Ian Boyne, Contributor
For the first time, Jamaicans polled have listed corruption as the second major ill afflicting the country after crime, ahead of high prices and unemployment. This is an important development and indicates a growing awareness of our social and moral crisis.
The roots of our crisis are deep, and many don't begin to touch the surface of it in terms of analysis. People still simplistically say that poverty is the major factor influencing crime, and while it is true that the majority of those who commit violent crimes come from the underclasses, a deeper analysis is needed.
Indeed, one does not have to be an intellectual to see that the correlation between crime and poverty does not translate into causation. Some simple, uncontroversial facts: Jamaica has the second highest crime rate in the world and we are not the second poorest country in the world. There are many countries which are poorer than our middle-income country and yet their crime rates are far lower. But not only that: Jamaica has been much poorer in the past and our crime rate was much lower.
Opportunity
No, we can't discount the relationship between crime and poverty. As Mutty Perkins says daily, if there were "opportunity" for more of our inner-city young people there would be fewer gangs and less crime. But the simple fact is that there are vastly more poor people in our inner cities - including young people - who are 'holding the struggle' and living 'upful' despite the temptation to criminality. The majority of poor, downtrodden youth without any opportunity live decent lives. There are many who are resisting the pull to engage in criminality and who are holding to their integrity.
What makes some poor, desperate and marginalised youth not become involved in crime, and what can we learn from them? I have been interviewing a lot of them over the years and I have some idea.
Never let out of your mind the fact that engaging in violent criminal activity is a minority activity in the hardened, depressed inner cities, and 30 years ago when things were harder (or as hard, if you please) there were fewer persons involved in crime. So, while poverty as a variable has a relationship with crime, it is the values and socialisation of people which seem to have the greater effect in determining whether someone goes into violent criminal activity or not.
Little hope
There are many ghetto youth who woke up this morning without any money in their pockets, with no food for the day, with bills chasing them down and with very little hope of material advancement. And they will be no threat to you and me. Why? What's different about these persons who face the same conditions of degradation, exclusion and lack of "opportunity", as Perkins would put it? They have no jobs, no education, and no friends in high society and yet they satisfy with 'the little much' they have until they can do better. It is only what these persons have in their heads and hearts - not what they have in their pockets - which makes the difference.
In short, it is their values and attitudes. The society has not paid the kind of attention that it ought to values and attitudes, or social capital as the social scientists call it.
Perhaps the most important initiative P.J. Patterson ever embarked on was the values and attitudes thrust which he pioneered but which, tragically, he diverted from under media pressure; particularly, I surmise, from Wilmot Perkins, who harped on the view that he had no credibility to lead such a campaign. Some halting steps were made to resuscitate the programme under Portia Simpson Miller, but they fell woefully short of what was required.
Economistic
Our political and economic elite do not begin to grasp the implications of social capital because they are largely economistic, utilitarian and instrumentalist. Our politicians, business, civic and media leaders reflect the very social crisis which they have the power to reverse. They think in narrow materialistic and economistic ways which cloud their vision and render them myopic.
They see values and attitudes as some religious thing, some nice civic duty, something desirable, but not really crucially important in the cut and thrust of everyday life. They would be content to leave those things to the Church. I keep going back to Don Robotham's 1998 GraceKennedy Foundation lecture, 'Vision and Voluntarism', one of the finest pieces of analysis on Jamaica's social crisis which exists on paper. The other must-read document is Professor Carl Stone's last major paper before his death in 1993, the 1992 paper 'Values Norms and Personality Development in Jamaica'. (Fortunately, it is now available online). Read these two documents and let us have a conversation.
Defining factor
Stone put his finger on the pulse of the issue: "The dominance of money as the single most important currency of influence, power and status, and the decline of respectability as a status defining factor have produced increased and rampant corruption both in government and in the private sector corporate world."
This rotten society which we have today, our increasing anarchy and social decay come because of "profound changes in values, norms and modes of behaviour in all domains of social space", and these have "undermined old authority systems without giving birth to a strong new and legitimate social order". Then comes another profound point which must stand on its own: "The old order is still crumbling but new and coherent authority systems have not emerged to replace it."
The Planning Institute of Jamaica is talking about a 2030 Vision of Jamaica as a place to live work and raise our children, but unless we deal with this issue of values and attitudes that will be a cruel joke. We cannot build a society of first-class producers and service providers on a foundation of weak social capital and moral confusion.
Capitalism, as its intellectual founding father Adam Smith said, is premised on what he called the moral sentiments. In the 1970s the distinguished Harvard sociologist Daniel Bell produced his tour de force work' The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism', and Christopher Lasch his Culture of Narcissism which pointed to some grave problems with consumeristic and hedonistic late-20th century capitalism.
In this society we have not paid the kind of serious attention we ought to issues of values, virtues and attitudes in economic development.
Don Robotham has done us a great service. In his GraceKennedy Foundation Lecture, he said that "Right before our very eyes we are witnessing a fundamental shift in the values of the Jamaican people, and one critical aspect of this shift is an abandonment of altruistic attitudes and the replacement of these by a narrow individualism based on a shallow understanding of what a market economy necessitates."
Creative problem-solvers
Yet, what many don't realise is that a market economy necessitates people who can be trusted to abide by the contracts they make; people who follow the rules of the market; people who are trustworthy, honourable, committed to excellence; people who are creative problem-solvers; who don't panic at the onset of challenges, but who are positive, optimistic, resourceful and resilient.
There is an abundance of studies which show the role that values played in the development of the East Asian Tigers and their spectacular development. Yes, they were authoritarian, repressive societies, but there have been many other authoritarian, repressive societies which have not attained their level of economic growth. But the willingness of the East Asians to postpone gratification - l like the early Calvinistic capitalists - to defer to the group; to consider the common good; to be pulled by big, audacious goals; to work long hours and to strengthen family life - which prepared them for the miracles in economic development which they experienced.
We want to reap the sweets of North American prosperity - the Hennessey life - without having paid our dues. Here's our problem: The global economy is not very favourable to us. A new paper issued late last month by the Council on Foreign Relations and titled, 'Global FDI Policy: Correcting a Protectionist Drift', concludes that " a protectionist drift is, indeed, under way. The negative trend can be seen in official actions in certain countries, as well as the changed public debate. The drift is already reducing the quality and quality of global FDI flows - a reduction that could grow larger."
So, our prospects for attracting increased flows of foreign direct investments are not good if more countries are resorting to protectionism. Not to mention the structural weaknesses of our economy and the absence of a culture of excellence in our businesses. Another working paper just issued this past week, 'Food Price Inflation: Explanation and Policy Implications', by the Maurice Greenberg Centre for Geo-economic Studies, raises worrying concerns about global food prices.
Think again
So, if we are depending on economic growth, massive investments and exports to climb out of our crime crisis, we have to think again. The "opportunity" that Perkins is preaching about daily is even farther afield than he realises, and if only "opportunity", jobs, jobs jobs and economic well-being can curb crime, then dog nyam we supper (though I am not entering the patois debate!)
Re-socialisation and a focus on values and attitudes must be at the centre of any long-term strategy to fight crime. We are not going to have the kind of money to fund the level of social intervention programmes needed, so unless we are going to adopt the Horace Levy Model of making deals with warlords and facilitating peace among gunmen who get to keep their guns, we had better go for this. For those who want to talk meaningful medium to long-term change, values and attitudes have to be at the top of the agenda.
Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at ianboyne1@yahoo.com. Feedback may also be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.
