Should Jamaica change to an autocracy?
Published:Friday | July 19, 2019 | 12:10 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
Jamaica cannot improve as a democracy. At this point, it will take an autocratic approach to improve things in the country. Democracy is not for every country.
There are successful democratic countries, and there are successful autocratic countries. Countries have to choose a form of government based not on the example and insistence of other countries, but on the nature of its population.
Jamaica requires a top-heavy, militaristic leadership to control a far too rebellious and difficult-to-control populace. Having a police state is not necessarily a bad thing.
We have to think in terms of trading liberty for prosperity. Authoritarian states run by honest military leaders enjoy an extremely low murder rate per capita, the absence of run-away corruption, higher life expectancy than others, very high rates of GDP growth, and a cleanliness and ease-of-doing-business index that are the highest in the world.
Singapore is an autocratic country, Rwanda is an autocratic country, and you can’t deny their success. Singapore is the eighth-safest, third-richest, third least-corrupt country on Earth. It enjoys the third-highest life expectancy in the world, and it is the cleanest country on Earth.
Authoritarianism is a dirty word for many steeped in the not-so-warm embrace of so-called democracy. There comes a time when you have to force prosperity and stability on a population. It is time for Jamaica to move in that direction.
Paul Haye