College of Agriculture, Science and Education

170 Port Antonio

Portland
CCCJ

Presented to: Dr. Christie

Presented by: Richard Griffiths
Course: Introduction to Political Science
Date: August10, 2009
 INTRODUCTION

This assignment contains information about six different political philosophies on the

Jamaica political system in relation to the economic and social development in Jamaica.

These philosophers are Brutus Hobbes Locke Marx Lenin and Hegel. They talk about the

economy and the justice system and the beliefs of the country. The division of classes and

its impact to the country and why the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer.

2
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Firstly, I would like to recognize that if it was not for help of fellow classmates and

friends this assignment would not completed on time. The assistance of the west campus

library service providers has aided me in completing this assignment. Last but not least,

Dr. Christie for giving this assignment that informs me about philosophers and the way

society has been a great influence of their teachings.

3
 BRUTUS

In this philosophy Brutus is a God fearing individual. He believe that there are no estates

which ought to be esteemed firm and stable, but those in whom the temple of God is

built, which are in deed the temple itself, and these we may truly call kings, which reign

with God. It is by him only Kings reign. The only way a government gets the chance to

rule in Jamaica it is only by the will of God. As religious country each of our prime

minister gives God thanks for their position and when receiving an award.

Most of our law that governs the people of Jamaica is taken from the Holy Scriptures. For

example, “thou shalt not kill”. In our country if an individual kill a next person he/she is

punish for their wrong. As a result of acknowledging that there is a higher being than the

government, we would agree with Brutus and say the Lord God establish his own king

and government to rule over a country. God establish people to rule over his people and

as a result of disobedience to his word conflict rise among the people. The leader start to

forget about God and try to change the law of God and been unfaithful to the law of God

after swearing unto the Lord.

In September 2007 when general election called Portia Simpson Miller was the favorite,

but God already choose who he wants to run the country the way it should be run to

fulfill his promises or demise. Although the people vote they could not over turn the

power of the Lord God. The people of Jamaica appoint who they want to govern them by

a majority of votes. Sometime we see it that the government is above the whole body of

people but it is not so according to Brutus. It is said that he who established by another, is

under him who appoint him, so the people who elect the government is above the

government but not the law of the land and God. The king or government is not above the

4
law but under the law. This philosophy speaks about the equality among men and that

God is the Supreme Being. In all of this we sometime wonder why there are kings and

governments, men love liberty and hate control by higher power. There must be a

boundary line in life that humans can respect other and share the interest of others. These

government protect the weak from the strong, oppress from the oppressor and to share

wealth among the people. The government last for four years in Jamaica unless the

people found them faulty their contracts are expelled and has to seek re-election. As a

believer of God Brutus never believe that God would send someone to rule his whole

world. The government must have boundary and limits, but the pope see himself as god

and has no boundary. The oppressing ruler is one that is not accepted in Jamaica.

5
 HOBBES

During slavery in Jamaica we had a lot of Africans fighting to be free from their

oppressors. The individual has a fighting spirit within them that tells them that they

should be as free as the white men that rule over them. Hobbes argues that men are

naturally equal in mind and body. There are a lot of books that document run-a-way

slaves from detention. Jamaica had persons fighting for the freedom of their people to

have the same right as the whit people, some these men and women are Nanny, Sam

Sharp, Alexander Bustamante, Marcus Garvey, Tacky and Paul Bogle just to name few.

They fight for equality among the people, and by their self-confident it was possible for

the African to be free and the abolishment of slavery.

For men to be equal in mind and body, they must be prudent and reticent. Men have equal

faculties, and cherish hopes and desire. When two men desire the same thing, which they

can not both obtain they seeks to destroy each other. The one that is destroyed will not get

the prize and as a result of that they become enemies. For the prime minister position two

people can not run the country at the same time so they fight each other and becomes

political enemies, this is called the nature of war. This war consist , not actual fighting but

lead to force and fraud, which cause a forever fear and strife among the people cause by

competition, diffidence and glory. The fears of death bring peace among the people of

Jamaica each and every day. The war that is happening every day in the inner city and

rural area cause the government to start preaches a message of peace among the Jamaican

people.

Hobbes believes that the sovereign can not commit injustice to the people because the

people are the author and the sovereign is not a party of it. The state act can never

6
consider illegal because the state is the law. The government in Jamaica is not the law but

God is the law. As a monarchy ruler, they see less competition for office and power than

democrats. When the king feels that he his ruler and not god then this type of system are

then replace by God. There was a debate about the church interfering with the state

business, if the state is not doing its job effectively to protect the people then some other

institution has to step up to protect the people. Hobbes thinks that the safety of the church

depends on the state rather than the state on the safety of the church. God is the ruler of

both state and church and when one is not effective the other must step up and continue to

operate by the will of God. If the law of the land conflict with the divine law persons

should follow the law of god and it would work out the way God has planned it. Civil law

is used by the country to rectify the wrong deeds of men and keep the in line with the

rules of God. Hobbes believes that man can live their life without rules and regulation.

7
 LOCKE

Locke concept of the state of nature was different from Hobbes. He his more optimistic

than Hobbes, saying that man can not live their every day life with out rules and

regulation. He believes that men have to live in an organized society which preserve and

enhance the power of the people. He believes that no one should harm the other in no

form of way by health, liberty, possessions and in life. The law of nature, through the

instrument of reason, defines what is right or wrong. Locke has the idea that some form

of agencies that would imply the corrective sanctions on the violator. It is not wise for a

person who done wrong should be punished by the same individual. In Jamaica and

around the world there are different form of courts and policing method use to carry the

violators to justice. Mankind can not handle the state of nature because:

1. It is not clear- men are bias by their interest and mistake.

2. There is no third party judge who has no personal stake in disputes. Men who

judge their own conflict are carried away by passion and revenged.

3. The party is not strong enough to execute the just sentence of the law.

The aim is to establish organizes law and order so that the uncertainties of the state of

nature will be replaced by the predictability of known laws and impartial institutions.

There can only be two parties to trust in an argument resolution, the people, who are both

trustor and beneficiary and the legislator, who is the trustee. The court system in Jamaica

has different ways to handle different matters. For example, to lock away a man for

murder the jury would need evidence to convince them that this is the person who

commits the crime. Property which is the mutual preservation of lives, liberties and

8
estates of the people are reason why men should not give up there state of nature.

Property gives the individual freedom rather than enslaving them and allowing him or her

to work with their hands, feet and brain. For a law to be fair, unbiased and free it must not

deprive any person of life, property or liberty, and must apply equally to all rich and poor,

the must not be arbitrary, for the good of the people, not raise tax without the consent of

the people and the legislator must not transfer its lawmaking power to any body else. In

the 90’s when the government was planning to add a new tax called the gas tax, the

people of Jamaica rebellion against this tax by burning tires, blocking of road and

shutting down the country for the day shows that the people are the one who are the head

and not the tail.

9
 MARX

In our country it is the worker for the rich that make them wealthy and powerful. Two

Jamaica main crops a decade a go was sugar cane and banana, we sell our commodity

very cheap as the more we produce. So the more goods produce the cheaper it is sold for

to the rich, and as a result the poor gets poorer and the rich get richer. The commodity the

worker produce soon longer belongs to the object and not the worker. Most of the

business in Jamaica is own by outsiders, who are not Jamaicans. After making the profits

they leave the country and send the profit to their own country. After doing this the

worker would be enslave because he receive a work, in that he receive means of

subsistence, thus the object makes him exist and he can only maintain himself as a

physical subject that is a worker. When ever Jamaica sees that they can do without some

of those large countries we would free from economic slavery.

The more we produce the less we have to consume, the more values we creates the more

worthless we become and the more refine the product the more crude and misshapen the

worker. It is best for Jamaica to produce less for the outsiders and keep some for their

own. We have seen technology take over Jamaica and fewer workers are needed in the

job. Privatization takes over, producing palace for the rich and hovel for the country. This

in turn makes the weaker country to be depending on the stronger one for riches. The

products are made by the worker but the production is made by the objects. In a sense

Jamaica gives the product to America and America makes the finish product sell it back

to Jamaica. If men have the basic needs provided they will work just to cover these

needs. So the richer exploit the human by providing their basic needs and when the poor

sees this they become unhappy, and as a result they found help in trade union who help

10
them to get better pay and wages. We are the most important resource in production; the

labor gets the job done. The product of man labor is regarded as not is own but belong to

the object who pays him for his labor. Private property is derived from the analysis of the

concept of alienated labor, alienated life and estranged him. The political economy begins

with labor as the real soul of production and then goes on to attribute nothing to labor and

everything to private property. Wages and private property are identical, for wages, like

the product or object of labor, labor itself remunerated are only a necessary consequence

of the alienation of labor. In the wage system labor appears not as an end in itself but as a

servant of wages.

11
 HEGEL

Hegel believes that an individual only has moral values because he is part of the state; the

state is God instrument for moving the world. Human moral purpose only can be

discovered in and through a community, and that individual progress without collective

progress is illusory. Jamaica court system is based on jury who is a collective body of

people who discuss if the defendant is guilty or not. He is saying that it is better to

believe a group of people than an individual. A group can also plot or conspire against or

for someone as an individual could have done, but the main idea in group is that not all

will lie and one of them must be weak enough to tell the truth. He identifies truth as the

observation and accumulation of evidence, resulting in the proposal of tentative

hypotheses subject to testing, confirmation, and disconfirmation. Truth is never known, it

is always merely hypothesized. So truth lies in the eye of the beholder. In the court the

lawyer use the power of reasoning as a tool to tell a truth. The man can be guilty of the

crime but when they start to reason, he can persuade the judge that he is not guilty and

the judge will say he his telling the truth and let him free. Laws can not be made on

perception but let person understand the laws. If this happens different persons will

reason differently about the set to govern the people.

Laws should be made by a special group of people rather than by he citizen of the

country although it is affecting them, the people who are making the laws should be

politically articulate only as a member of a social group or class. His belief that when

democrats rule it denies that there is an individual or class who can resolve conflicts of

human values and interest. Truth which lies in power is of the higher justice of nature and

truth and therefore may forcibly bring man and women under its sway, despite their inner

12
convictions and theories. Freedom of Jamaica is the sole of truth of spirit, can only

achieve through the consciousness of freedom. Society is the entire interlocking web of

relationships and activities that comprise a community’s life, including art, religion and

philosophy as well as government. The division among people, into class has taken away

men freedom and the fight and struggle to be at the top so that no one can take away your

place.

13
 LENIN

The people of Jamaica who are rank in the middle class and upper class enjoy their

position in life and would not be please to fall down in the ranks but rather to move up

the scale. The rich that are the top reach there by exploiting the poorer class by giving a

small portion of the profit and keeping the rest for themselves. So for the rich to be where

they are the poorer classes have to work to keep them where they are. It’s impossible to

be rich and working on a garbage truck or selling snacks to passengers in buses. The

more people are divide into class to struggle will get tougher and harder for the poor to

move up the scale. Only a type of class can rule over the people for it is not pleasant for

the eyes of the people to see that their leader is uneducated and work as a carpenter and

live no where at all. The leaders have to be educated and have a good record for him or

her to lead this country. On the contrary, the crowd will advance from its ranks increasing

numbers of professional revolutionaries, for it will know that it is not enough for a few

students and working men, waging economic war, to gather together and form committee,

but it takes years to train professional revolutionaries. Education is the only key out of

poverty in Jamaica, because there are jobs but the people would have to be educated to

join the job force of the country; this is one of the way men can be promoted up in the

ranks of class in the country.

It is expected that spontaneous rise of the working class masses becomes wider and

deeper; they only promote from their ranks an increasing number of talented agitators,

but also of talented organizers and practical workers. The problem is that the government

does not sufficiently stimulate the workers to take this path, by training them to be

professionals. To class society and state receive the power of the state and control the

14
weaker states. To put an end to this it will take a revolution as the people want a different

ruler. History teaches that not a single oppressed class has ever come into power, or

could come into power without passing through the period of dictatorship. Every class

conscious worker who has not broken connections with his class will understand at once

that it would be absurd to promise the right of assembly to the exploiters in the period

and in circumstances in which the exploiters are resisting their overthrow and are

defending their privileges.

15
 REFERENCE

Dr. Christie handouts

McGraw-Hill, Introduction of Politics, Book Company and C.A. Watts & Co., Ltd.

16