Dear Editor,
For more than twenty years, I have been blessed with the opportunity to be able to take to the airwaves of St. Maarten, and the freedom to highlight issues as they affected the various strata of our society. These issues have been consistently delivered and debated by and among my audiences.
The mentally agile noticed and questioned the morphing of my shows from “Taking Charge” (1994) to “Sharing The Vision” (1999) to “It’s About Time” (present). That transformation was not accidental, but reflected the changes on the ground, on St. Maarten /St. Martin, North and South, Dutch and French. As they say, our hurricanes do not stop at the border.
During this time, I have aired growing local dissatisfaction with the direction of our island, in real time. This was done, however, as various unconnected events. The concatenation of the economical, the social, the political, the spiritual and so forth form a clear path back to the root. This dissatisfaction when taken from its root to its natural conclusion flows like the thousands of little streams that become a mighty river. A mighty river of discontent!
Government attempts to dam this river with promises, but these promises quickly become broken promises. The unintentional consequence of broken promises is that they water the manure called enduring political betrayal. This may be right or this may be wrong, but impressions are tough to erase. Sometimes, our government finds itself in this position simply by the unintended circumstances surrounding an idea that sounded good.
A few years ago, some folks slipped the words that the policies of Claude Wathey and his party more resembled those of Ronald Reagan of the USA. They took it to the natural conclusion by declaring that we were a laissez-faire economy, similar to what Reagan dreamed of for the USA. While this sounds good to the Reagan-likers amongst us, it could not have been further from the truth or reality. Mr. Wathey was more in line with Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lynden Baines Johnson and, yes, William Jefferson Clinton.
Most St. Maartener’s look at the new analysis of Claude, shake their heads and say “That is not how we remember Claude Wathey at all,” and they are right. His legacy has been hijacked.
“All economics is political,” screamed a Wall Street Journal headline and proceeded to clarify that statement by stating that “a survey of 131 economist by Anthony Randazzo and Jonathan Haidt found that their answers to moral questions predicted their answers to empirical ones.”
Our walk to a laissez-faire economy continued, undebated and barely mentioned internally but, most importantly, the population was never notified or prepared for this impactful change. Today’s economic indicators are telling us that we are seeing the erosion of our traditional middle class. the export of the lower-middle class and the poor keep on getting poorer. Yes, you may argue, this truly resembles the end of the Reagan era and yes, another USA administration had to pick up the pieces. Here, we trek on.
In laissez-faire economies the needs of the sick, the poor, and the handicapped are not a priority of the government. As a matter of fact, the state, ipso facto, continually encourages the social erosion by cutting taxes, one of the key levers to finance social improvements and social services. This, my friends, also includes education.
We see our teachers forced to moonlight as casino dealers. We see our engineers forced to drive taxis. We see our entrepreneurs become chamber maids and gardeners.
This can be a temporary situation, but the class that enjoys the temporary benefits of a laissez-faire will seek to distance itself from the “new” and “old poor” by locking the poverty exit door and demand the removal of all social safety nets, i.e. social security, funds for education and minimum wage. These tools of the “gentler” face of traditional capitalism are removed, and the brutal and unkind laissez-faire hammer is unleashed.
For sure, St. Maarten/St. Martin has a laissez-faire economy. It rides, shotgun style, on the back of our Keynesian and Indigenous economies and sucks its profits and assets therefrom.
While the supporters of “laissez-fair-ism” celebrate their fruits of its “greed is good” and “how much is enough” qualities, the practitioners of true Keynesian economics and “indigenous economics” are left to pick up the pieces and clean up the mess that was left in the wake of the new development path.
Yes, we the tax payers are left to support a great central bank, but this bank does not even recognize or support our traditional banking system, our eternal ethereal Partner Hand (Susu).
As St. Maarteners, we usually try to solve our problems not by looking within, but by importing a solution. An imported solution typically marginalizes the indigenous population and enriches the new faces that embody the “New Solution”.
Because the “New Solution” is always new, and is always invited in, its practitioners can demand a more favourable “level” playing field and act as another downward blow to the existing middle and upper classes. This blow, when coupled by lack of class mobility, permanently locks the nouveau poor into the poverty class. This class consists, increasingly, of indigenous St. Maarteners and yes, regardless of race, whites and blacks alike are affected.
As we begin to drift towards our next election, our future depends on us asking for a clear distinction between our political parties and the offers they are proposing from within those parties. Then we, the people, will judge. Are your bold claims today the product of your life’s work or is it the product of a recent conversion? Have you walked through your proposed policies or are you just a seat-filler for something you simply do not understand?
Come on guys and gals, let’s stand for something and have a political talk about
that with the voters. Let’s talk.
Gregory J. Arrindell
Independent Information Service Professional and Consultant at Grego Tours/Grego Production, Roving Ambassador for a New York-based Caribbean focused Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and host of radio talk show “It’s About Time”
