ABSTRACT
The drop in wages and the rise of unemployment in Cuba was no more acute than what was occurring in Jamaica during the same period. Both labor markets were highly unreliable, particularly because of the irregularity of employment characteristic of most export economies based on tropical agriculture. By the mid-1930s Panama, Cuba, and Costa Rica had all passed legislation effectively closing their boundaries to further labor migration from Jamaica and the rest of the West Indies. Legal closure of external labor markets to Jamaicans had several ramifications. The retrenchment of agricultural production in Jamaica as a consequence of the factors already discussed, plus the additional impact of the global economic depression of the 1930s, intensified the deterioration of the internal labor market. In contrast to the wiping out of migrant laborers’ accrued savings and benefits, which sometimes accompanies contractions, the contribution of imported labor power is forever contained within the ongoing evolution of capitalist production and capital accumulation.
