Jamaicans from all walks of life are engaged in an intense discussion regarding what the phenomenal success at the IAAF World Championships implies for the development of the country's productive forces (the human, natural and physical resources within the island). However, most of those who are participating in this discussion (including the academics and the politicians they advise) are handicapped by a limited and superficial understanding of the role of sports within the overall structure of the contemporary capitalist economy.

The political economy of track and field - or any of the major sports within the global sports industry - cannot be intelligently understood outside of the process of capital accumulation in a globally integrated capitalist economy, of which Jamaica is a part.

In this article, I will attempt to provide a useful contextual framework in which to situate the discussion so that we can arrive at a deeper conceptual understanding of the realistic options that are available to the various sections of the Jamaican population within the various sectors of the global sports industry.

CAPITAL ACCUMULATION AND NATION BUILDING

Before we get into our discussion about modern industry in general, and the sports industry in particular, it is necessary to clear up some misguided notions regarding the relationship between the imperatives of capital accumulation and so-called 'nation building''. Let us be very clear on this: capital accumulation has nothing whatsoever to do with 'nation building'.

An American-based corporation that closes its factories in Detroit, United States (US), and opens a factory in South China is doing what it has to do to accumulate capital, which is the only purpose of capitalist production. It is not wilfully trying to undermine the integrity of the American nation nor seeking to build the Chinese nation.

Jamaican-born workers who migrate to the United Kingdom or North America are not wilfully trying to undermine the nation-building project of the academics and the politicians. They migrate because they cannot find a buyer for their labour-power (their mental or physical energies) that would provide them with the material resources to reproduce themselves as modern workers in their homeland.

They did not leave Jamaica with the notion that they were going to England or the US to become a part of some grand nation-building project. This is equally true of the recent US college graduates who are now going to China in search of work. (See American Graduates Finding Jobs in China by Hannah Seligson, New York Times, August 11, 2009).

In other words, 'national sentiment' is ultimately subordinated by the objective needs of an individual or a social class, increasingly more so as capitalist production becomes more globalised. Capital goes where it can most effectively compete in order to accumulate; workers take their commodity (labour-power) to wherever they can get the best possible price for it, in order to reproduce themselves and their families.

Let me be very blunt here: nation building is the ideological preoccupation of the academy-based intellec-tuals whose job is to supply their clients (the politicians) with the political slogans they need to deploy, to justify their role in society. These academics are, in the main, clueless about the objective and subjective demands that are being imposed on the capitalist class and the working class - wherever in the world they are located - to reproduce themselves as individuals and as social classes.

THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION

Globalisation integrates production, distribution and exchange within the context of vertically organised, transnationalised global supply chains. As I have stated elsewhere, for any serious discussion to move forward, in Jamaica/Caribbean the leadership in all sectors of the society will have to fully recognise and accept the reality that no viable, competitive industry can develop or expand in the region unless it is fully integrated into global industries, as part of a global supply chain.

The major branches of the global sports industry (US football, soccer, basketball, cricket, track and field, tennis, golf) have their specific supply chains. All industries (inclu-ding sports) rely upon the use of tools that are both specific to a particular industry and also those that are more generalised. An example of a generalised tool would be the computer, which is an integral part of the digital revolution. The globalisation of modern industry would have been impossible without this tool, which serves as the foundation for modern communications.

The digital revolution has played a central role in facilitating linkages to the global pool of finance and venture capital, without which the modern sectors of global industry - including all segments of the sports industry - could not develop and function. Try and imagine the Premier League in England without the capacity to attract and access this capital which, in turn, makes possible the purchase of the highly skilled labour-power of players and coaches from all parts of the world.

The newly developed cricket league in India is also a product of this development. The commissioner of the National Basketball Association, David Stern, underscored the centrality of the digital revolution to the global expansion of his sector when he remarked: "The great upside is that our international presence and the digital medium go hand in hand. NBA games are broadcast in 215 countries and nearly half of the NBA's traffic on its website comes from overseas," (quoted in the article 'NBA reaches far and wide to build fan base', Los Angeles Times, August 23, 2009 - which describes the current global marketing strategy of the National Basketball Association).

HOW CARIBBEAN LEADERSHIP IS OUT OF SYNC WITH THE NEW REALITIES

Even when the West Indies was the dominant force on the cricket field, there were few, if any, Caribbean-based entrepreneurs involved in producing cricket gear for the global cricket industry. This was largely due to the fact that cricket, and sports in general, was not perceived as a business. And, indeed, cricket and track and field lagged behind soccer in the process of the commercialisation of sports. This was still the age of the amateur athlete. Sports was seen as an instrument of 'nation building' by the lea-dership of the newly independent states and as a vehicle for providing opportunities for beating the former colonial masters at their own game. This is the world that Professor Sir Hilary Beckles seemed to yearn to return to in his recent article 'WIBC on right wicket' (The Jamaica Observer, August 18, 2009).

Sir Hilary and his academic colleagues are having a difficult time grasping the complex realities of the globalised capitalist economy and the institutional restructuring that is required to effectively compete. They appear to have little knowledge of how the structures of production, distribution and exchange are being constantly reconfigured under the new conditions of globalised capitalism.

They also appear unwilling to accept the fact that the conceptual framework they inherited from C.L.R. James, and which they continue to rely on to study the social relations and culture of cricket and sports in general, retains very little analytical value in explaining the contemporary world of commercialised sports or preparing the youth for the challenges that they will be facing in this new world.

SOCIOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION

James' major work on cricket, Beyond the Boundary, was essentially a sociological description of cricket under the conditions of British colonialism in the West Indies. Most of the writings by Caribbean authors on cricket or sports in general in the Caribbean have not gone beyond what James wrote in the 1950s and '60s, and this is largely because the writings have not been informed by a scientific understanding of the laws of motion of a capitalist economy. What we have been getting so far are mostly nostalgic musings on the pre-commercialised era of cricket, particularly when the West Indies cricket team ruled the roost. At least James recognised the realities of the class struggle, even within the context of the colonial environment.

Sir Hilary and his friends, on the other hand, would like to banish the class struggle from what is now a developed global capitalist enterprise, all for the greater glory of the "West Indian nation." Here is the challenge, as defined by Sir Hilary:

"What we are seeing here is a clash of the traditional values of national representation with the new ultra-individualism unleashed by economic globalisation. The new ideology is citizen first and nation second; cash before country. West Indies has the most vulnerable cricket culture in the global arena because the West Indian nation as a political construct is weakest, and therefore most at risk. Unless there is civic renewal among the youth, and a recommitment to the values of nation building, cricket and country will crash as a failed project.

"In this cash-driven instance, striking players represent that section of youth society that has lost its way; it is misled, misguided, and in need of re-education and political orientation in respect to the legacy of cricket."

In my next this article, I will not only elaborate on why Professor Beckles' views are irrelevant to the needs of the modern entrepreneurs and the workers (particularly the future professional athletes) in the region, but I will also highlight where the interests of the various social classes converge and diverge in the process of integration into the global supply chain.

Trevor A. Campbell does research on and teaches the political economy of science and technology in capitalist society. He moderates the online forum 'Caribbean Dialogues', and can be reached at tcampbell@eee.org. Feedback may also be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.