“When I grow up I want Jamaica to be a first world country” says a child in a popular billboard ad. To most people of course “first world” means rich, though in concrete terms it basically covers Western Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and maybe Singapore, Hong Kong, and Israel.

Every poor country naturally wants to be rich. But “to want” does not only mean ”to desire”, it also means “to aspire”. And there is an enormous difference between passively wishing for something and actively trying to accomplish it. All Jamaicans undoubtedly would like to see this country become a first world nation. But are we truly prepared to do what it takes to become one?

Countries do not magically become “advanced” overnight. They only do so through a combination of political stability, societal discipline and hard work. And while Jamaica is as politically stable as any country outside the developed world, so far we have shown no sign of developing consistent discipline and a strong work ethic.

From dirty littered streets to thoughtlessly aggressively bus and taxi drivers, the evidence of our indiscipline is all around. But the most obvious statistical proof of our lack of self-control is an 86% out of wedlock birth rate, which may be the highest in the world. The problem of course is not children born in stable common law relationships. It is those born to ‘multiple’ baby fathers who cannot even support one child. No excuse can hide the blunt reality that unwanted pregnancies only happen when people have unprotected sex without thinking of the possible consequences.

Commentators are fond of comparing Jamaica and Singapore. Yet there is probably no measure on which the two countries differ more dramatically than this. For while no figures are readily available for Singapore, it is a pretty safe bet that in this most regulated of countries only a small percentage of children are born to unmarried couples and that very few men go around boasting about their ‘football team’ of baby mothers.

I don’t know of any study examining family structure and societal development. But history suggests that a rigid family structure may be a necessary - though not sufficient - prerequisite for any country hoping to become “developed”. It was during the heyday of Victorian conservatism that Britain and America transformed themselves from poor agricultural to rich industrialized societies. True the out of wedlock birth rate has soared in these countries over the past fifty years. But there is a big difference between a highly structured rich society loosening the bonds of restraint and a poor one which has never acquired discipline.

To be sure societal discipline has nothing to do with race and everything to do with cultural development and expectations. All human beings originated in Africa, and there is a 99.99% genetic similarity between every person on earth. Only the ignorant talk of “inborn racial characteristics”, for every country’s historical past has varied widely. When the British ruled the world some spoke smugly of “innate Anglo Saxon superiority”. But where was this superiority during the thousands of years when Britain existed in backwards barbarianism? And where is it today?

Yet even if we cannot fully explain how they develop and change, cultural norms unquestionably vary among countries. While a child born in Canada and one born in Sierra Leone will both have the same genetic potential, the attitudes they are brought up with and their ultimate fates will be almost certainly be completely different.

Nor can geography’s role in development be ignored. It is no accident that most perpetually warm countries are poor and that most rich countries have extreme seasonal weather. Persistent heat is energy sapping, and harsh recurring winters force a society to plan for the future. Which is why people in four season countries generally work harder both physically and mentally. It is possible to be cold and poor like Russia and hot and rich like Singapore. But just as it is easier for a tall man to be a basketball player, so it is more likely that a cold country will become rich.

Certainly no honest person could describe Jamaica as a hard working country. It is not so much that we are physically lethargic as mentally lazy. We seem to hate nothing more than having to think and appear to regard shifting intellectual gears as almost mental torture. Why else would people keep voting PNP and JLP year after year despite their clear failure over the past three decades years to improve the average standard of living? But it is much easier to say eenie meenie minee moe between the head and bell than to consider any new or independent alternatives. And even easier to not bother to vote at all.

In a sense then Jamaica deserves to be about as rich as it, which is about midway between destitution and wealth. In truth this nation is god blessed with wonderful natural resources and an enviable absence of ethnic or religious divisions. If we really wanted to become a first world country, there is nothing to stop us. As American sports commentators might say, we just don’t want it enough.

But then, just how happy is the first world? For its own newspapers and televisions consistently portray the modern west as a stress filled place where “life is a bitch and then you die.” True people everywhere love to complain, and happiness is always subjective. But one sign of discontent is surely a disinclination to pass on life to the next generation, a feeling apparently rampant among developed nations these days.

Of the world’s 35 richest countries, only New Zealand, Iceland and America are producing babies at above the replacement rate of 2.2 per woman. And it is only immigrants and minorities who are replacing themselves in the US. Could it be that solving all of life’s problems has the unintended side effect of lessening the will to live? For a country whose population began to shrink indefinitely would in effect be committing gradual national suicide.

This is not to argue that being poor is a good thing. Which Jamaican ‘sufferer’ would not willingly swap problems with any of those apparently unhappy rich first worlders? As Sophie Tucker once remarked “I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich, and believe me rich is better!”

But maybe cynics are right in calling life a choice between boredom and misery. And perhaps the rich world’s unwillingness to go forth and multiply is telling us that man prefers the latter. changkob@hotmail.com