Rights, responsibilities in independent Trinidad and Tobago

DR JAMELIA HARRIS

THIS YEAR we celebrate 63 years of independence. We are a young democracy. Take someone born in 1962, they are not yet eligible for “old age pension.” It is therefore critical that we nurture our young democracy.

In his first speech to our newly independent nation, Dr Eric Williams expressed his vision of democracy for TT. The word “democracy” was said 17 times in that speech. The word “Parliament,” the symbol of our democracy, 21 times. Other frequently occurring words were “responsibility” and “rights.” An excerpt of the speech follows:

“The first responsibility that devolves upon you is the protection and promotion of your democracy. Democracy means more, much more, than the right to vote and one vote for every man and every woman of the prescribed age. Democracy means recognition of the rights of others.

"Democracy means equality of opportunity for all in education, in the public service, and in private employment – I repeat, and in private employment. Democracy means the protection of the weak against the strong. Democracy means the obligation of the minority to recognise the right of the majority.

"Democracy means responsibility of the government to its citizens, the protection of the citizens from the exercise of arbitrary power and the violation of human freedoms and individual rights. Democracy means freedom of worship for all and the subordination of the right of any race to the overriding right of the human race. Democracy means freedom of expression and assembly of organisation.”

Williams was clear in his articulation – in a democracy, citizens have both rights and responsibilities. The government, too, has responsibilities to citizens. This is the social contract – the underlying rules that govern how citizens behave towards each other, and how the government and citizens behave towards each other.

Take some examples. Everyone has a right to a decent standard of living, but a responsibility to uphold the law in the pursuit of this. Businesses have a right to make profits, but a responsibility not to exploit its workers, consumers or the environment. Political parties have a right to shore-up support from their base, but a responsibility to preserve institutions, maintain national traditions, and govern without favour. With rights come responsibilities.

In recent decades, it appears that our citizenry has become increasingly concerned with the rights side of the social contract, oftentimes neglecting the responsibility side.

This is not just a TT thing. It’s a global thing. In his book The Future of Capitalism, Sir Paul Collier, a highly respected Oxford professor and development economist, highlighted our heightened awareness of our rights, with little regard for our responsibilities as capitalism developed globally.

Although it is a global thing, it does not mean it is a desirable thing – particularly for TT.

At the heart of a capitalist system is what economists refer to as “homo-economicus” or economic man (or woman). Homo-economicus is self-interested and seeks to maximise his/her own well-being. Homo-economics creates firms to maximise profits. Homo-economicus wants to guarantee his/her rights.

At face value, nothing is wrong with this. But sometimes there is a trade-off between rights and responsibilities, which we must be mindful of.

One of the main reasons for this trade-off is that homo-economicus gets greedy. Self-interest morphs into selfishness. He/she quickly moves from being self-interested in the necessity sense to having an excessive desire for more – particularly material possessions, wealth or power, and often to the disregard for others. Whether humans are like this by nature or through socialisation has been debated for centuries.

Regardless of the cause, recognising this and trying to address it is important. If left unchecked, one clear manifestation is inequality. We see this is TT. Estimates from the World Inequality Database show that 51.8 per cent of pre-tax national income and 63.3 per cent of net personal wealth accrue to the top ten per cent in the population. That is more than half of income and wealth being held by only ten per cent of people.

High inequality is not just a statistic. It is costly to society. Inequality is associated with high levels of crime. There is robust evidence of the inequality-crime relationship in Latin America and the Caribbean. We live this in TT. Research also shows that crime and violence can affect democracy. As a democracy matures violent crime reduces; but high crime levels can threaten democracy.

This brings us back to Williams: “The first responsibility that devolves upon you is the protection and promotion of your democracy.”

As Richard “Nappy” Mayers sang in 1991: “Used to be everyone cared for each other;/Lived like brothers, respected one another.” We cannot “bring back the ole time days” as such. But we can bring back being more responsible community-oriented and patriotic citizens – including our politicians and public officials. Being responsible to each other. Being responsible for preserving our democracy. Being responsible for helping TT be the best it can be.

Happy 63rd independence, TT!