THE OLIGARCHY IS IN A CLASS BY ITSELF

The PPP has to accept responsibility for the state of oppression that is being practiced by the incumbent regime and in particular the acts of State oppression against the publisher of this newspaper. It is for example an utter disgrace, a travesty of no mean order that the PPP, which fought for the right to publish its own newspaper, should be involved in a series of campaigns targeting the media in Guyana. The PPP leadership dating back to Cheddi Jagan- because he had his own pit bull that was let loose on the media- has to accept political responsibility for the present state of political oppression in the country. I say political responsibility and not direct responsibility because I use the Marxian framework that it is always the dominant economic class that calls the shots. The political elites in Guyana are subservient to the interests of this class. They may deceive themselves into believing that they are ultimate wielders of political and economic decision making. They are oblivious to how much they have become puppets to vested economic interests, including those with whom they wine and dine. The PPPC forgot its Marxists roots. It forgot that Marxism still has its value as a tool of analysis and it failed to apply that analysis to its own record of governance, perhaps refusing to acknowledge that the party which restored freedom and democracy to Guyana has become beholden to a powerful economic oligarchy. It is the economic oligarchy that is calling the shots in Guyana. They cannot afford for the PPP to lose State power because it is through the State that they have reaped and continue to reap tremendous economic rewards. If the PPP falls, the economic oligarchy is going to implode. It is going to collapse. This is the only way that the economic oligarchy, which is like a parasite on the body politic of this country, is going to disintegrate. The PPP is not going to do like what Burnham did. The PPP is not going to hound the economic oligarchy because unlike Burnham, the PPP has allowed the oligarchy to run roughshod over the party and allow a political novice who is aligned to this oligarchy to gain too great an influence over the government and now the party. The PPP now acts in the interests of the economic oligarchy. It is the puppet of the oligarchs and the stranglehold that the oligarchy has on the party is not going to be slackened any time soon. This is why the suggestion, by someone associated with APNU, that the supporters of the partnership to “sus” out the business community and then decide which businesses to boycott is brainless. First one should not lump the business community with the powerful economic forces that support the PPP. The economic oligarchy is a special economic class. It is in a class by itself. The wealth and influence that this small grouping wields is far superior to the combined efforts of the entire private sector. In fact, the private sector complained during this year’s Budget that its proposals were ignored. The oligarchy has no need to make any proposals. The entire Public Sector Investment Programme is designed to benefit the members of this oligarchy and this is only a fraction of the benefits that the oligarchs receive through State patronage. Other perquisites come in the form of land, concessions, licenses and policies that facilitate the market share for the businesses of the oligarchy. So we are dealing with two different kettles of fish when we speak about the business community. There is the oligarchy which is a whale and there is the private sector which is a kakabelly. Secondly, no business boycott is going to hurt the economic oligarchy, because they are tied to the patronage of the State and therefore no boycott is going to work. The only medicine to be applied is for the powerful economic oligarchy to be starved of State funds and benefits. But that cannot be achieved under the PPP because the interests of the PPP are now the interests of the oligarchy. But guess what? We do not know for sure whether the opposition parties will be able to neutralize this powerful economic grouping if the opposition should win an election in Guyana. This is an oligarchy whose reach is wide and powerful. Who knows, they may hypnotize the opposition in the same way they have done the PPP.