LLOYD ALGERNON BEST, economist, philosopher
and iconoclast extraordinaire, has died at the age of 73. 

Best the economist was a pioneer of the Plantation
School of Economics, an institutional explanation
of our dependency and underdevelopment, which
brought Bestian originality to the work of Edgar T.

Thompson. According to Best, “The plantation legacy
represents an endowment of mechanisms of economic
adjustment which deprive the region of internal dynamic,
more specifically it involves patterns of economic
distribution and disposal against economic transformation”. 

Best showed how colonialism transformed the Caribbean
into what he called “a hinterland of exploitation ”,an area
which was condemned to producing staples for export
to the metropolitan centre.

Best the philosopher forced us all to look at the other
side of the coin; he warned that we could “never be too
critical of our leaders”. 

Best the iconoclast utilized the verbal dexterity of the
“Midnight Robber” to great effect. 

It was Best who came up with the term “industrialization
by invitation” to describe W. Arthur Lewis's prescriptions
for the industrial transformation of the West Indies. 

Best gave us the concept of “doctor politics” to describe
the political shenanigans of Eric Williams. 

It was Best who contradicted all of Trinidad and Tobago:
“We doh need pan in schools; we need school in pan”,
he opined. And he backed this up with a learned and
provocative essay. 

It was Best who said to the people of Trinbago:
“COME TO THE LLOYD”. 

Best was educated at Tacariqua Anglican School and
Queen's Royal College (QRC) in Trinidad, and at
Cambridge and Oxford Universities in England. He
was only 23 years old when he joined the Faculty of
the University of the West Indies (Mona) in 1957.  

Best was a founder of the New World Group ( with David
De Caires of Guyana) in 1962; he was also the founder of
Tapia House Movement, and the Trinidad and Tobago
Institute of the West Indies.  

Lloyd Algernon Best is survived by his wife, journalist
Sunity Mahahraj, and by six children: Robert, Jean-Jacques,
Carmel, Ayiti-Carmel, Stuart, and Kamla.  

Long live Lloyd Best!
Long live the Bestian quest for an authentic Caribbean scholarship.


Caldwell Taylor

March 20, 2007