1960s, a mass of lumpen-proletariat concentrated around the urban complex of Kingston and St. Andrew, became quite restive and willing to challenge the legitimacy of the political system. There were more demands being placed on the democratic system than it was capable of accommodating. In response, the two dominant political parties vigilantly pursued the policy of political victimization, depending on which party had control of state power.;Political victimization has fostered intra-class conflict and political violence has now become endemic of the political system. This stifles the development of class consciousness and threatens to destroy the democratic political system that has been in place since 1944.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Political Science
