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The challenge for the PNP’s Progressive Agenda
Everton Pryce
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
WHAT has happened to the Progressive Agenda of the People's National Party? The silence surrounding the Oppositions' 21st century vision document is deafening, given current global and national economic and political realities. This has caused quite a number of supporters of the party to question whether its adoption of the role of a quiet Opposition, relative to its past performance while in opposition, is related to epistemological problems with the basic tenets of its menu of new progressive ideas and principles.
Even local newspaper columnists and contributors have been prompted at various times in the past year to call on the party to “communicate” the meaning, purpose and objectives of its new ideological framework document, so as to offer the voting public a clear and better vision as to what to expect from a future PNP government.
Perhaps the party does not feel pressured to communicate the raison d'être of its Progressive Agenda, given its lead in the polls over the ruling JLP administration. And with two years’ expectancy to the next general election, it may have adopted the strategic view that it has time in which to concentrate on other objectives it considers more pressing, like fund-raising.
Whatever the reason for the silence, it is clear that these are tough, if not challenging times for the politics of expectation and progressive governments.
The evidence suggests that progressive governments in countries like Spain and Greece have joined newly elected conservative liberal coalitions in the UK and Germany in raising taxes and cutting spending as a way of expanding their economies. This is a far cry from earlier responses to the global financial crisis by progressive parties in Europe that amounted to adopting the Keynesian economic stimulus packages and unemployment and social protection policies commonly associated with social democrats. And despite President Barack Obama's continued pursuit of a stimulusled and pro-growth agenda in the USA, his country, and several in Europe, still face persistent long-term unemployment and the threat of a deflationary trap.
In fact, the resurgence of the old economic orthodoxy of fiscal austerity measures has put long-term economic growth and economic recovery at risk in Europe and the USA, and much of the world, promoting in the process an unprogressive style of leadership that imposes suffering on people in tough economic times.
As I see it, the seminal challenge for the PNP in articulating a progressive vision for the society in the second decade of the 21st century relates to the fact that the many changes that have taken place in the global economy since it was last in power, and continue unabated, have narrowed considerably any room it once had to manoeuvre. This relates to critical policy regarding development, which in turn has robbed it of its ability to readily dominate public discourse with regard to key social, political and economic issues in a media environment saturated with the misgivings of the JLP where their presumptions are ever suspect and their duplicity requiring always to be laid bare.
Champions of mass political progress over the past century, such as the British Labour Party and the Dutch Labour Party, for example, have suffered wretched performances, and centre-left governments in Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Austria and Britain slumped to historic lows in recent polls. Simultaneously, mainstream right-wing governing parties, like the JLP, are playing it safe in the present crisis by launching huge public spending programmes (a la JDIP) in the attempt to mitigate massive social polarisation and joblessness, cushion the impact of unemployment, and retain state power. Much of this inevitably place pressure on progressive parties out of power, like the PNP, which, having bought into the capitalist ethos long ago, now have nothing fundamentally new to say to capture the imagination of the voting public.
This is why the party – if it hopes to go beyond a grand narrative that articulates the case for modernised government when all across Europe and in much of the global economy have had a series of harsh spending cuts, cannot escape serious public discourse on how it intends to construct what its Policy Commission member, Winston Davidson, calls a “globally integrated sustainable economy”. It cannot hope to convince the voting public of Jamaica that it has what it takes to transform the market-statesocial relations and management of the economy under Jamaican capitalism, without confronting the stubborn realities of the present global economic landscape and the experiences of progressive governments therein.
In all of this, the party's president, Portia Simpson Miller, will have to lead from the front in selling the ideas of the Progressive Agenda to an apprehensive electorate by articulating a coherent vision of state and market relations for Jamaica in the 21st century as a progressive growth model that can be analysed, discussed and compared vis-à-vis the JLP's conservative, pro-IMF economic orthodoxy.
To be sure, while the secretariat of the party is busy with its internal renovation project, potential voters in the next general election will want to know in some detail its vision for postcrisis economic renewal in Jamaica. Will the Progressive Agenda going forward involve, for example, an IMF path to growth, development and the creation of jobs?
I sincerely hope that when the vision of the Progressive Agenda is outlined to the public it will be presented in language and values that resonate with most Jamaicans. Let the dialogue begin.
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1AqnuARsO
The challenge for the PNP’s Progressive Agenda
Everton Pryce
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
WHAT has happened to the Progressive Agenda of the People's National Party? The silence surrounding the Oppositions' 21st century vision document is deafening, given current global and national economic and political realities. This has caused quite a number of supporters of the party to question whether its adoption of the role of a quiet Opposition, relative to its past performance while in opposition, is related to epistemological problems with the basic tenets of its menu of new progressive ideas and principles.
Even local newspaper columnists and contributors have been prompted at various times in the past year to call on the party to “communicate” the meaning, purpose and objectives of its new ideological framework document, so as to offer the voting public a clear and better vision as to what to expect from a future PNP government.
Perhaps the party does not feel pressured to communicate the raison d'être of its Progressive Agenda, given its lead in the polls over the ruling JLP administration. And with two years’ expectancy to the next general election, it may have adopted the strategic view that it has time in which to concentrate on other objectives it considers more pressing, like fund-raising.
Whatever the reason for the silence, it is clear that these are tough, if not challenging times for the politics of expectation and progressive governments.
The evidence suggests that progressive governments in countries like Spain and Greece have joined newly elected conservative liberal coalitions in the UK and Germany in raising taxes and cutting spending as a way of expanding their economies. This is a far cry from earlier responses to the global financial crisis by progressive parties in Europe that amounted to adopting the Keynesian economic stimulus packages and unemployment and social protection policies commonly associated with social democrats. And despite President Barack Obama's continued pursuit of a stimulusled and pro-growth agenda in the USA, his country, and several in Europe, still face persistent long-term unemployment and the threat of a deflationary trap.
In fact, the resurgence of the old economic orthodoxy of fiscal austerity measures has put long-term economic growth and economic recovery at risk in Europe and the USA, and much of the world, promoting in the process an unprogressive style of leadership that imposes suffering on people in tough economic times.
As I see it, the seminal challenge for the PNP in articulating a progressive vision for the society in the second decade of the 21st century relates to the fact that the many changes that have taken place in the global economy since it was last in power, and continue unabated, have narrowed considerably any room it once had to manoeuvre. This relates to critical policy regarding development, which in turn has robbed it of its ability to readily dominate public discourse with regard to key social, political and economic issues in a media environment saturated with the misgivings of the JLP where their presumptions are ever suspect and their duplicity requiring always to be laid bare.
Champions of mass political progress over the past century, such as the British Labour Party and the Dutch Labour Party, for example, have suffered wretched performances, and centre-left governments in Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Austria and Britain slumped to historic lows in recent polls. Simultaneously, mainstream right-wing governing parties, like the JLP, are playing it safe in the present crisis by launching huge public spending programmes (a la JDIP) in the attempt to mitigate massive social polarisation and joblessness, cushion the impact of unemployment, and retain state power. Much of this inevitably place pressure on progressive parties out of power, like the PNP, which, having bought into the capitalist ethos long ago, now have nothing fundamentally new to say to capture the imagination of the voting public.
This is why the party – if it hopes to go beyond a grand narrative that articulates the case for modernised government when all across Europe and in much of the global economy have had a series of harsh spending cuts, cannot escape serious public discourse on how it intends to construct what its Policy Commission member, Winston Davidson, calls a “globally integrated sustainable economy”. It cannot hope to convince the voting public of Jamaica that it has what it takes to transform the market-statesocial relations and management of the economy under Jamaican capitalism, without confronting the stubborn realities of the present global economic landscape and the experiences of progressive governments therein.
In all of this, the party's president, Portia Simpson Miller, will have to lead from the front in selling the ideas of the Progressive Agenda to an apprehensive electorate by articulating a coherent vision of state and market relations for Jamaica in the 21st century as a progressive growth model that can be analysed, discussed and compared vis-à-vis the JLP's conservative, pro-IMF economic orthodoxy.
To be sure, while the secretariat of the party is busy with its internal renovation project, potential voters in the next general election will want to know in some detail its vision for postcrisis economic renewal in Jamaica. Will the Progressive Agenda going forward involve, for example, an IMF path to growth, development and the creation of jobs?
I sincerely hope that when the vision of the Progressive Agenda is outlined to the public it will be presented in language and values that resonate with most Jamaicans. Let the dialogue begin.
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1AqnuARsO
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