In some parts of the world, dynamite is used as part of the fishing exercise. Drop a container of explosives in the water, wait for the blast and see what floats to the top. Together with the broken reef, plankton and micro-organisms that provide food and sustenance for marine life comes a rich bounty of fish.
It is a temptation of many countries to employ such an approach when confronted with crisis or when the social and economic bubble bursts.
Such an option is also particularly seductive when the institutions designed to apply reason and science to diagnose underlying complaints and to apply the required treatment become moribund and dangerously useless.
It has been evident in our approach to addressing violent crime in T&T and is now on parade in the form of proposed solutions to near economic collapse and its diverse associated impacts.
This is only possible though when institutions of the state, together with business, labour and civil society are themselves in decline.
For, if it is one thing that happens when there is economic collapse it would be the challenge the fallout presents to the intersection of official and social institutions designed to manage the expectations of good times and to mitigate the impacts of potential catastrophe.
It should at that stage be expected that the various arms of government are suitably durable and entrenched to ensure that essential human transactions requiring the enlightened intervention of executive power, legislative facilitation and support and judicial wisdom are sufficient to the task of stabilising the worst impacts of adversity.
There should, as well, be an accompanying infrastructure of civic responsibility and power both to guard against official excess and abuse and to enable citizens to intervene decisively and cohesively in the course of their own individual and collective destinies.
The development process in tiny countries such as ours relies extensively on all these processes and relationships to ensure that with each step forward we do not take two or three or four steps backward.
Instead, there appears to be a preference for guesswork and magic–a belief that at the end of the day everything will, mystically, be all good.
Sadly, the experiences of others elsewhere do not provide great comfort. The shambles of 2016 have crossed the divide of the developed and under-developed. Political blast fishing has not been unique to the Philippines where the practice at sea has re-entered the halls of power on land, but is in evidence in our own hemisphere and in longstanding liberal democracies that have appeared to have turned their own swords on themselves.
Western European and North American best practice models have been in ideological recession and the Latin American experience over the years has glorified the virtues of caudillismo of both the right and the left.
In the middle of all of this are these tiny countries with aspirations beyond the tourism brochures–in most instances, at any rate. We have all signed on to the values expressed in the Sustainable Development Goals that assume a high level of cohesion in pursuit of the basic requirements for progress.
Our national constitutions all mirror the aspirations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and we attempt to operate liberal democracies with respect for the separation of powers and observance of universal human rights.
There is an admirable fa�ade, with tropical tassels for good measure–flags, anthems and national mottos expounding the value of human dignity and respect.
Yet, the resort to authoritarianism and pyrrhic accomplishment is abundant.
We saw it in the false dichotomy between the pursuit of social, economic and cultural rights and aspirations for the realisation of civil and political rights promoted in the discourse upon the recent death of Fidel Castro.
It is also there each time something happens and the "bring back (Randolph) Burroughs" or "hang them high" bunch appears in the letters page and on social media. Drop the explosives in the water and see what comes to the top. At a time when investments are required to create the wealth needed to fill the gaps of disappearing oil and gas bounty there is promotion by a cynical commercial banking sector of more spending, the imposition of crippling, punitive fees. All of this together with a decline in the quality of service at the counter, and sometimes at the machine.
Meanwhile, the informal sector which serves as an important social safety valve is being pushed further and further into the background and continues to reside on the footpaths and not allowed to travel along the economic highway.
Organised religion has grown increasingly irrelevant and the political organisations that parade on centre stage are moribund and ineffective in mobilising social capital around the requirements of the development process.
All of this would paint a rather gloomy picture were it not for a few often-overlooked matters. For one, popular opinion has ignored the great hope of the next generation.
I have looked at the youngsters closely over recent years and see, in them, the promise of change...once the rest of us get out of their way. There is also hope in the fact that judicial authority continues to honour human rights as a feature of the development landscape. This is particularly important in the face of the "blast fishing" prescriptions of the politicians.
In the end, there is not going to be any magic, any selective blast of good fortune to lift us out of the hole. It's left to us to do the job. The bubble has burst and whether we like it or not, in this round, we do this pretty much on our own.