Intellectually barren arguments of GHK Lall and Eric Phillips

Dear Editor,
Permit me space to voice my discontent with the intellectually barren and frankly dishonest arguments which continue to be peddled by the likes of GHK Lall and Eric Phillips. I chose not to respond to Eric Phillips’s diatribe in the past, as any objective, critical thinker in Guyana would now recognise the downright facetious claims he continues to make most shamelessly. His most recent inability to simply substantiate his claims in the African Land Rights Commission of Inquiry has come to characterise a gentleman whom I once respected for his apparent care for the people of Guyana. However, Editor, my article comes off the heels of the most recent outpouring from another commentator, GHK Lall, in an article carried in another section of the media called “It’s the economy”.
I choose to respond to this article by GHK Lall for the simple fact that this letter seemingly begins a new dimension of the theme that the now evident economic decline is as a result of all other things under the sun except the asynchronous, anti-development policies of this APNU/AFC Government, compounded by poor macroeconomic management. The article, in summary, casts the blame for the economic decline now almost squarely on the shoulders of Guyanese people as they seemingly have been conditioned by the previous administrations, more specifically the PPP/C Government, to accept money which ‘came too easy’ in a ‘shabby saga of sickness that washes across [the] society in stunting reach and hold’. Editor, this attack by GHK Lall on the people of Guyana for expressing discontent with the state of economic affairs is nauseating to read.
GHK Lall condemns Guyanese in a tone which is mocking of the mesolectic variety of Guyanese English. What is simultaneously oxymoronic and insulting about the article by GHK Lall is that the mesolectic variety of Guyanese English which he mocks is spoken by the lower middle-class urbanite and the rural factions of the working class. Mr Editor, does GHK Lall believe that the hard-working single mother who is self-employed in a cottage industry, or the sugar workers who are now condemned to suffer in the foreseeable future by this government, or the vendor in Bourda Market who toils in the wee hours of the morning, that these classes of people were the beneficiaries of the ‘easy money’ which he and Eric Phillips continue to allude to?
Editor, an elementary understanding of economics and political economy would refute their weak arguments. Eric Phillips, for example, continues to argue vehemently for a structural inequality in Guyana where an oligarchy has been created and a few with newfound wealth are the beneficiaries of proceeds of the underground economy and corruption. For the purpose of smooth discourse, let us accept that there exists this newly-wealthy oligarchic class.
Editor, from JM Keynes’ articulation in 1936, it has become popular knowledge that Aggregate Demand is the mechanism from the demand side which drives economic growth. The logical question must be asked, therefore, in the political economy analysis, who comprises the largest faction of aggregate demand? Mr Editor, is it the few with newfound wealth who are the beneficiaries of the proceeds of the underground economy and corruption? The answer is apparent – of course not. It is the working class, the mass of people, who comprise Aggregate Demand; the same people who GHK Lall barefacedly mocks in his article.
What folks who argue along this faulty line of reasoning fail to mention to people are the macro statistics which speak for themselves – a 20.7 per cent decline in sugar, a 22.3 per cent decline in rice, a 27.3 per cent decline in forestry, a 5.6 per cent decline in fishing – just in 2016 only. 2015 told a similar story, Editor, and 2017 is likely to tell the same based on the Mid-Year Report of the economy.
Each of these can be dealt with in separate articles in great detail which, for any objective, critical thinking Guyanese who follows the articulation, present more substantial, logical reasons for the economic decline than the explanation offered by the likes of GHK Lall and Eric Phillips who cast blame on all extraneous factors without even an acknowledgement that this has been some of the poorest macroeconomic management experienced in Guyana, certainly in the past 10 years.
To Mr GHK Lall, the next time a member of the working class, who may not have the analytical capacity to understand the mechanics of the economy, points to the economy as being the issue, do not seek to blame it on some perverse Stockholm syndrome-esque reasoning; rather, use that as a springboard to understand the cries of the working class and investigate more closely the reasons for the economic decline rather than following the Phillips posture of rather comically casting blame on ‘drug money’ and ‘corruption’. Independent logical thinkers do not buy that argument any longer.

Yours sincerely,
Conscience of a
Logical
Guyanese Thinker