ECONOMIC DIVERSIFICATION

Sales of foreign-used vehicles would surely plummet, fewer houses would be built or bought, and the contents of grocery carts and market bags would be smaller. The Government would also have to cut back on nearly all the projects it has been touting, such as its new buildings, health sector equipment, and education initiatives. But it is the poorer sector of the society which, as always, would suffer most, since even the small trickle of energy dollars that reaches them would dry up.

The problem is that it is the same energy resources which have prevented economic diversification. The Government has been able to throw money at every problem, instead of seeking political, technocratic and scientific solutions. The result has been short-term approaches which put plasters on societal sores, but which never heal its festering wounds. So we get free tertiary education, but not persons with marketable skills. We get more health centres, but no reduction in the incidence of heart and kidney disease, high blood pressure, or strokes. We get crime-fighting equipment such as blimps and sky-towers, but more murders, robberies and rapes.

This reliance on energy dollars has also infected the private sector. Why should people create new products, when it is easier just to sell products that our energy dollars buy from more developed economies? And, even when individuals with ambition, initiative and talent want to do something innovative, they are often stymied by the lack of support, both from well-placed individuals and from institutions. The overall is a shortage of entrepreneurial will, and a surplus of retailers.

But this situation cannot continue. The same wealth that sustains us economically has also contributed to our social problems such as violent crime, drug addiction, poor health and inadequate education. This means that, when the oil well begins to run low, we will not have the technical or psychological resources to meet the new challenges. In other words, social upheaval will be a real danger. And that can only be staved off if we start taking responsibility for our own social and economic development.

Yet few people in the public and private sectors have really taken a rigorous approach to the question of economic development. Ideology there is in vast amount, but the fundamental question of what goods and services we can offer the world has never been approached in a truly clear-headed and expert fashion. Instead, we get terms like “offshore” and “onshore” economies, without a precise definition of what these are.

We hear that we need to discover the rules by which our economy operates instead of applying concepts developed for West European economies, without an explanation of how, or if, our economy escapes the law of supply-and-demand or comparative advantage or free trade.

And yet it is fairly obvious what Trinidad and Tobago has to offer the world. Foreigners come here for Carnival and other cultural products. We can offer eco-tourism, once we don’t despoil too much of our environment with short-term industrial development. We can develop agro-processing industries that will capitalise on the reputation of exotic tropical fruits. We can even export intellectual services, if we develop our education system properly, since our second main export is already brains.

But none of this can happen without a realisation that such developments must occur before our present prosperity ends. Unfortunately, the cushion of energy dollars continues to give us a false sense of comfort.