Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

You will know the truth and the truth will set you free – The Bible; John 8:32

Over 100 years ago there was a Great Debate in the world:

Which form of government would be best for mankind to prosper where planted?

Capitalism or Communism?

People took sides …

Passions flared …

“They” stood their ground, on both sides; wars ensued – think the Cold War.

The debate has since ended! Most historians conclude this issue was settled in 1989 – 1991; think the Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall as depicted in Appendix VIDEO below.

Who won?!

Truth be told, the Communists lost! The biggest proponent of Communism was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Not only did the USSR lose that debate, but they do not even exist anymore. These 15 former republics that constituted the USSR are now all independent states, that now all embrace Free Market principles:

Do you see what we did there?

We just called “balls and strikes” for you. This is the only way to play and enjoy the great game of baseball. Someone has to be objective, impartial and technocratic. Depending on the strategy, “balls” could be good or bad; “strikes” could be good or bad; this is why it is important to just call/judge them correctly. Hooray for unbiased Umpires.

This commentary is not about baseball; this is about changing the Caribbean. Change comes about via two modes:

Revolutionary – sudden, immediate and forced on by a higher authority or external entities; think wars.

Evolutionary – slowly and gradually conforming to a new standard; building momentum.

These changes maybe for the good or for the bad. Sometimes, there is a Bad Orthodoxy that simply must be reformed or transformed. Sometimes there is a peaceful existence that is upended by external factors – think pandemics or natural disasters – so changes must be contended with.

For the 30 member-states that constitute the political Caribbean, all of these scenarios apply. We have participated in the Great Debates of “Capitalism versus Communism” and we have weighed-in and even voted for one course versus another. Sometimes, we may have only voted with our feet and fled the homeland to seek refuge in a society that we agreed with.

We have endured a lot of changes here in the Caribbean. We have seen the Agents of Change overcome our region: Technology, Climate Change, Globalization and an Aging Diaspora. We have also had political revolutions … over this same issue here in the region. In fact, we have the Republic of Cuba, an official Communist State and many other countries that have flirted with Pure or Extreme Socialism to the brink of favoring a Communist-style governance; consider:

Grenada flirtation with Communism led to an US Invasion in 1982

Guyana’s constitution have this country branded as the Co-operative Republic of Guyana

Jamaica’s previous Prime Minister Michael Manley overtly flirted with Communists regimes during the Cold War.

Political revolutions require a total reboot of the eco-system, normally requiring new constitutions. A new constitution is not just an amendment to the law, it is a total rebuild. A total rebuild reminds us of the Phoenix mythology; that from the “ashes of the old society, a new society can emerge”. So moving towards Communism or moving away from Communism requires revolution changes and rising from the ashes.

• Which move would be best for the Caribbean?
• Now is the time to call the “Balls and the Strikes”.

Those countries above that have flirted with Communism are all near Failed-State status. In addition, the professional classes in those countries all fled their homeland to evade the Pure Socialist policies; i.e. Guyana suffered a 89% brain drain rate.

This is the continuation of the June 2020 Teaching Series from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean; this is entry 4 of 6. This movement presents a Teaching Series every month on a subject that is germane to Caribbean life. Our focus this month is on Rising from the Ashes and we need to burn down the house of many Caribbean governing engines – especially those leaning towards Pure Socialism; for any hope to thrive in the future we must embrace Free Market ideals. By treaty, we can even install Self-Governing Entities (SGE) – think: industrial parks, research labs, commercial districts, shipyards, Entertainment Zones, etc. – in among Communist states. This is conceivable, believable and achievable!

The full catalog for this month’s series is listed as follows:

• Rising from the Ashes – The Phoenix rises from the Pandemic
• Rising from the Ashes – One person – Dead or Alive – can make a difference
• Rising from the Ashes – Natural Disasters – The Price of Paradise
• Rising from the Ashes – Political Revolutions – Calling Balls and Strikes
• Rising from the Ashes – War – “What is it good for?”
• Rising from the Ashes – Wrong Ethos could also rise – Cautionary tale of patriotic German Jews

There are no Ands, Ifs or Buts; Communism has not worked. Russia, the flagship country in the former USSR is much more successful now as a Free market economy that they had ever been as a Communist State. This is also true of Communist-led China, who only present “Communism” in name only; their economy had been rebooted since 1978 and they have succeed in elevating 1.3 billion out of poverty to become the 2^nd largest Single Market economy in the world; (behind the USA).

The Go Lean book posits that the Caribbean member-states can reform and transform without changing the sovereignty of the countries. The book explained (Page 127) this as a product of the confederation of the Caribbean Union Trade federation (CU). See here:

Confederation Without Sovereignty
The CU is only a trade and security bloc, so the sovereignty of island nations remains with its current possessors. So Puerto Rico remains with the US; the Caymans with the UK; Curacao with the Netherlands; Guadeloupe with France, etc. Yet there are still severe consequences for violating the mandates of the CU, that of economic sanctions. When a country’s currency is maintained by the regional bloc, they are less inclined to egregiously work against their best interest. (This is the EU model). For Cuba, a Communist country, their political structure remains their choice, as the CU is only the technocratic and economic engine that does their trade bidding.

The Go Lean movement advocates that all member-states do the heavy-lifting necessary to reform and transform the economic and governing engines of the Caribbean, individually and collectively. “Reform and transform” means being better and doing better. The status quo is flawed and defective; we do not need to simply fix or repair the broken governance; rather we need to replace it.

The roof is on fire we don’t need no water; let … [it] burn.

This subject – transforming and optimizing governance – has been a consistent theme in many previous Go Lean blog-commentaries consider this sample list:

Time to call “Balls and Strikes”. Consider these previous political revolutions that affected the Caribbean member-states; the call is they were Over-due:

• 1804 – Haitian Revolution and Independence – Which started as a slave rebellion in 1791 ended up as sovereignty for the previous enslaved people; 3 slavery-supporting empires (France, Spain, England) fought to deter the Haitians.
• 1807 – End of Slave Trade – The atrocity of the Slave Trade could not be justified, rationalized or minimized.
• 1834 – End of Slavery in British Empire – The British possessed 18 of the 30 Caribbean member-states, so ending slavery for a victory for human rights, ahead of other empires (US, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal & Spain).
• 1861 – US Civil War – A Demonstration of the Resolve of the “Pro” and “Anti” Slavery Camps. The only way to end slavery in the US homeland.
• 1898 – America’s War on the Caribbean – Spain continued atrocities in their Caribbean territories (Cuba & Puerto Rico) long after abolition was mandated elsewhere. This War gave Cuba their long-sought independence.
• 1917 – World War I was an explosive rejection of oppression by oppressive regimes. As a result, Denmark surrendered their Virgin Islands territory to the US.
• 1948 – United Nations Declaration of Human Rights – This was part of the post-mortem from World War II.
• 1959 – Cuban Revolution – The Institutional Racism and Crony-Capitalism in Cuba was ripe for revolt and revolution.
• 1962 – End of West Indies Federation – The weak foundation made this “country” unsuccessful and unsustainable.
• 2014 – Failure of CariCom – Don’t get it twisted! This regional construct does not work. It needs to be burned down …
• 2019 – Cuba’s New Constitution – The Communist Revolution failed. It is time to revert to a Free Market economy.

There is a lot of heavy-lifting for the Caribbean member-states to do, individually and collectively, to elevate the societal engines in the region. The absolute first thing is to be honest and call the “balls and strikes” accurately. Here is the call for the Caribbean actuality and reality:

• The Caribbean is at the precipice.
• The problems are too big for any one member-state alone to mitigate.
• The whole region of 30 member-states, despite the colonial heritage, are in the same boat and need to come together – to confederate and collaborate – to effect change in the region:
  “… more integration and better governance ‘hold the key’ to greater prosperity.”

That is the call! (The issue of Communism vs Capitalism is too simplistic, as the winning societal structure is actually a hybrid).

Anything else, is just putting “band-aids” on small abrasions, patching the roofs of our society, when actually we need to “burn the house down” and build a new society from the ashes of the old. This is our quest:

Rise from the ashes …

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste!

We hereby urge everyone in the Caribbean to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap to reboot and turn-around the Caribbean homeland. Let’s “burn down” the old bad orthodoxy and make the permanent changes for good. This is how we will make the Caribbean a better homeland to live, work and play.  🙂

About the Book
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

• Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
• Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
• Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society.

Download the free e-Book of G those who have rebooted well and o Lean … Caribbean – now!

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxiv.  Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

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Appendix VIDEO – The rise and fall of the Berlin Wall – Konrad H. Jarausch – https://youtu.be/A9fQPzZ1-hg

TED-Ed
Posted August 16, 2017 – On August 13, 1961, construction workers began tearing up streets and erecting barriers in Berlin. This night marked the beginning of one of history’s most infamous dividing lines: the Berlin Wall. Construction continued for a decade as the wall cut through neighborhoods, separated families, and divided not just Germany, but the world. Konrad H. Jarausch details the history of the Berlin Wall.

Lesson by Konrad H. Jarausch, directed by Remus & Kiki.

View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-rise-a…

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