State, Party and Society in a Post-Colonial Plantation-Mineral Enclave Economy

Abstract

The title of the chapter characterizes the Jamaican economy and society well. If we add to the legacy of British colonial rule and of the slave plantation the recently developed bauxite mineral enclave and a few other elements, namely, the independent peasant economy, tourism, and two multi-class party-union complexes, we have a skeletal picture of the Jamaican economy and society in the late 1960s, shortly before the PNP government took power. In this chapter, as a background for the events of the Manley years, we will flesh out this skeleton and outline the impending crisis of the dependent capitalist development path pursued during the 1950s and 1960s.