It is the role of government in Guyana to directly and indirectly create employment for citizens

Sep 01, 2019 Features / Columnists, Hinds' Sight with Dr. David Hinds

Let me start today’s column by saying, emphatically, that I hold firmly to the belief that one of the biggest roles of government in contemporary Guyana is to directly and indirectly provide employment for citizens. In this regard, I differ with the thinking of some leading members of the APNU+AFC Coalition.

WPA Executive Member, Dr. David Hinds

I advance this position against the backdrop of four universally accepted functions of government First, government must provide for the welfare of citizens. Second, government must do for citizens what they cannot do for themselves. Third, government must promote equality, including protecting the weak from the strong. Fourth, it is government that must determine who gets what, when and how.
I have been alarmed at the thinking of some members of this Coalition Government – that it is not the role of government to create jobs for citizens. This is a new thinking that is out of place in a country like Guyana. It is a borrowed thinking that was introduced by the IMF, three decades ago, that does not take into consideration the political and economic realities of Guyana.
It is an economic theory and ideology that has failed to put an end to the structural socio-economic problems which we inherited from almost four centuries of economic and political bondage. It is a thinking that has led and would continue to lead to the worst anti-people policies.
It is a thinking that would in the final analysis alienate important segments of the poor and the powerless. It was not the thinking of Jagan’s PPP, Burnham’s PNC and Rodney’s WPA — they all embraced a thinking and practice that saw government as a vehicle for uplifting the poor in all areas of life,
To begin with, it is absurd for persons to ask citizens to vote them into government and then turn around and tell the very voters that it is not the role of government to provide for them.
Second, it is nonsensical to look at a post-plantation society with a mini-private sector that is mostly engaged in “ buying and selling” and then tell people that it is not the government’s role to provide jobs for them. I ask—if not the government, then who?
Third, it is equally foolish to suggest to people to create jobs for themselves in the absence of an overarching policy aimed at producing and sustaining new entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs do not produce themselves—they are produced by intentional government policies, including government subsidies.
Of course, this minimalist role of government is part of conservative orthodoxy in First World capitalist countries where the government is expected to stay out of the economic sector. The private sector is seen as the engine of economic growth. But, if one follows what happens in those countries, there is a role for government in the economic sector—when the private sector messes up, the government steps in to bail them out.
Further, when the private sector cannot provide jobs, the government steps in with unemployment relief for workers and assistance to businesses to help them generate jobs.
So, in these big capitalist countries, there are big private sectors that generate jobs for the people. The government helps to create and subsidize the private sector. Government does provide jobs in the government sector such as the public service, but that sector is not as big as the private sector. In other words, there is some justification for the politicians in these countries to say that it is not the role of government to create jobs. The government gives the resources to the private sector in the form of tax breaks and other subsidies with the hope that the latter creates employment for citizens.
Those conditions do not exist in Guyana—our country has developed differently. Guyana and our Caribbean cousins are particular types of societies with histories that are different from the First World countries. We do not have a thriving and diverse private sector. It is therefore the government’s role to provide employment for citizens until they can do so for themselves.
Guyana’s private sector can only provide jobs which pay a livable wage for a small fraction of the population. The small “roadside businesses” that poor people engage in, do not and cannot provide most of them with a livable wage, much more create jobs for others. There are many farmers who produce food for which they cannot find adequate markets.
Yes, the government does not own 80 percent of the economy as it did back in the early decades of independence. But Guyana’s economy is still not driven by the private sector. So, government still has to play an active role in directly and semi-directly creating jobs. Oil and Gas are here, but they will produce very few direct jobs. Government has to figure out how to use the revenue from the oil and gas to create employment.
It is frustrating to hear some leaders blame widespread unemployment on some cultural defect on the part of the unemployed—that they don’t want to work. This class-denigration on the part of the privileged and semi-privileged in our society is dangerous, because it informs policy. For example, some leaders are opposed to cash transfers to poor people, because they feel they will spend the money on unimportant things, or it would encourage them not to work. That economic thinking is grounded in a socio-racial view of the world that has its origins in slavery.
Our leaders must stop that wrong talk. The WPA and AFC have come out for cash transfers. I understand the PPP is coming out with a version of it. At least one leader of ANUG is for it. The PNC and the other parties in APNU are the only ones who have not embraced it. Cash transfers can be used by people to create employment for themselves.
Unemployment is a scourge. It is the root of many social evils. I, therefore. urge poor people to hold on to your votes until the parties confirm to you that they are seeking government to find work for you. It is crazy to ask unemployed people for their vote and then tell them it’s not your job to find work for them. I am not into that nonsense.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

More of Dr. Hinds’ writings and commentaries can be found on his YouTube Channel Hinds’ Sight: Dr. David Hinds’ Guyana-Caribbean Politics and on his website www.guyanacaribbeanpolitics.news. Send comments to [email protected]

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