Sugar Industry Analysis

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Political Economy of St. Lucia: Karl Polyani and Charles Dickens “Everyone is talking the talk but not everyone is walking the walk.” – Montek Singh Ahluwalia. (Globalisation and the Indian economy) Starting off with the statement above, I agree with most of the contemporary economists that not every nation in the world is able to cope up with the ideas of neoliberalism and globalization. Globalization is a continuous process through which an increasingly free flow of human capital as well as infra capital, goods and services would lead the integration of a global economy and order. Neoliberalism born from its predecessor ‘Market Economy’ is the optimism encouraged by international institutions to ensure efficiency and growth. So is market…show more content…
The introduction of machines displaced laborers working in sugar industries. The nations that accepted the revolution with ease and poise were the ones to exploit those countries that could not accept this change. Therefore, the small island of St. Lucia had to give up its sugar industry. The sugar industry was the most hated because even though it employed vast number of people, they were being paid a meager wage leading to poverty and favortism of the capitalists. Britain was in charge of its external affairs as well as security and when the Industrial Revolution came in, sugar was produced at lower rates by other countries. Britain decided to interfere in the internal affairs as the cost of production was higher than exports, thus importing sugar seemed more viable than producing it. Inflation entered the economy because of deregulated foreign…show more content…
He said that the expansion of markets would come in the way of society defending itself from the market. This he called the ‘double movement’. It is an existing contradiction between the requirements of a capitalist market economy for unlimited expansion and the requirements of people to live in mutually supportive relations in society. ‘Inevitably, society took measures to protect itself, but whatever measures it took impaired the self-regulating market, disorganised industrial life, and thus endangered society in yet another way.’ (Polyani) It was Polanyi’s conflict that the market-system (‘economy’) is necessarily in perpetual conflict with popular forces in society (‘democracy’) and, in its purest form, cannot tolerate democratic intervention. In its purest form, it is fascism. Oliver Twist gives a bird’s eye view of Polyani’s history of England. It depicts the story of a boy who has to work as a labourer during the Industrial Revolution in the name of further education. Oliver Twist is a metaphor for the poor rural people that lost their identity and security due to urbanization, industrialization and population growth. Polyani says that it was because society was forcefully embedded in the economy rather than letting the economy slowly seep into social

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