Sugar and politics in Guyana

Abstract

To understand the ironies and paradoxes that have all too often characterized international perceptions of the People's Cooperative Republic of Guyana, a South American country with a Caribbean history, is a complex undertaking. It requires an analysis whose selected empirical focus makes it possible to penetrate the apparent uniqueness of the Guyanese situation in order to disclose its similarities to other economic and sociopolitical situations without falling prey to an ultimately non-explanatory emphasis on its cultural diversity. is, after all, less culturally diverse than many other nations which do not share its political and economic problems. The difficulties, pitfalls, and potential fruitfulness of efforts to construct such analyses may be seen in these two publications. Thomas, a Guyanese economist and political activist, begins with the premise that, Sugar production has been the major economic activity underlying the colonial penetration, later capitalist consolidation, and subsequent underdevelopment of the national economy of Guyana (p. xv). In a brief well-written text, he provides a study of the