Inequality and poverty are independent though symbiotically related forces driving Guyana’s political economy. Together and separately they also dynamically interact with and through the broader development environment. Therefore, beginning today and for the next few columns I will briefly address a number of crucial developmental considerations arising from my earlier columns on inequality and poverty in Guyana.
Truthfully, most of these concerns have arisen out of readers’ queries. In this and coming columns I intend to treat with the following five, in the order indicated: 1) the rightful place of basic needs deprivation in the study of inequality and poverty; 2) the limitations of GDP as an indicator of economic performance, welfare, and well-being in Guyana; 3) the roles of the minimum wage and trade unionism in the fight against inequality and poverty; 4) the theoretical underpinnings or laws of motion driving production, extended reproduction, and distribution in Guyana; and 5) the global impact on domestic inequality and poverty.
Basic needs
The first topic is considered because two overseas readers, one of whom is from the International Labour Organiza-tion (ILO), have expressed the view that I did not properly acknowledge the role of the ILO (and by implication the global labour movement) in pioneering the basic needs approach to the understanding and treatment of poverty. I plead guilty to this omission, which is clearly both historically and institutionally unacceptable. Readers should indeed have been made aware that
