SIR ARTHUR LEWIS: AN ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL PORTRAIT \ \ 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 reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior per 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: 809-927-2409 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