Jamaica Kincaid Life And Debt

The documentary film Life and Debt was written by Jamaica Kincaid and directed by Stephanie Black. The film portrays the complexities of economic globalization on developing countries in the world. It digs deeper on the mechanism of debt and how it destroys local industries in third world countries. Some of the conditions set up by international financial institutions before offering loans to disadvantage developing countries and prevent them from participating in potentially profitable endeavors.

The Colonial past of Jamaica makes it clear why they have an enormous amount of public debt. According to the film, the British colonizers left Jamaica when the country lacked enough economic strength to stand alone. As a result, they immediately resorted to borrowing to sustain the economy. The initial debt lead to a cycle of continually increasing debt as IMF and other international financial institutions made the nation join the global market only ending up to be exploited by economic superpowers. At present, the country owes over 4.5 billion dollars to the international financial institutions. Despite the huge amount, the development that the

The international financial institutions set up strict conditions for the Jamaican government before issuing the loans. One of those conditions was to reduce trade barriers making it easier and cheap for economic super powers to import goods into the country. However, the integration of Jamaica into the global economy made them easy targets for manipulation by the global superpowers. The cheap and subsidized importations to the country negatively affected local businesses and resulted in increased unemployment, corruption, criminal activities and other vices. The public debt has kept on increasing and consuming more than half of government expenditure leading to insufficient funds to address these social