Shanty-town law
These attitudes are the products of a pervasive culture in which, from time to time, the interests and passions of one class boil over, scorching the interests of the others.
In the last 30 years, starting before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the forces of finance capital launched a hostile takeover bid for the world, and, in places like Jamaica, recruited a substantial quota of middle-class people who bought into the idea that if their lusts were attended to, health, wealth and happiness would naturally follow for the ‘less fortunate’.
That phrase – ‘the less fortunate’ – both conceals and exposes the real truth: that life in a world ruled by finance capital is a lottery, a matter of chance, fortune, of luck rather than ability or work.
So, people like P J Patterson and Edward Seaga were able to believe, no doubt sincerely, that separating thousands of people from their jobs was in their own best interests, and that somehow the people who had worked to build Jamaica over 500 years were parasites who had to be taught to work.
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