Note to covid19 recovery team

WAYNE KUBLALSINGH

OUR NATION needs more than recovery from the covid19 crisis. It needs recovery and rescue from the opiate crisis, and its cause, the drug economy. What is the hold of the drug economy in TT and the Caribbean and Latin America? In the US, Europe and globally?

Some say in TT there is an incursion. At the other extreme, some aver that the drug economy rules: we have become so reliant on it that it has become accepted; and to challenge it and defeat it would destroy the foundations of our running economy, its smooth flow and nice easy hum. It has become so ingrained, normalised and everyday amongst us.

To understand this economy we need to explore the nature of capitalism itself, not as a negative doctrine, but as a working economic machine which has a real existence. First, capitalism did not invent trade. Trade, bazaars, markets predated capitalism, an economic system which took root in Europe in the 15th century, succeeding the fall of feudalism.

In feudalism, the lord, and thereafter the court or king or emperor, ran the economy, controlled entrances and exits across gates and borders, taxed, and provided law and order. They controlled the other estates, the realms of the legal system, commerce, foreign relations, the media, education, taxation, lands as far as the eyes could see, in consort with the pope, Brahmins, Confucians, mullahs and the local clansman or dynasty.

Capitalism is the successor to feudalism. It is the placing of the nation into the hands of an economically dominant elite. What is referred to the bourgeois elite. It has gained such financial and economic dominance that it ends up controlling the major institutions of the nation state.

It is in a position to control or intrude upon or “have a word with” the people’s elected Parliament, Cabinet and political leaders. And technocrats, bureaucrats, local administrators. And the army, police. And the education system and media. And the religious bodies. All the nation’s institutions, in fact.

They may control not by the gun, or threat but by suasion. Financial or verbal suasion. In this system, the queen may not order Boris Johnson, the UK Prime Minister, what to do. But she has a right to “have a word.”

Similarly here in TT the President may, if she feels dissatisfied with some kind of overreach or conduct of the PM, may have a word. The Chief of Defence Staff may also do so. It is not within his legal remit to pounce on the PM with a coup. It is within his remit to have the proverbial word. That is our system.

Likewise, the capitalist elite, having gained such financial powers, such dominance in the nation, may have a word. Such an elite may comprise an oil baron-oracy – a complex network of political leaders, technocrats, bureaucrats, public servants, business interests from San Fernando to Atlanta, who take charge and run the business of the State. With the acquiescence of the political leader.

They are entrenched in Cabinet. They are the ones whom the media rush to for the validation of this or that issue. They are the ones which the people, the judiciary, the police and army believe. The schooling system grooms you to fit into their doctrine, as servants and agents.

So what happens when this corn, or wheat, or sheep, or oil-and-gas elite is succeeded by a drugs elite? And it assumes a role in the commanding heights of the economy and the body politic? What happens when it disguises itself and buys into the contractocracy, the technocracy, the bureaucracy, the political party, the nation’s security apparatus? They have a word. Not just any word. But a word backed by the prospects of assassination, kidnapping, blackmail and extortion. Do so and so, or. Rule in such a way, or. Their victims may not know from whence such words or directives come, but they come. Obey or…

The system has been infused. And no one can see its viral pathway. It rules quietly through its infusion into and adopting and control of other elite groups. In such a system, as they say, law and order falls down.

It is not the EMA that rules, have rights and freedom to make the decisions. Not the minister or the prime minister. Not the police or army chief. Not the chamber or the captain of industry or manufacturers’ association. Not the Chief Justice or court judge. Not the headmaster or religious body or ecumenical council. Not the media corporate-boss or editor. Not principle, truth, science and best practice. But such an elite: the coca-cracy. The vicissitudes of, not moral, but amoral or immoral suasion.

The drug economy has intruded. It has infused the system. Wishy-washy long-practised old talk will not work. Practised by the same old bearded souls. Bald head souls. Tired souls. Systems must be set up, sustainable, to withstand the infusions of the drug economy, and the scrutiny of economic time. The new protonic and photonic economy, health, horticulture, sports, education, transport, prisons and judiciary reform. And constituency government: to vaccinate and inoculate the system.

The burden of leadership must be shifted, or wrested, from the shoulders of our small band of susceptible leaders, in government and opposition, onto the backs of the people.