Cuban Reforms And Human Tendencies

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Intro by “Gary”—

Cuba, which has by default become the model of socialist development in the world has been going through some pretty hard times. They are now in the middle of implementing some market oriented reforms in an attempt to generate more domestic production and less dependence on imports. It is interesting to note that Cuba gets much of its agricultural produce from the USA despite the embargo. China and Brazil are investing in port and petrochemical facilities, but it seems to me that the big problem is a lack of morale among the Cuban people due to endemic food, housing, and consumer goods shortages.

This is a serious problem. Here in the USA there are problems of capitalist overproduction [and distorted distribution caused by enormous inequality], while in Cuba there are problems of underdevelopment and distorted development due to planning values that have left the desires and some of the needs of the people out of the picture [and the profound distortions introduced by America’s unrelenting hostility]. Some real democracy might remedy that. Although it may mean the leadership has to go through some changes and it may mean the dismantling of more of the system. The problem is, when you offer worker control, or real democracy in a capitalist society, even in a would-be socialist one, the tendency is for capitalist values to be reproduced. So the real challenge is how to encourage values of social solidarity with democracy and not revert to a [rigid] command economy or a capitalist one.

Commanding that people share will only work for so long, especially when they fight back through sabotage, slow downs and apathy. If participation is required there are two ways to get it, one is through fear of job loss and the other is through the pleasure of seeing the results of one’s labor and choices becoming realities. Both can work under either socialist or capitalist systems. Although since one of the selling points of socialism is full employment, it is hard to implement fear of job loss without subverting socialist values. Therefore it seems that implementing workplace democracy is the only way to gain motivation in a socialist context. Workplace democracy with some chance of success, without it, democracy will lead to the same demoralization that is experienced in a command economy.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if a command economy was able to produce consumer goods like a capitalist one, I think China may be some sort of hybrid of that type. They seem to have come up with a solution that satisfies people’s needs for consumer goods (at least for a segment) and yet allows the party to retain control. That is not the example most socialists would want to follow. But the leftist approach, workplace democracy, will that solve the problem? Perhaps, but as I said before, if there is not the means to make meaningful decisions have successful outcomes, that is supportive state infrastructure, that responds to the workers, then that democracy is simply going to lead to conflict and more problems.

This problem of morale, novelty, and democracy are all tied together. People have a desire for novelty when their basic needs are taken care of.  This desire for novelty seems to subvert the ability to make intelligent decisions based on basic needs. The old bread and circuses, problem, which the Romans seemed to have solved for centuries,  but we don’t seem to have mechanisms that keep our governments solvent for very long in the modern period. People seek novelty, perhaps even to the point of facing artificially created starvation, simply to keep things interesting. Will a higher rationality ever evolve? In a world of monster trucks and professional wrestling, where people live vicariously through the internet, or TV only people living pre-technological lives may be facing the world as it is. But they die young, in tribal societies, perhaps it is not because of the harshness of life, but the tedium of routine, they die of boredom, or self-inflicted wounds to relieve the tedium of existence. This self-destructive tendency is the main enemy, even more than the Cuban corruption, which is after all simply another means of self-destructive entertainment. To be a revolutionary, is to be a master at novelty. Novelty that leads to progress, that was the genius of a Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Augustus, Confucius, Marx,  and Gene Roddenberry, to name a few. Although Roddenberry has yet to prove he can affect anybody besides Trekkies.

From Terraviva

POLITICS-CUBA: Reforms Up Against the Clock
By Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Jun 3, 2011 (IPS) – President Raul Castro, who turned 80 Friday, is facing the challenge of making the Cuban economy more efficient without abandoning socialism – a course that involves overcoming conservative resistance to change and new forms of working and even thinking.

“We have to take care of him; only he can set the reforms in motion,” one academic confided to IPS. The president himself has admitted that time is a factor against him. But he seems to feel healthy and completely at ease with his responsibilities in leading the country, which he describes as his “last task.”

The day before his birthday, the president received a visit from former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2011), and the two reviewed progress of a project to expand and modernise the port of Mariel, about 45 kilometres west of Havana. The project, with Brazilian financing, will make it possible for 15-metre draft ships to dock in the port terminal and further open “Cuba’s doors to the world,” Cuban press reports commented. The port is part of a strategic development zone to be established over the next five years.

According to academic circles, the Brazilian investment now totals some 300 million dollars. The Mariel plans include the construction of roads and modern rail lines, in addition to the remodeling of a polytechnic institute for training young people in the skills needed for the new jobs in the area.

Mariel and the Cienfuegos petrochemical complex, which has heavy financial backing from China, are two mainstays of development that are being followed very closely by Castro, and whose success depends on the impact of structural reforms on the efficiency of the state business system, charged with making government projects operational.

In bidding farewell to da Silva on Thursday, Castro announced that he would celebrate his birthday “only with my grandchildren” and one or two of his daughters. In his marriage with prominent women’s rights advocate Vilma Espín, who died in June 2007, Castro had three daughters and a son. Next to his lifelong companion’s gravestone, another has been placed, with his own name and year of birth (1931-).

The Cuban president seemed to be in a good mood, joking about his age and saying it was a “shame” that he could not retire “already,” referring to an initiative in the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) for a term limit of two consecutive terms for top political and state posts.

“Well, I have two terms, I’ll try to complete one,” commented Castro, who was elected president of the Council of State in 2008. The post had been left vacant by his older brother, Fidel, after he fell seriously ill in 2006. Since the PCC congress in April, Raúl Castro is also the first secretary of the Central Committee of the party.

The term-limit initiative, in addition to many other reforms contained in the economic and social policy guidelines, the name given to the five-year – the time between party congresses – programme approved by the party congress, is awaiting the passage of laws in order to be formally implemented.

“There are so many things that must be fixed in legal terms,” Castro commented in brief statements to journalists. For that purpose, Justice Minister María Esther Reus is devoting herself entirely to reviewing the laws, he added. “There are thousands that have to be fixed, in an organised manner,” he said.

“Many things that are in place are absurd, or were correct in the beginning, but time has passed,” said Castro, who announced on Jul. 26, 2007 that all structural and conceptual changes needed to make the land produce more would be made.

Although he was referring to the depressed agricultural sector and the need to bolster food production to reduce the country’s heavy dependence on costly imports, Castro’s 2007 remarks marked the start of a process that involved mass debates on the problems faced in Cuba and the desire for change of the Cuban people.

The outcome of the discussions served as the basis for the draft guidelines that were taken to the PCC’s Sixth Congress after they were discussed in neighbourhood and workplace meetings. At the same time, a number of measures and resolutions began to respond to certain demands, while others still await legislation to regulate their implementation.

Decisions to open up tourist hotels to Cubans and make mobile phones and computers widely accessible to the local population were followed, in 2008, by a decree for the distribution of unproductive government land to private farmers.

One million hectares have been distributed to date, and a further 800,000 are ready to be handed over, according to the Agriculture Ministry. But of the total handed over, only 70 percent is being farmed. According to researchers, the decree needs adjustments to encourage agricultural work.

In the first quarter of this year, about 300,000 people moved from the state sector to the private sector, in light of the expansion of self-employment to 178 trades and activities and the drastic reduction of the state payroll. Authorities hope to encourage more people to join the self-employment sector, with rules that ease the tax burden.

However, analysts point out that the list of authorised occupations includes only two or three specific activities for skilled professionals, thus ruling out the contributions that people with higher education could make and closing the doors to their participation in economic and technological innovations.

Expectations are now focused on the implementation of an announced credit policy, which will include loans for farmers to buy work supplies and tools in retail stores, and for self-employed workers.

The most eagerly awaited laws include those for regulating the buying and selling of vehicles and homes, which will now be allowed, and rules for setting up cooperatives in areas other than agriculture, the only sector where they have been permitted until now.

Embarking on the preparations for a National Conference set for Jan. 28, 2012, Castro urged PCC members to change their “mentality, which like a psychological barrier” is hardest to overcome, “because it has been tied for many years to the same obsolete dogmas and ideas.” (END)

http://ipsnews.net/newsTVE.asp?idnews=55921

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>From Yahoo News

China gives backing to Cuban reforms

HAVANA (AFP) – Cuba and China have strengthened their political and economic alliance by signing 10 new cooperation agreements that will provide Havana with much needed financial support to implement its plan of economic reforms.

The accords were signed in the presence of Cuban President Raul Castro and Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping.

The agreements “reflect the political will of both parties and governments to continue deepening their ties,” an official Cuban announcement said.

The agreements call for a new line of credit for Cuba and the restructuring of two others. They also include a donation and a loan that will be used to modernized the Cuban public health system.

However, reports by Cuban official media did not disclose the amounts of money involved.

China will also help Cuba modernize an oil refinery in the southeastern city of Cienfuegos, build a new liquid gas plant and improve the city port.

Xi arrived in Havana from Italy on Saturday on the first leg of a Latin America tour that will also take him to Uruguay and Chile.

During their meeting, Xi and Castro noted “an excellent state of bilateral relations and exchanged their views on the situation around the world,” according to the Cuban announcement.

Xi was the first Chinese leader to visit Cuba after a Communist Party congress in April approved a package of more than 300 reforms aimed at making Cuba’s centralized economy more efficient.

The Chinese vice president said after his arrival that the Cuban party congress had “determined the course of the country’s future development” and laid the foundation of “future successes in the process of building socialism” on the island.

According to China’s Xinhua news agency, Xi also said that the China-Cuba friendship meets the common aspiration of the two peoples, adding that the two countries were determined to expand their consensus, enhance friendship and deepen cooperation for common development.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110606/wl_asia_afp/cubachinaeconomydiplomacy

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