How Jamaica’s political environment affects our economy and culture?

Although Jamaica became independent from Britain’s colonization since 1962, the queen
and head of state of Britain - Queen Elizabeth II along with the 1962 Constitution of Jamaica
established a parliamentary system whose political and legal traditions closely follow those of
the United Kingdom. Ever since, politics (the science of government) became one of the main
aspect of the Jamaican society. As a science, it is a systematic body of knowledge (for the most
part, practical) that deals with the government, regulation, maintenance, development, defense
and augmentation of the state. It also deals with the protection of the rights of its citizens,
safeguarding and enhancement of morals, and harmony and peace of human relations. Being one
of the key components of Jamaica’s society, any decision made in the political environment will
particularly affect both Jamaica’s economy and its culture. The political environment affects
Jamaica’s economy by putting the country in debt by borrowing huge sums of money from the
IMF, targeting citizens by implementing a high tax rate and providing little opportunities for the
young for them to, in turn, contribute to Jamaica’s economy. The political environment (its
decisions) affect Jamaica’s culture by providing resources to attract foreigners (this way
Jamaica’s culture is internationally recognized), implementing programs so the countries culture
is not lost and altering the country’s culture through the implementation of laws.

Jamaica’s political environment affects its economy by putting the country in debt by
borrowing huge amounts from the International Monetary Fund. Ever since Jamaica withdrew its
tides from 1st attempt federation for regional integration in the Caribbean in 1962, the country’s
economy began to suffer. As a result, in 1993, Sir Alexander Bustamante turned to the IMF for
funding for the country. The amount of money owed to IMF began to increase over the years; the
government’s past action has put the country in bankruptcy today. This bankruptcy is not only
affecting large companies and citizen but also the country’s economy as a whole. One of the
main ways in which the country’s economy is being affected is the implementation of huge
taxes.

Jamaica’s political environment affects its economy as it is the actions that the
government takes that causes the implementation of huge taxes. As mentioned before, because
the government of Jamaica owes huge amount to entities such as the IMF, it implements huge
taxes on both companies and its citizens in an effort to gain enough fiscal to repay the IMF. This
has been a burden to companies since they become less attractive to consumers because of high
tax rate. This results in an economic fall of the country. High tax rates also affect local citizens.
Let us face it, the government of Jamaica does not provide other opportunities for ‘high school
drop-outs’. How will these unemployed individuals manage to provide healthy meals for
themselves? How will citizens easily get access to medical services if the tax rate has gone sky-
rocket high? The political environment makes huge decisions that affect the country’s economy
by shortening the resources of the county’s thus reducing the probability of them becoming
productive citizens.

Jamaica’s political environment also affects its economy by not providing opportunities
for youths to even want to live, work and do business here; many of them have been
brainwashed. Consequently, the country’s economy do not get benefits of these ‘opportunity-
seekers’ who migrate to countries such as USA and UK. Of course, these countries get the
economic benefits since they are the ones that provide the youths with an opportunity that never
existed in their mother country. And again the economy of Jamaica suffers.

Not only as Jamaica’s political environment affected its economy but also its cultural
development. Unlike most of the economic consequence, Jamaica’s political environment
contributes rather positively to its culture. Jamaica’s political environment affects its culture
since it makes decisions such as introducing resources to attract foreigner to the island,
maintaining Jamaica’s diverse culture and has been affected by passed laws.

Jamaica’s political environment utilizes its culture to create resources to attract

The political environment also affects the country’s culture by implementing program to
protect the beneficial culture of the country. These programs include Jamaica Cultural
Development Commission (JCDC) and Social Development Commission (SDC). These
programs help to preserve the nation’s culture through annually heritage activities among both
juniors and seniors of society. Preserving the nation’s culture means preserving one the nation’s
most valuable attribute since Jamaica’s culture is one of the main assets of the country’s
economy. Here the decision made by the political environment not only preserve a valuable asset
to the Jamaican economy but also ensures that that the culture and unique traditions of the
country is not lost.

Additionally, over the years, aspects of the Jamaican culture have been altered by laws
passed by governing bodies. Some of these laws include laws placed on large scale agriculture of
certain food crops, laws placed on endangered species and a number of others. Some of these
laws alter the Jamaican culture positively and some negatively. The culture of Jamaica has been
manipulated especially because of bans placed of some prohibited activities as well. A major
example is limited fishing/ no fishing in certain areas. Fishery in Jamaican have been one
important asset of the country ever since the time slaves became free; in recent times, this
activity is not so free. However, the country doesn’t totally lose because of this law. In fact, the
prohibition of fishing in certain area as maintain the biodiversity of marine life in some of these
areas, causing huge amounts of experimental proposal to be sent to the government of Jamaica,
this contributes significantly to the Jamaican economy.