Ways to Be Richest in Anansi’s Island

By Dennis A. Minott, PhD

July 20, 2026

If the venture succeeds, the investor is praised for courage and vision. If it fails, taxpayers may inherit the debt, environmental damage, unfinished structure, guaranteed payment contract or foreign-exchange burden. A truly skilled billioneer never gambles only his own money. He persuades the State that his enrichment is a national necessity.

In Anansi’s Island, the road to riches is seldom straight. It winds through boardrooms, ministries, whispered introductions, exclusive clubs, foreign partnerships and memoranda that promise everything while sometimes committing remarkably little. The old spider of folklore survived by wit because he was small and vulnerable. His modern descendants have improved the method. They use influence, opacity and public money, then call the outcome development.

Colonial web of influence and control (DAM-Commissioned Image by AI)

The first way to become rich is to discover a national crisis before everyone else does. Energy insecurity, housing shortages, failing roads, weak schools, water scarcity and crime are not merely problems; they are markets awaiting a well-connected interpreter. The trick is to present yourself not as someone seeking profit, but as a patriot carrying salvation in a leather briefcase. The larger the crisis, the larger the proposed cure—and the less likely ordinary citizens are to be allowed to inspect the invoice.

The second way is to privatise the reward while socialising the risk. This is among Anansi’s Island’s most refined commercial arts. If the venture succeeds, the investor is praised for courage and vision. If it fails, taxpayers may inherit the debt, environmental damage, unfinished structure, guaranteed payment contract or foreign-exchange burden. A truly skilled billioneer never gambles only his own money. He persuades the State that his enrichment is a national necessity.

The third way is to master the memorandum of understanding. An MOU is ideal because it photographs beautifully. Flags stand behind polished tables. Officials smile. Executives exchange folders. Headlines announce transformation. Yet the public may never learn the financial assumptions, technical conditions, competing proposals, exit provisions or ultimate beneficiaries. In Anansi’s Island, a memorandum can create political momentum, inflate commercial prestige and shape public expectations long before anyone proves that the project is affordable, necessary or even practical.

The fourth way is to import grandeur. Small, distributed and locally maintainable solutions rarely produce suitably heroic press conferences. A thousand repaired water systems, efficient rooftops, trained technicians or community enterprises may transform lives, but they do not always produce a single ribbon large enough for television. The richest therefore favour megaprojects: immense, complex, foreign-designed and difficult for citizens to evaluate. Complexity is not an obstacle. It is protection. The fewer people who understand the arrangement, the fewer who can challenge it.

The fifth way is to confuse investment with extraction. Investment should build productive capacity, transfer knowledge, strengthen local firms, create skilled employment and leave the country more capable than before. Extraction merely uses the island as a platform from which profits depart. Yet both can be described with the same vocabulary: growth, jobs, confidence, modernisation and partnership. Anansi’s cleverest children understand that language can turn a pipeline carrying wealth outward into a monument supposedly built for the poor.

The sixth way is to capture the gatekeepers. One does not need to own every institution. It is enough to influence the points through which opportunity must pass: finance, land, licences, procurement, distribution, media access and political attention. A market may appear open while remaining practically sealed. Newcomers are told to compete, but established interests already possess the relationships, credit, concessions and regulatory familiarity that help determine who enters and who starves outside. Formal equality becomes the mask worn by structural advantage.

Wealth and the struggle beneath the surface of it (DAM-Commissioned Image by AI)

The seventh way is to wear philanthropy as body armour. Charity is valuable and often sincere. But in Anansi’s Island, it can also soften scrutiny. A scholarship here, a hospital donation there, a sponsored gala, a stately courthouse, a youth programme and a well-publicised act of generosity may create an aura of national sainthood. The public is then encouraged to treat questions about monopoly, taxation, land, contracts or political access as ingratitude. A benefactor may do good; that does not mean his business arrangements should become immune from examination.

The eighth way is to make patriotism a one-way obligation. Workers must sacrifice. Consumers must endure high prices. Communities must accept disruption. The Government must provide guarantees. Regulators must be “facilitative”. Critics must avoid damaging investor confidence. Yet the wealthy investor remains free to repatriate profits, demand concessions, import expertise and minimise exposure. Patriotism, in this arrangement, is collected from the public like a tax but distributed upwards like a dividend.

The ninth way is to ensure that failure has no face. Projects do not fail because named people ignored warnings, concealed assumptions or bypassed scrutiny. They fail because of “unforeseen circumstances”, “global conditions”, “implementation challenges” or “market realities”. Committees are appointed. Reports are delayed. Responsibility dissolves into institutional mist. Anansi’s Island is rich in accountability mechanisms but poor in accountable persons. Everyone was present when the photograph was taken; no one is available when the bill arrives.

The tenth—and perhaps most profitable—way is to persuade citizens that no alternative exists. Once a proposal is declared inevitable, debate becomes theatre. The public may discuss colours, timelines and slogans, but not whether the project should proceed. Alternatives are dismissed as childish, outdated or insufficiently ambitious. The nation is manoeuvred into choosing between the favoured scheme and darkness itself. This is how commercial preference becomes national destiny.

There is also an eleventh method: control the story. Hire experts, commission favourable studies, cultivate commentators and repeat reassuring phrases until doubt appears eccentric. Critics need not be answered; they can be labelled emotional, elites from "the intellectual ghetto", anti-business, "lacking faith in human capacity". anti-progress or incapable of understanding sophisticated finance. Meanwhile, uncomfortable documents remain unpublished and inconvenient comparisons are ignored. In this way, public relations becomes a substitute for public reasoning. The citizen is not invited to judge the evidence, but pressured to admire the confidence with which the evidence is withheld from view.

Yet Anansi’s Island need not remain trapped in the spider’s web. Wealth is not shameful. Jamaica needs entrepreneurs, investors, inventors, builders and exporters. But true national wealth is created when private gain enlarges public capability. It is created when contracts are competitive, risks are honestly allocated, institutions disclose what they know, local firms can enter markets, and citizens can see who benefits, who pays and who bears the consequences.

The richest Jamaican should not be the person who best converts public weakness into private leverage. It should be the person who builds enterprises that solve real problems, pay fair taxes, develop Jamaican talent, strengthen communities and compete without requiring the State to silence rivals or absorb private losses.

Old-time Anansi stole halves of plantains because hunger sharpened his cunning. Modern Anansi already owns the restaurant, influences the menu, receives a tax concession on the kitchen—and persuades the villagers to guarantee his profits.

That is not folklore.

That is policy dressed as a trick.