Misuse of Paul Raskin’s work

May 15, 2025 Letters

Dear Editor,

Allow me respond to a lengthy letter to the Editor on the relevance of Paul Raskin’s work for Guyana by one, A. Thomas (KN, 5/13/2025). If you are not familiar with Raskin, you should know that he holds a PhD in theoretical physics from Columbia University, and is a leading thinker on problems of world order, the global political economy, and environmental sustainability. It is important to note that Raskin’s work is decidedly against divisive politics, undemocratic governance, ethnic chauvinism, racialization, and violence.

For this reason alone, Thomas’ use of Raskin to make claims about developments in Guyana is out of order, and should be summarily dismissed as both pretentious and dangerous.

Raskin is a big, structural thinker, about the direction of human development within the global biosphere. In the Great Transition, Raskin contemplates three possible future scenarios, namely, hegemonic continuity of the current world order, a cataclysmic rupturing if and when the current global structure can no longer absorb contradictions, or a ‘great transition’ founded in a planetary approach to global governance. Ms. Thomas vulgarly manipulates the second global scenario to fit Guyana in ways that go against both the epistemology and moral intent of Raskin’s work.

Think for instance, how outrageous it is that Thomas uses Raskin’s work to level criticisms against Gerry Gouveia and Brian Tiwari. I wonder if she knows that these men employ more than a thousand Guyanese in high paying jobs. Based on her high marginal propensity to racialize everything, I also encourage her to do a check on the demographics of their staff.

This is no place to engage the complex work of Raskin. Yet, given Thomas’ gambit, I must, at a minimum, note that “barbarization” and “breakdown” occur because of the choices made by individuals and groups grounded in the social forces of a society. It is not only about leadership at the top. In Guyana, there are social forces that are intensely ideological in terms of racial eschatology. The latest iteration has expressed itself in the inflammatory resignification of Adriana Younge’s death, the child that tragically drowned at Tuschen.

I feel certain that Raskin must be worried about the likes of Thomas. In a keynote address at the biennial conference of the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE) in Reykjavik, Iceland, in August 2014, he expressed doubts about those who are “living in yesterday’s future.” Who the cap fit; let them wear it!

Dr. Raskin called for ‘a politics’ that would “seek to bridge divisions of culture, class, and place, honoring diversity and pluralism within an umbrella of common principles and goals. It would practice a “politics of trust” that tolerates proximate differences in order to sustain the ultimate basis for unity.” He certainly did not advocate division, distrust, or disdain. In this regard, Thomas’ excessive use Henry Jeffrey’s musings is not helpful.

Finally, Raskin did his undergraduate degree at UC, Berkeley. I wonder if Ms. Thomas knows that President Mohamed Irfaan Ali just received Berkeley’s Global Leadership Award for Open Innovation – 2024. The award was presented to recognize President Ali’s leadership in environmental sustainability and inclusive economic growth! Previous awardees include President Barak Obama, businessman Warren Buffet, World Bank president Alden Clausen, and Chair-of-the-Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen.

Sincerely,

Dr. Randy Persaud

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