It might have been assumed that with the ascendancy of the economics and ideology of globalisation, the ideas of political economists such as Professor Lloyd Best, who died this week, at 71, had seen their last.

Ironically, it is globalisation that may be adding new and renewed relevance to thinkers like Best, regarded as one of the finest academics to emerge from the Caribbean. Indeed, much of the critique of globalisation is grounded in the ideas, postulated by Best, and others, who formed the New World Group at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) in the 1960s and 1970s, explaining the concept of the plantation economy in the post-colonial Caribbean.

The plantation model speaks not only to the estates and mono-crop culture of West Indian slave societies, but addresses its inheritors; this matter of low-level, low-wage output from the peripheral units destined for the economic centres of the world. It was a relationship which, they argued, perpetuated dependency and underdevelopment.

Whatever may be the current intellectual orthodoxy of the Caribbean, there are clear parallels between the ideasand concerns raised by Best and the New World thinkers in their criticisms of the relationship between developed and underdeveloped countries in the prevailing process of globalisation.

Much of the accumulation of global wealth, the argument still goes, remains in the hands of the few, while the many are marginalised. And the gap now grows wider, expanded by the differential in technology between the advantaged and disadvantaged sectors.

This point is the essential element of Lloyd Best. His thinking was about advancing the lot of the many who, in the context of the Caribbean, meant mostly the poor and underprivileged. But Best was not primarily about polemics; his positions were underpinned by serious analysis and intellectual rigour. You could disagree and/or arrive at different conclusions and different approaches to development, but there was no dismissing Lloyd Best's arguments.

Best was also firm in his position that improving the economic condition of the individual and the community was not of itself sufficient; it had to be underpinned by an accommodating structure and environment that afford people the fullest in social expression. Caribbean people, in that context, had to enjoy the highest quality of governance.

Best cajoled, but with a waspish tongue also slashed at Caribbean leaders who failed to work towards the aspirations of their people, domestically and of the wider region. In retrospect, Lloyd Best was best at being, literally, a Caribbean man. May he rest in peace.

The JLP and LNG deal

We are heading into the political silly season, so perhaps we shouldn't be surprised at the worsening attempts at point-scoring by the ruling and opposition parties.

The latest example is that of Shadow Energy Minister Clive Mullings' attempt at belittling the memorandum of understanding between Jamaica and Venezuela for Caracas to supply natural gas to Kingston in what form has not yet been determined. Mr. Mullings said the agreement was without substance.

It seems that Mr. Mullings' hope is that this agreement, like the one with Trinidad and Tobago, collapses, to the embarrassment of the Government.

That is sad, for it is Jamaica, rather than a political party, which will benefit if the gas, whether in the form of LNG or CNG, becomes available.