ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between politics, social democratic reforms, and class struggle in the globalization of capitalism. Class struggle, nationalist politics, political decolonization, and the profit imperatives of the capitalist in a global economic and political environment combined to promote social democracy and authoritarianism. Social democratic reform involves transformations in the economic, political, and social structures to allow for greater people’s participation in decision-making. The social and economic conditions in the Anglophone Caribbean during the first three decades of the 20th century were dreadful. The Moyne Commission attested to the economic and social decay in the region that took a toll on the lives of the workers and their children. The Moyne Commission investigated conditions in housing, agriculture, hospitals, asylums for the mentally ill, leper homes, prisons, factories, docks, schools, orphanages, land settlement, and political and constitutional matters. The recommendations of the Moyne Commission were the basis for the establishment of a modern welfare system that was inadequate.
