Dear Editor,
Economics stands among the noble social sciences aimed at providing solutions for the elimination of poverty and improving the welfare of humanity and economies in general. Indeed, it has matured, producing admirable results in economies at various stages of economic development, but has occasionally been brought into disrepute by opportunistic bad actors in government who manage their economies for purposes other than welfare maximization, such as the enrichment/marginalization of sections of society, enrichment of themselves, etc.
The worst of these abuses have occurred, and are occurring in economies with fragile democracies where politicians exert dictatorial power in their policy-making. This aside, economics has endured and will continue to evolve to provide solutions to emerging challenges in increasingly complex economies. An essential aspect of welfare maximization in economics is the concept of perfect knowledge, where economic agents, these being households, firms and government, have perfect knowledge of everything related to their welfare, from the spectrum of products and services, to resources, and their prices/costs.
As such, producers are able to choose rationally based on the availability and cost of resources, what to produce, while consumers choose among the available goods and services, the mix of items which will maximize their welfare. This becomes immediately more relevant and attains greater importance in assessing the political choices we make and the consequences of our decisions we are forced to endure. The concept of perfect knowledge has been the basis of all of my letters to the press since 2013, as I remain convinced that with enough knowledge we will deduce solutions and mechanisms for addressing the problems and constraints which have plagued us since Independence. I have come to realize for this approach to be truly effective, the relevant knowledge must be free, costless, benefitting also those who cannot afford it. Additionally, after recognizing that Dr. Jagan’s The West On Trial would have been immensely more beneficial to us had it been free, I took the decision to make my book, Bringing Guyana Into the 21st Century, free and available to Guyanese globally.
It is available at
https://issuu.com/dncguyana/docs/issuu_bringing_guyana_into_the_21st_century. Everyone is encouraged to share the link on their social media accounts.
The ministers of the current administration are urged to reject the current policy of enforcing the EXXON contract. This contract is an affront to the people of Guyana, makes our governments look like idiots, and is an international embarrassment. Given that the design contract very likely had no input from Guyanese lawyers, in addition to the scale of its debauchery of Guyana’s welfare, they and the larger population are urged to understand that such a policy stance be seen for what it is: a complete disregard for the rule of law, our regulatory framework, and the people of Guyana.
Further, it stands as an open invitation for other bad foreign actors to enter Guyana knowing full well that with the right connections, they can potentially break every law and regulation here and get away with it, from protection of the environment, to safety standards, to our labour laws, an area in which Guyana’s workers have suffered tremendously already from our governments and firms within our private sector.
I close with a broad adaptation of an African proverb: In the abundance of water a fool is thirsty; by our lack of knowledge we are enslaved. Given the disastrous experience of our history, Guyanese should seriously consider that we need to design mechanisms to deal with potential dictators and other treacherous leaders who continuously abuse us.
Sincerely,
Craig Sylvester
