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Books by Michael Manley

Politics of Change: A Jamaican Testament  / The Search for Solutions / Up the Down Escalator / A Voice at the Work Place

The Poverty of Nations /  Jamaica: Struggle in the Periphery

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By Lloyd D. McCarthy

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Race Struggle is Class Struggle

Lloyd McMcCarthy's In-Dependence from Bondage focuses on global capitalism and globalization, a 500 year history of exploitation that developed into racial oppression and genocide.  Though the book concerns itself with politics and economics, it views North-South relations from the personal and activist perspectives of Claude McKay (1890-1948), the well-anthologized (though little known) Harlem Renaissance Jamaican poet and novelist, and Michael N. Manley (1924-1997), the well-known (though little read) Jamaican Prime Minister (1972-1980; 1989-1992) who developed into an international statesman. Thus the larger subject of globalism is viewed concretely from a Jamaican perspective, through the Jamaican experience and the lives and careers of two of Jamaica’s finest sons.

In-Dependence from Bondage is a small book—171 pages of text with endnotes; 192 pages with bibliography and index). For many it might be read in one sitting. But that would not be the best way to imbibe the subtleties of the overall strategy and plan of the book. It is filled with surprises like Nanny the Maroon (1700-1740) and other early anti-colonialist Africans, the influence of Manley’s first wife Beverly Anderson-Manley (one of five wives), McKay’s relationship with Leon Trotsky and his Red Army training and his impromptu reciting of "If We Must Die" before his military comrades. All of which makes you want to take notes and do a second reading.

Each chapter ends with a recapitulation so there's much scholarly clarity in the work, even in the final chapter with its charts on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Human Development Index with regard to 10 African countries as related to 10 European countries (including US and Japan). These indexes are looked at from the impact perspective of World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies imposed on African nations. African nations are getting poorer as European nations get richer. That is, the book has a larger agenda than just Jamaica but embraces in its focus the "African Diaspora," an all-inclusive term for the black worlds of the United States, the Caribbean, Central and South America, as well as Africa itself. In-Dependence from Bondage goes beyond the facts of the black dilemma and the Northern elites' commercial domination of the Global South.

There is some criticism directed at Jamaican elites, like those of the Jamaican Labour Party (modelled on the British Labour Party) as well as other African elites in the "African Diaspora" nations in how they have buckled under to the new globalism via World Bank and the IMF and their policy demands on poor African countries and the disastrous effects on their infrastructure such as education and health. The book does not dwell on individual African governments, but more on charted outcomes and the quality of life or lack thereof for peoples barely surviving under corrupt rulers and even more corrupt Northern elites whose primary interests are PROFITS AND MORE PROFITS. The book concludes with a list of "what's to be done" based on the perspectives of McKay and Manley.

These recommendations can be found below, of which McCarthy says, "I have reviewed their written works [McKay and Manley] and have identified a list of their recommendations for the African Diaspora that accompany their fundamental message”:

McCarthy has discovered the sobering impact of post Cold War realities for peoples of the African Diaspora: “In some cases, the levels of human development has fallen below the levels that were attained under the previous forms of oppressive governments under which people in the African Diaspora lived prior to 1990. . . . The people of the African Diaspora must look within for solutions and toward collective political and economic action by the proletarian nations in the Global South for strategies to survive” (170-171).

McCarthy’s criticism of “African Diaspora” elites is balanced by the book's focus on Michael Manley, whose family the Manleys of Jamaica are the crème de la crème of Jamaica’s black elites. His first wife Beverly Anderson-Manley came from the working classes and she cleared the class fog from Manley’s eyes so that he understood more clearly the nature of the oppression and suppression of Jamaican women. His Fabian socialism underwent some changes so that he understood that Jamaica’s peasantry and working classes were being worn down by Fabian incremental socialism, rather than the wearing down of British and American elites. He renegotiated contracts with the bauxite companies, acquiring "51 percent of the shares in Jamaica's bauxite industry." In effect, McCarthy’s book and argument do not demonize black elites but provides a person for whom individuals among these elites can emulate, namely, Michael Manley.

McKay provides a model of emulation for the black petite bourgeoisie. His family owned 100 acres of land and was part of the upper peasantry. McKay joined the police forces for awhile but abandoned that when he observed its “Babylon” tactics against the poor and the working classes. McKay married Eulalie Imelda Edwards and had a daughter Hope McKay-Virtue. They left him in New York and returned to Jamaica.  The cause of which it is suggested may have been McKay’s homosexuality or bisexuality. McCarthy also provides welcomed suggestions that clarify McKay’s retreat from radical politics while he lived out his final days in Chicago and his 1944 conversion to Catholicism, four years before his death. The plausible explanations for this “about face” include McKay’s negative reaction to Stalinist governance and its aversion by the black masses, his friendship with Bishop Bernard Sheil, and his own aging sickliness.

Clearly, McKay took an anti-capitalist stance throughout his life, moving from Fabian socialism toward Marxism, but not necessarily Marxist-Leninism, discovering later its Stalinist direction. But his alliance with the working and poorer classes of the African Diaspora was steadfast as one can see in his poem "Enslaved":

I recommend you read Lloyd McCarthy's book In-Dependence from Bondage. It deals with many of the problems of present-day Africa. There is nothing in there I think you will find offensive. Clearly, the author favours Manley’s “democratic socialism.” There is much here to learn about the poet Claude McKay and Michael Manley in how they responded to global capitalism and today's globalization and the impact that those economic ideologies have had on the quality of life for African people.

McKay's optimism was elevated by the Russian soul and its struggles against the Tsar and Western imperialism. He not only recited to them his poem If We Must Die, written in response to the 1917 East St. Louis Massacre,  but he  wrote several poems dedicated to the struggle of Russian workers including, “To Holy Russia”:

McKay, believed as many, that socialist Russia was capable of rising above racial and ethnic oppression endemic to Western capitalism. Maybe the spirit of the times were such that such optimism was justified.

You will find in the book an extended discussion on the possible impact of a reformed World Bank and IMF. These possible reforms are discussed at length. But McCarthy discounts them as ultimately unworkable because of the present ideological aggression of Northern elites. He settles on the recommendations listed above in how the “African Diaspora” might proceed to deal with the disastrous outcomes of these North-South economic issues of exploitation, racial oppression, and governance from the perspectives of McKay and Manley. But it is Manley rather than McKay who makes a clear case for a movement away from capitalist-survival-of-the-fittest ideology. For instance Manley quotes the Brandt Commission Report to show the overwhelming economic disparity between the Global North and the Global South: "The North, including Eastern Europe, has a quarter of the world's population and four fifths of its income; the South, including China, has four billion people, but living on one fifth of the world's income."

In Manley's Search for Solutions, one can find clear statements of his disregard for capitalist organization of the economy and his hopes for a renewed sense of purpose from "democratic socialism":

Manley based the above conclusion about "democratic socialism" in the cooperation and collaboration he discovered among the Jamaican peasantry. He concluded that there must be democratic control of a nation's resources from the broad depths of any great society.

McCarthy commands convincing facts with regard to the state of Black Africa. He is a clear thinker and measures his thoughts and his words. There is no doubt however where he comes down: the people must struggle to free themselves of corrupt elites both at home and in the North. Possibly from McCarthy, one may learn too that there are other perspectives that can countenance the contradictions of African leadership. Like both McKay and Manley, the author is optimistic about the future of the Global South, that the peoples of these nations will support a leadership that can find a way out of their domination by the Northern commercial elites.

McCarthy has reviewed Manley's South-South cooperation proposals as a sound alternative to the North-South exploitation that has occurred over centuries.  Manley's more practical perspective is one that can be recommended unreservedly in good conscious to those African Diaspora leaders who want the best for their citizens, those who live daily in dire straits of poverty and powerlessness.  

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updated 15 October 2007