This important book provides a fascinating insight into the conceptual
underpinnings of the theory of plantation economy initiated by Lloyd Best and
Kari Levitt in the 1960s as a basis for analysing the nature of the Caribbean
economy. While acknowledging an intellectual debt to Latin American
structuralists and also to the work of Dudley Seers and William Demas, the
authors develop an original and innovative analytical framework as a counter to
more “universalist” models which failed to take account of the Caribbean reality.
Their work identifies the main features of the plantation economy as a hinterland
characterized by subordination and dependency on the dominant metropole.
Distinguishing between hinterlands of conquest, settlement and exploitation, Best
and Levitt analyse the rules that determine this complex relationship with the
metropole. Their economic theories are presented against a background of the
historical factors that gave rise to the “structural continuity” of Caribbean
economies and which now impede meaningful structural transformation.
“The book is offers a genuinely ‘indigenous’ perspective on the challenges facing the Caribbean. It is both pioneering in its thrust and sophisticated in content and methodological approach. It is undoubtedly one of the most important economic texts ever produced on the Caribbean.”
– Denis Benn, Michael Manley Professor of Public Affairs/Public Policy, University of the West Indies, Jamaica
Lloyd Best pioneered the New World Movement and its journal, New World
Quarterly; and Tapia, a movement, a journal and a political party in Trinidad and
Tobago. He also founded the Trinidad and Tobago Institute of the West Indies
(now the Lloyd Best Institute of the West Indies) as a think tank for research and
discussion of Caribbean issues. Most of his writings were published as newspaper
columns spanning decades of endeavour. He is the author of Independent Thought
and Caribbean Freedom and co-author (with Eric St Cyr) of Economic Policy and
Management Choices: A Contemporary Economic History of Trinidad and Tobago,
1950–2005.
Kari Polanyi Levitt is Professor Emerita, Department of Economics, McGill
University, Canada. Among her publications are Silent Surrender: The
Multinational Corporation in Canada; Reclaiming Development: Independent Thought
and Caribbean Community; and a comprehensive collection, The George Beckford
Papers. She is founder of the Canadian Association for the Study of International
Development and of the Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy in Canada.
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Essays on the Theory of Plantation Economy
