Jamaicans can down their sorrel and cake, indulge their culinary tastes, and fraternise with family and friends more easily today as a result of the prime minister's "wheel and come again" tax package announced on Wednesday.

There was weeping and wailing all over Jamaica after Finance Minister Audley Shaw unveiled his third tax package two Thursdays ago. But the people gave a clear and unmistakable message that they could not "run wid" that tax package, and the Opposition People's National Party did not have to be coerced into facilitating the people's wishes.

Ah, the virtue of democracy! It is a wonderful invention. And practice. In authoritarian, non-pluralistic societies, rulers govern by edict, and intransigence is the order of the day. In societies where governments control the media and suppress opposition parties, unpopular measures can be taken and oppressive burdens heaped on people without quick and non-violent means of expressing revolt. Thanks to our vibrant democracy, with its boisterously free media and vocal opposition, severe tax measures, which would have significantly harmed the poor, were reversed without a drop of blood or a day lost in production.

Tribute to Government, Opposition

The Opposition peacefully staged its protests, brought together various stakeholders and interest groups for meetings, and the Government quietly sat with its technocrats and huddled with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to refashion its tax package. 'Bruce bows, 'Government weakened', 'Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) under pressure', 'Bruce fears wrath of the people', whatever headline one chooses, the fact remains that some leaders would not have relented in a 'show of strength'. We should give thanks that we have leaders who are not so arrogant and stubborn that they can't relent.

It is not a matter of spinning for Golding. It is an undeniable fact that for some insecure, egotistic leaders, 'strong leadership' - indeed their very definition of 'leadership' - is taking actions and not backing down, no matter what the people say because, after all, they are the 'leaders'. That type of 'leadership' has cost the world millions of lives.

Jamaica is also blessed to have an Opposition party that is responsible, respectful of democratic rights and duties, as well as public opinion. The Jamaican people wanted the tax package rolled back, but they did not want that to be done under a literal cloud of smoke with our business places in flames. The Government and the Opposition have behaved responsibly and with wisdom, and as a people, this is something for which we can give thanks and praise at this time.

The deeper question

While we have been busy quite justifiably discussing the matter of equity and justice in taxation, and while we have, commendably, achieved a consensus that the tax burden must be equitably shared and that that the rich must bear their fair share of the burden, no one is asking a deeper question: Is it not palpably unfair that the Jamaican people, who had no part to play in the global economic crisis, now have to be called upon to bear its costs? The over US$1 billion which has disappeared as a result of the global capitalist crisis and decisions made in the developed countries, principally in the United States, now has to be pulled from the lifeblood of the Jamaican poor. How fair is that?

The global poor should not have to pay for the recklessness and greed of the casino capitalists. This issue of international justice and of a New International Economic Order, which was so gallantly championed by Michael Manley and other Third-World leaders, is as relevant today as it was in the 1970s. In fact, more so. A country like Jamaica should not have to bear all the costs of adjustment to this global crisis. This is not to say that we don't have our own home-grown crisis and that we don't have to put our house in order. We do.

But it is admitted, and the prime minister never fails to remind us, that the major reason for the present tax burdens and adjustments have to do with our fallout in earnings due to the global economic crisis. There is a formidable set of arguments being made by a group of development specialists - led by people like Thomas Pogge from Columbia University - who are looking at the "freedom from poverty" as a human right, and who are making an impassioned plea for multilateral institutions to deal with global equity.

In the edited work by Thomas Pogge, Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right: Who Owes What to the Very Poor?, the point is made that "there are both moral and non-moral reasons to take world inequality as a normatively significant issue. National borders, after all, are institutions of a human making, just like other institutions. One wonders why national borders should be allowed to have such vast implications for the life prospects of people throughout the world."

In other words, obligations to enhance the human rights must transcend borders and, therefore, it is just that global surplus be used to relieve poverty and to enhance development prospects of developing counties. The brilliant Nobel prize-winning economist, Amartya Sen, has just published his treatise, 'The Idea of Justice', in which he engages the discussion of promoting freedom from poverty across borders. What Michael Manley was campaigning for were reforms to the international economic system, which would see countries like Jamaica benefiting financially from a fund to weather exogenous shocks, such as the ones our poor people are now unjustly paying for.

Broaden the discussion

So, the discussion is broader than whether Bruce taxes the rich. That lets off the hook those in the developed countries who manufactured this crisis, for which the world and Jamaica are paying dearly. The developed countries have their stimulus packages and are busily running up their deficits while we are forced by the IMF to tighten our belts. It is Keynesianism for the rich, and austerity for the poor, developing countries.

Don't misquote me. I am not saying we don't take sensible economic decisions which are in our interest. I am not talking about promoting populism and economic irresponsibility. I am talking about broadening the discussion about equity in taxation to having a discourse on working for a globalisation which works not only in the interest of the developed world. I am not only concerned about the local rich paying their dues. The fat cats of the developed world should pay, too.

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at ianboyne1@yahoo.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.