Norris R. McDonald | Unjust enrichment and the political economy of racism

DESPITE MAKING up more than 95 per cent of the population, black Jamaicans have remained largely excluded from real political and economic power. Except during progressive periods under the People’s National Party, it is the wealthy minority who have continued to thrive, while the black majority has been marginalised.

Jamaica is racially diverse, with 91.6 per cent of the population identifying as black or mixed-black. However, economic inequality in Jamaica is not only about race. It is even more deeply tied to class.

A small percentage, roughly 10 per cent of the population, controls over three-fifths of Jamaica’s wealth. This entrenched oligarchy has managed to preserve the advantages it inherited from slavery and colonialism.

The rise of black nationalist and Pan-Africanist movements provided some of the major forces for change. Yet the political economy of racism in Jamaica has proven remarkably resilient.

RACISM AS A POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC WEAPON

In Jamaica, racism is not merely a relic of social backwardness. It is a political weapon and an economic strategy. It has allowed a small elite to hoard land, wealth, and opportunities, while consistently portraying the Black majority as lazy, backward, or incapable of leadership.

From slavery to sugar plantations, from banana production to bauxite mining, the exploitation of Black labour was foundational to the building of Caribbean capitalism.

Racism justified that exploitation. After emancipation, it persisted through underdevelopment, political manipulation. Dependence on foreign debt is the new pathological, racist tool to perpetuate political economic power and control.

THE BUFFER CLASS AND THE PRESERVATION OF POWER

After emancipation, a mixed-race, brown-skinned, a buffer managerial class were groomed to maintain colonial administration and, after independence, transformed into a modern technocratic elite.

This buffer class were schooled in ‘the Queen’s English’, were hostile to ‘Jamaican Patois’ the emergency native tongue of former slaves, and were more fiercely loyalty to foreign capital and white-centred neo-colonist norms.

MICHAEL MANLEY AND THE INTERRUPTED REVOLUTION

Michael Manley rise to power in 1972 represented a deliberate attempt to create a new Jamaican political economy. As the son of Norman Manley but with a distinctly populist and Afrocentric vision, Michael Manley’s leadership in the 1970s sought to empower the Black working class, expand education, reform labour laws, and build solidarity with African liberation movements.

Manley spoke to the deep yearning of the Jamaican people for dignity and sovereignty. However, external sabotage, internal betrayals, and fierce economic warfare waged by global capital – especially the International Monetary Fund and its allies – undermined his revolution. His dream of a just society was halted before it could fully take root.

THE SEAGA CONTRADICTION

Prime Minister Edward Seaga, known affectionately as “Puppa Eddie”, started with a commendable plan in 1962 – the Jamaicanisation of business. His idea was to expand national ownership and create an indigenous capitalist class. However, Seaga’s plan never went far enough. He failed to challenge the class and ownership structure that left economic power firmly in the hands of the traditional elite.

When Seaga returned to power in 1980, no longer under the shadow of Sir Alexander Bustamante, he had a second chance to reshape Jamaica. But rather than addressing the racial and class imbalances, he deepened them.

Over time, Seaga shifted away from his Jamaicanisation ideals and embraced comprador capitalism, serving foreign imperial interests.

This retreat is symbolised by a stunning fact reported by Lee Hockstader of the Los Angeles Times in 1989: of the 41 companies listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange that year, only four had Black chairmen. Even though 90 per cent of Jamaicans are Black, nearly all the largest and most profitable businesses remained white-controlled.

Seaga abandoned the promise of economic justice and instead arrested and reversed many of the progressive gains made under Michael Manley. In this regard, Seaga failed the national movement he once claimed to represent.

REPEATING OLD MISTAKES

Today my friends, we see many of the same patterns. Promises of empowerment remain largely rhetorical. Meanwhile, the structures of wealth and exclusion grow tighter.

Therefore, talking about who is Black and who is not black is not good enough.

‘We want action not a bagga mouth!

Public service should involve a deep sense of moral responsibility. The eradication of unjust enrichment – the concentration of wealth among a small elite — must become central to our national mission. Justice must therefore move from slogans to substance.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Today’s capitalism — whether managed by multinational banks or local technocrats – still relies on structures of racial and class domination. Racism is not dead. It remains a key operating system of profit and control.

My dear friends, there is growing evidence that loyalty to foreign bosses, not to the Jamaican people, still dominates policymaking. A case in point is the government’s deal with Elon Musk’s Starlink to provide satellite internet to rural schools.

While this move is commendable, the Jamaican people deserve full transparency. How much is Musk being paid? Are there hidden links to Jamaica’s lithium mining, given Musk’s need for the mineral in his electric vehicles?

Transparency and national ownership must be the guiding principles, not secrecy and dependency.

A NATION OF CONTRADICTIONS

Jamaica’s journey has been one of contradictions – independence without full emancipation, progress mixed with exclusion, prosperity for the few, the five per cent, atop: suffering for the vast majority, the 95 per cent and the bottom of the political economic ladder

Given this reality, race, class, and money remain the unholy trinity that defines our fate.

This is the great unresolved tension that neither the People’s National Party nor the Jamaica Labour Party has adequately addressed. It must not be a matter of partisan loyalty. It must be a matter of principle: the prioritisation of the interests of Black Jamaicans, who built this nation with their blood, sweat, and tears.

Tokenism will not suffice. A Black face in government does not mean that the racist, classist nature of Jamaican society has changed. As Frantz Fanon warned in Black Skin, White Masks (1952), many Black leaders have internalised colonial thinking, seeking approval from foreign masters rather than serving their own people.

True political economic transformation demands that Black business owners, Black professionals, Black farmers, and working-class communities see real material benefits from their labour and sacrifice.

We must boldly dismantle unjust structures and root out public corruption which feeds unjust enrichment. These are important prerequisites to build a Jamaica rooted in dignity, equality, and sovereignty.

That is the ‘bitta’ truth.

Norris McDonald is an economic journalist, political analyst, and respiratory therapist. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and miaminorris@yahoo.com.