Dear Editor,
Allow me to wade into this ongoing debate between F Skinner and Lincoln Lewis that spawned this interesting topic of wealth creation in Guyana. The question is whether the state or the individual/community bears primary responsibility for wealth creation with focus on the African-Guyanese populace. Unquestionably, both the state and the individual are responsible for facilitating the creation and pursuit of legitimate wealth. I focus on legitimate wealth in this letter because in Guyana there is great proliferation of ill-gotten wealth.
In a stable, non-corrupt and properly managed state, wealth creation is the shared responsibility of both the state and the individual and by extension the community. In a failed, poor, corrupt, broken, winner-takes-all state with no credible history of wealth creation and divided on ethnic and partisan political lines with the winner controlling scarce resources, primary responsibility for wealth creation transfers mostly to the individual/community.
Wealth in these unique states can be originated personally by saving, sacrificing and investing within one’s comfort zone and on a commercial scale by taking business risks, borrowing loans and establishing corporate structures. Both approaches can lead to wealth regardless of the systemic constraints. Both approaches require proper orientation, participation and adaptability.
Orientation to wealth creation in the African-Guyanese community is presently stymied by several factors, most notably a poor personal saving rate, low investment rate, business risk aversion, low communal wealth generation endeavours and high public sector and service sector participation rate. An improved personal savings rate will create more wealth for investment, and improved personal investment generates more wealth for forays into corporate wealth creation. The current African-Guyanese per capita participation rate in commercial wealth generation is poor compared to the rest of the population. That is largely because of business risk aversion which must be overcome. African-Guyanese shifted from being the first indigenous capitalists post-slavery to a public sector and service class orientation relatively quickly. This shift became largely permanent and as the economy sank into perilous times post-independence, the underlying wealth of African-Guyanese was vastly washed away while other groups moved into other capital-generating ventures. A radical shift in orientation to wealth generation is necessary for African-Guyanese to enjoy an improved economic condition as a group. A bigger problem for African-Guyanese capitalism and entrepreneurism is its lack of support from its own group. African-Guyanese businessmen and the community must lead the charge in educating African-Guyanese about the benefits of personal and commercial wealth generation.
Regarding adaptability, Mr Lewis’s letter in SN of November 21, 2009 (‘It is the institutions of the state which facilitate the pursuit of wealth’) refers to examples of denials, attacks and excuses in relation to African-Guyanese attempts at wealth creation. That is par for the course in any ethnically divided political environment where equity and fairness are missing. Indian-Guyanese faced such roadblocks under the PNC but adapted sufficiently to overcome them to generally create more capital on a personal and commercial level than African-Guyanese under the PNC. The PNC made favourable attempts to foster African-Guyanese wealth creation during their rule without substantial success.
Political activism coupled with commercial perseverance and a spirited focus on wealth creation will open stubborn doors. The greatest form of empowerment is economic empowerment, and dramatically so for a poor people in a poor nation. That is the true measure of freedom. Without a strong African-Guyanese capitalist class in Guyana alongside the Indian-Guyanese capitalist class the nation cannot achieve a decent path of economic progress. Wealth creation is not an alien concept to African-Guyanese who were the first independent producers in Guyana after slavery before becoming a mostly entrenched consumer and service providing class to the primary capitalists. If enough African-Guyanese return to their primary producing and wealth generating capitalist roots, Guyana’s economic future will be the place of remarkable improvement. In fact, this nation needs a rising tide of legitimate capitalists to emerge and quickly so to save it from its continuous decline into a permanent economic wasteland.
Yours faithfully,
Michael Maxwell
