Search results

FROM THE BEGINNING, PUERTO RICO HAS FOLLOWED THE CARIBBEAN BASIN INITIATIVE WITH INTEREST AND CONCERN. THE INTEREST SPRINGS FROM AN APPRECIATION THAT PUERTO RICO ITSELF IS MORE LIKELY TO PROSPER OVER THE LONG RUN IF IT FINDS ITSELF IN A BASIN OF HOPEFUL PROSPERITY RATHER THAN DESTABILIZING POVERTY. THE CONCERN EXPRESSED IS ABOUT THE POLICY. TO BE SUCCESSFUL, THE CBI MUST ADEQUATELY PROTECT, PRESERVE, AND DEVELOP FURTHER THE PUERTO RICAN ECONOMY. BOTH SIDES OF THIS ISSUE ARE EXPLORED.

Industrialization in Puerto Rico, begun in the 1940s, has been dominated by United States monopoly capitalism-in a word, imperialism. Most industries promoted by the national program of industrialization are owned & controlled by United States corporations. These mainland firm operations, exempt from Puerto Rican taxes & nearly exempt from federal income taxes, have caused Puerto Rico to be known as 'Profit Island, USA.' The impact of US-financed capitalist industrialization on four elements of the Puerto Rican political economy is examined: (1) development is predicated on the continued growth of exports, lacking any internal dynamic; (2) agricultural technology & production have declined sharply due to unrestricted United States imports, & the island economy contributes an increasingly diminshed share of its own food needs; (3) unemployment has increased as the number of rural migrants has exceeded the capacity of urban industrialization, & the standard of living of the masses has decreased; (4) the state fails to raise sufficient revenue because more than 50% of the Puerto Rican tax base is tax exempt. Independence together with transition to a socialist economy is seen as the only permanent solution to these problems. C. Moe.