Social transformation in the Caribbean requires a level of historical understanding and engagement with the societies of the region and the socialist projects which all collapsed because of the intellectual/cultural divergences between the leaders and their respective societies. Paradoxically, the search for socialist transformation increased levels of dependence in these societies upon external actors, for intellectual validation and for material resources to deal with the economic consequences of political decisions.
In Guyana, Curacao, and Jamaica, there was massive financial and human capital flight from which these societies have yet to recover more than three decades later. In the case of Grenada, the self-immolation of the NJM led to the loss of an entire generation of leaders. In the case of Curacao, all major companies and income earners, Shell, Texas Instruments and others were driven out by the then socialist leaders. In the case of St. Maarten, we are still living with the investment unfriendly laws implemented by Curacao's socialist governments of the seventies and eighties, the restrictive labor laws and multiple layers of high taxation, which in turn lead to wealth redistribution. Hence, poor economic growth and zero job creation on St. Maarten, and throughout the Caribbean.
In recent years, failed European socialism has been adopted by many European dependencies in the Caribbean, which in turn created social economic dependents, unwanted babies and the brake down of the family unit.
It is this paradox of socialism as a strategy of social transformation that leads to increased dependence upon external actors who scholars of the Caribbean will have to re-examine in the twilight years of the regimes that arose out of the Cuban revolution.
Peter Gunn