“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.

To many it is an ethically repugnant system based primarily on human selfishness and greed. But market capitalism is unquestionably the most successful economic system ever invented. It has given the western world the highest material standard of living in human history and made the United States in particular the richest, most technologically advanced and most powerful nation of all time.

“Liberal political and economic institutions depend on a healthy and dynamic civil society for their vitality” wrote Francis Fukuyama in his book “Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity”. If a society has a culture of trust and particularly if its members have the capacity to trust people outside their families, it generates “social capital” which is “critical to prosperity and to what has come to be called competitiveness”. In short, Mr. Fukuyama argues, countries where people trust each other tend to be richer than countries where they do not.

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

And never brought to mind? 

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

And days o’ lang syne!

For auld lang syne, my dear

For auld lang syne,

We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet

For auld lang syne!”

Christmas is at once the most hedonistic, commercialized, and holiest time of the year. Technically it is Easter Sunday – the day of resurrection - and not Christmas which is supposed to be the most important Christian day. Yet even devout churchgoers generally pay more attention to Christmas than Easter. And resent as they may the calendar expectation of happiness, even humbug scrooges find it hard to completely resist its spirit brightening festivities and gift exchanging pleasures. It says much about man’s paradoxical nature that this mix of deity, merry making, and mammon is the focal point of our calendar.

‘Men at some time are masters of their fates: the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.’ William Shakespeare

Jamaica is in a sense one of the world’s purest democracies. For the system of government that has evolved here since we gained independence is almost entirely a product of the collective will of the people.

He who desires power, wrote Machiavelli in his famously cynical political treatise “The Prince”, “should do what is right if he can; but he must be prepared to do wrong if necessary”. In democracy of course, we must add “as long as he doesn’t break the law”. But when power is at stake anything legal goes, as the recent US presidential elections have shown.

“What do they know of cricket who only cricket know? West Indians crowding to Tests bring with them the whole past history and future hopes of the islands.” CLR James. Beyond A Boundary

What happens to a culture when its strongest unifying force dies? The English speaking Caribbean may be about to find out. After the recent string of humiliating defeats we have to face the reality that West Indian cricket may be dying. All the excuses in the world cannot hide the basic reality - the West Indies no longer contains enough good cricketers to field a competitive test side. If things continue as they have the Australian tour might have to be called off for lack of competition. Sponsors are already preparing to desert the sinking ship.

Of the 22 countries where democracy has existed continuously since 1950, 18 have parliamentary governments - Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and the UK. France has a hybrid system and Switzerland a plural executive. Only Costa Rica and the US have presidential governments.

Weston Gregory joined the Jamaica Constabulary in 1989 when he was 20. Weston is not your average policeman. He recently published a book of poetry “Thoughts And Emotions” and has another book of verse and a novel planned. How did he become a police and a poet?