Cuba’s New Reforms Bode Shaky Future
By Ron Ridenour
HAVANA TIMES, Nov. 30 — With the November 2010 publication of 291 proposals for reforms in 12 areas of economic and social life Cubans are once again faced with a national debate on policies. A key question is if the 800,000 Communist Party (PCC) members’ discussion, plus that of non-members, will affect the policies to be taken at the forthcoming PCC VI congress, in April 2011. There is no proposed mechanism to assure such in the 32-page document.
The essence of these guidelines, which aim to increase efficiency and production, and decrease the budget deficit, balance exports-imports, and pay the foreign debt ($20 billion), is to reduce the state’s role, delegate more authority to local governments and work sites, increase taxes and other revenues while cutting back on social benefits and subsidies.
In addition, there will be more private enterprise and foreign investment openings, and integrating more with progressive neighboring governments. Nevertheless, the document maintains that “only socialism is capable of overcoming the difficulties and preserving the conquests of the Revolution”.
The state will continue to be the central economic planner using the budgetary method but it will permit more farm land as usufruct property, greater self-employment (in 178 areas) and small businesses which, for the first time, will be allowed to employ people outside the family.
Several times in the last half-century of revolutionary Cuba have citizens been allowed to discuss national policies (not international ones) but the results have been consultative rather than binding—with the exception of adopting the new constitution in 1976, and modifying it in 1992. Three years ago, shortly after Raul Castro took over the presidency, a widespread national debate was launched about the future of the revolution. Millions contributed ideas, but there was no real mechanism to implement anything debated.
I participated in the PCC’s fourth congress preparatory discussion, in 1991, while working as a volunteer on an oil tanker in Santiago de Cuba. The seamen passed two motions concerning democratization of decision-making and in the media. Most later said these discussions were a waste of words. They saw no results from their motions, but the party did listen to some of the one million complaints and proposals.
In the spring of 1994, the National Assembly called upon a “workers parliament” to discuss economic policy. The then national CTC union leader, Pedro Ross, said that these discussions would form the basis for permanent workers input with the objective of “finding and implementing solutions,” to “increase work efficiency and greater production”. However, greater worker input has not occurred since, and efficiency and production have never reached acceptable levels.
In Overall Terms
I find positive and worrisome aspects in the guidelines. First, I will sketch the major points, and then go into details in each arena.
Positive goals are those aimed at becoming self-sufficient in foodstuffs; uniting the two currencies into one so that all can buy what is offered; some decentralization of decision-making and use of more finances by local governments and companies. Then there is the admission of too much dependency on foreign capital and imports, the need to cut back on excessive costs and wastes, strengthen the desire to work, eliminate work centers operating at a loss that constantly produce less than their expenditures.
On the down side are several proposals which would continue mono-culture dependency, joint ventures-foreign capital investment, a dual economy and class inequalities generally viewed as necessary tactical setbacks in the early days of the Special Period (1990-96+). Many analysts including myself when working in Cuba, expressed the fear that these retreats could become permanent (1). Our fears were warranted as it is clear today that these retreats have deepened and become entrenched.
The greatest lack in these proposals is the failure to propose a transfer to workers power (real democracy), in which workers actually manage the state and the economy. Because workers do not have real decision-making power, nor do the majority have sufficient foodstuffs and essential consumer items due to low wages and little supply, there is rampant demoralization-apathy-cynicism-alienation, which results in epidemic thievery of needed items from work places and state warehouses, and an omnipresent black market. Coupled with out-of-control thievery and corruption among some government officials and in the bureaucracy, the now stagnant revolution is on the verge of self-destruction.
There have been some leftist-oriented writings about Cuba’s economic and political discrepancies, mostly published by non-Cubans who support greater socialism. Cuban media will not publish such critiques by non-Cubans or Cubans—other than by Fidel and Raul. (See especially Fidel’s “Self-destruct” speech at Havana University, November 17, 2005, and Raul’s speech, July 26, 2007.)
Recently, however, Esteban Morales, a prominent Cuban Communist economist and leading researcher on race relations in Cuba, wrote a critical article from a left socialist perspective, “Corruption, the True Counter-Revolution” (published abroad but also allowed, for a time, on the website of Cuba’s writer-artists association (UNEAC), for which the PCC expelled him, as if affirming the widely held view that ordinary Cubans can’t have real influence. It seems some leaders took umbrage at Morales view that: “Corruption turns out to be the true counter-revolution, which can do the most damage because it is within the government and the state apparatus, which really manage the country’s resources.” (2)
This does not bode well for the PCC congress discussion.
Another problem is that many of the state’s leading economists actually propose so-called “market socialism”, believing that the solution to scarcity is more capitalist investment and supply-demand pricing. And in the proposals are aspects oriented in that direction, coupled with so-called “socialist” self-management of individual work centers, which would result in competition between work centers.
This would lead to petty-bourgeois production relations and individualistic mentality—worker-capitalists in the making, such as what the Solidarity union in Poland advocated. If one is to be paid according to what one produces and sells, as proposed, then nickel and sugar cane workers would be poorer than workers in citrus farming, for instance, when global capitalist pricing fluctuates so that mining nickel is not profitable, as is often the case in inevitable endemic cycling. Thus the basic principle of solidarity and equality is in serious danger once again.
The continued reliance on capitalist foreign trade and tourism limits investments in agriculture and other necessary goods for the population.
Furthermore, the proposals do not call specifically for greater trade with ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of America) countries, although there is a vague statement that ALBA is a priority. With the exception of Venezuela, there is little trade with ALBA. Most trade is with major capitalist countries, including the US, which is Cuba’s number one food supplier (25-30% of all foodstuffs) and overall its fourth leading importer.
Twelve Major Guidelines
1. Economic Management Model
Cuba’s Communist party leaders propose the continuation of the socialist budgetary planning system while being flexible in allowing “new forms of management”: mixed capital, cooperatives, usufruct farmland, renting of establishments, self-employment and other forms that will improve efficiency in social work.
Some elements include wholesale markets that sell to all production units without subsidies; companies can “decide and administer their working capital and investments” according to new rules; firms that consistently fail to balance their budgets can be liquidated; worker income based on final results; after paying taxes and costs of production, enterprises can create their own development funds and bonuses to stimulate workers; prices are to be flexible and transparent with possibility of discounts.
Cooperatives will be able to sell directly to the population thereby avoiding the middle man distributor (acopio), which causes delays, wastes and thievery. This must be a major priority!
My concerns about this model are: where will sufficient goods come from for wholesale markets to sell to all productive units? How much say will workers actually have within the companies? Who will be the managers and how will they be selected?
2. Macro-economic Policies
The general aims are to balance the budget, export-imports trade, decrease state subsidies, and prepare to unify the two currencies, plus greater taxation based upon incomes.
There seems to be a contradiction between proposal 62, which calls for maintaining the centralization of prices of production and services, with that of proposal 23, which allows for enterprises to be flexible in establishing prices and discounts.
The unification of the two currencies is hoped for but is dependent upon “increased production”, which is not a given. The discriminatory situation of today could well continue indefinitely.
3. External Economic Policy
The goal is to export more and import less. In the introduction to the guidelines, it is stated that between 1997 and 2009, Cuba lost $10.1 billion pesos in trade imbalance, about ten percent of its current GNP. It is unclear how Cuba judges the value of its pesos when publishing figures of gross national product and state budget, but I believe it is on a one-to-one basis with the US dollar. Cuba’s Office of National Statistics (ONE) does not explain currency values but CIA Factbook calculates Cuba’s economic figures in $. For 2008, it claims (without citing sources) that exports were but $3.68 billion while imports were $14.25 billion—an imbalance of nearly $9 billion, which is almost what Cuba claims is the difference in a 12-year period.
Cuba’s imports come first from Venezuela, 31%, followed by China, 10% and Spain, 9%. Cuba’s exports go mainly to China (25%), Canada (20%), Spain (7%) and the Netherlands (4.5%). Oddly enough 6% of all imports are from the US, which officially continues a blockade but since 2000 sells foodstuffs and medicines on a cash-on-line basis in US dollars. This places Cuba at a security risk by depending upon the whims of its main enemy for food.
Cuba continues its policies of relying on exports for its main growth. It states priorities in nickel, sugar, oil (?), foodstuffs (?), coffee, cacao, shellfish (proposal 71)—and tobacco. All this reliance on an export mono-culture economy plays into the vulnerable world capitalist market. Furthermore, it makes no obvious sense to export oil and foodstuffs when it is a major importer of both—as much as 80% of its foods are imported and much of what it grows in fresh vegetables and fruits is sold to tourists. A saner export is Cuba’s excellent bio-technology.
Apparently nothing will change regarding the Free Zones and Industrial Parks Law 77 of 1996, allowing export-import without restrictions and without any taxes on products or labor, just like in many underdeveloped capitalist countries.
Proposals 107-8 emphasize participation with ALBA and integrating the economy with Latin America. But there are no specifics proposed. And most of its trade is in exporting “human capital”—medical personnel, teachers, technicians, sports instructors—while buying petroleum from Venezuela. Cuba also sends medical-teacher aid to many other Latin America countries, and elsewhere in the world. This is positive internationalism. At the same time Cubans’ welfare services are curtailed due to the vast numbers of professionals sent around the world.
ALBA inter trade was $6.5 billion, in 2009, between the four major countries (Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.) “Information export support” website states that when Cuba and Venezuela initiated the alliance, in 2004, their trade was $1.5 billion. (3) ALBA now has its own currency for transactions, the Sucre, which it fixes at $1.25 dollars.
According to a study conducted by Larry Catá Backer and Augusto Molina, “Globalizing Cuba: ALBA and the construction of socialist global trade systems”—presented at Queen’s University, Ontario, May 7-9, 2009—six ALBA countries established a network for Food Trade and Food Security Fund, February 2009, with six countries but Cuba is not listed. Cuba, however, provides the basic ideology for ALBA. (4)
4. Investment Policy
There is nothing new or anything to add to my overview. A major failure here is not to emphasize investments and technology to manufacture products nationally from its natural resources. This has long been an essence of colonialist and imperialist economic relations between the “first” and “third” worlds, and was a feature of USSR-Cuba relations as well. While Fidel has spoken about this in the past, there seems to be no change in conduct. I think Cuba could listen to the beginnings of change in this area from President Evo Morales, who recently stated that lithium reserves would not be exported as raw materials but products will be manufactured in Bolivia.
5. Science, Technology and Innovation Policy
Continue policies in effect, and with a new priority into research aimed at lessening the negative affects of climate change.
6. Social Policy
Continue preserving the “conquests of the revolution” in key welfare areas while reducing “excessive costs”. The party also seeks to recover the role that work should play in contributing to societal development and meeting personal needs. That means: eliminating hustling, thievery, over-reliance on remittances.
In education, the guidelines call for strengthening the role of the teacher in the classroom. But there is nothing stated about allowing teachers more room in deciding what students should read and discuss.
Proposal 143 calls for improving the quality of medical services while eliminating some costs. This does not take into account that the medical personnel inside Cuba earn very poor wages, and much less than those who work in international missions. This dichotomy is a major sore.
Proposal 152 calls for generating new sources of income in the culture arenas. But does this mean continuing the “new critics” approach, which deemphasizes revolutionary analysis and values? As James Petras wrote, “The clearest threat to Cuba is from within, evidenced in the decline in revolutionary cultural production”. He outlines how from posters to films and books, Cuba’s cultural leaders are ignoring their values of solidarity from the times during the wars against Vietnam and in Africa. There has not been a “single documentary about the world-historic struggles of the Iraqi, Afghan or Somali resistance to the US directed imperial wars; the Colombia guerrilla struggle against the death-squad `democracy´; and the struggle of the black masses of New Orleans against capitalist eradication of their homes, schools and hospitals.”
“The new literature in Cuba—in its break with social realism—contains racial and sexual stereotypes…” “One gets the impression from watching, listening and reading current Cuban cultural productions that there are no honest revolutionaries left in Cuba,” says Petras. (5)
Proposal 154 calls for diminishing state financing of social security by extending the contribution of workers in both state and private sectors. How can this be? One of the pillars of social welfare brought about by the socialist revolution is now to be conditioned, in part, on taxes paid by underpaid workers. Until now part of one’s “income” has been free access to health care and education and subsidized low prices for much foodstuffs and clothing. And the ration book, guaranteeing some basic foods albeit fewer and fewer, is to be eliminated (Proposal 162). That means that real wages will decrease, in effect. And where will the poorest of workers, including pensioners, get their food? The food sold in farmers markets, even the state controlled ones, are too costly to provide enough food for most people for the entire month. Will this not result in greater frustration, thievery, and reliance on remittances? Shall more people flee to capitalist countries, in order to send their families some money just to eat?
The state offers a promise of increased wages, first and foremost in the $ equivalent (CUC, which is valid only in Cuba) economy, and in agriculture, once production increases. But hungry, frustrated workers will NOT work harder before they are better paid and treated. He/she is going to be angrier and open to more corruption.
7. Agro-industrial Policy
The main stated goal is to end the cycle of food dependency, to balance export-import trade. New methods of management, already mentioned, are to be employed. There should be “greater autonomy of producers”. But is that for managers or for all workers? Plus “supply and demand” market pricing (177) shall be employed generally accompanied by ending subsidies.
Why can’t prices be based on socialist relations of production, taking into account, as well worker incomes in relationship to their necessary consumption?
While there is talk about greater national production, over half of the arable land still lays fallow! The guidelines point this out on page 6. Fidel and Raul have talked about this dilemma for many, many years. Socialist Cuba has “traditionally” imported most of its foodstuffs, first from the Soviet Union and Comecon, and since from capitalist countries. Why has this incompatibility continued?
Raul Castro said, July 27, 2009, that the 2008 policy allowing fallow state lands to be used in usufruct terms by private persons and cooperatives had already accomplished the transfer of 690,000 hectares in 82,000 approved applications of the 110,000 total number. This is 39% of idle lands. When Raul spoke, one-third of transferred lands had been planted. So progress is underway.
Nevertheless, Reuters reported, August 4, 2010, that food production fell 7.5% in the first half of 2010 from 2009. And the fall especially affected rice and beans, which had been on the incline. Rice, however, is mostly imported from Vietnam (70% of consumption), often on credit terms. And overall food production is below 2005 levels while imports are decreasing in the past two years due to lack of cash and credits.
Part of this must be due to severe hurricane destruction in 2008 and earlier draughts.
Nevertheless, while there is constant complaining about the US blockade—with the decade-old exception of foods and medicines—and praise for ALBA integration, of the top ten food importers only one is a Latin American country and that is capitalist Brazil, not an ALBA government. (6)
Furthermore, much of the foodstuffs that Cuba imports from its enemy—everything from cereals, powdered milk, soybeans and oilseeds to poultry and beef—is infested with Genetic Modified Organisms. Cuba is now using GMO corn seeds in its own earth.
Of all the contradictions, internationalist-revolutionary socialist Cuba’s business relationship with the former Mossad chief of European operations and major Zionist Israeli capitalist Rafi Eitan is one of the most incomprehensible.
“In 1992, Eitan was approached by Irving Semmel, a successful Brazilian businessman, to bid on a contract for an agricultural deal in Cuba, which involved the cultivation of the largest citrus grove operation on the island. After winning the bid, Eitan built a partnership with four other international entrepreneurs to run the deal. The company GBM (Grupo BM) was incorporated in Cuba, but Eitan represents the company in Israel under the name ‘Reesimex’. Due to the success of the venture and the connections acquired, GBM also won the contract to build the Miramar Trade Center in Havana, and a Holocaust Memorial at the center of the Old City of Habana. Recently, GBM was awarded the “Medal for Agricultural Work” by the Cuban government,” writes Wikipedia. Eitan also owns, with the Cuban government, the largest citrus juice plant.
Eitan has never renounced his Zionism or his murderous operations since his retirement from those activities. (7) He was “involved in the secret planning and implementation of the attack on the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981,” wrote Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Relations. Eitan was also Jonathan Polland’s handler. Polland was convicted of spying on the US for Israel, the only country which consistently votes in favor of the US blockade on Cuba. “Between 2006 and 2009, Eitan was a member of parliament and sat on its all-powerful foreign relations and defense committee. As leader of the GIL pensioner party, he was minister for pensioner affairs.
Proposal 179 calls for “Recuperating national citrus activity and assuring efficient commercialization of its products in international markets,” and there is no turning back on this imperialist capitalist. What does Cuba tell its Palestinians friends about this, not to mention Iranians, Iraqis and Afghans?
8. Industrial and Energy Policies
Cuba industrializes very little, something Che Guevara had endeavored to change without fortune. But with what little industrial development there is, these proposals call for orienting it for exportation while reducing the import component. How can Cuba meet its people’s own industrial product needs by exporting more and importing less? Now it is nearly impossible to find new clothes for sale in national pesos, for instance.
Proposal 199 calls for greater emphasis on small-scale production in local industries, which sounds healthy. Leaders also aim to produce more construction materials, and oil and gas, which provide 90% of energy use. There will be more clean energy too: biogas, hydraulic and wind. Something new will be the production of tires and packaging.
9. Tourism Policy
There is no change in direction here; just more of the same. In 2009, 2.4 million tourists visited Cuba, about the same as 2008, but spent 12% less, $2 billion, due to the global economic crisis. Twenty thousand of these were visitors to health facilities for care.
The tourism apartheid has been lessened with new rules allowing all persons as hotel guests as long as they can pay in hard currency. Today, a few of the new national Cuban bourgeoisie party alongside foreigners, including Miami Cuban “escapees.” While this eliminates the previous discrimination of nationality it heightens the inequality of Cubans, the vast majority of who could not pay for one day in a luxury hotel with an entire year’s wage.
But the worst is that with so much investment attention and personnel in tourism revolutionary ethos has been permanently distorted. And national agriculture products are diverted from the population to tourists. This is, perhaps, impossible to calculate financially, but much of the foreign currency earnings from tourism must go to import food for national consumption.
10. Transport Policy
Nothing new is proposed here. Cuba will continue importing buses and trains from China, apparently. Leaders do propose investments in docking infrastructure, loading-unloading operations. As a former voluntary merchant marine, I personally welcome this initiative. Cuban longshoremen are (were, anyway) among the world’s slowest—something that irritated seamen and captains and caused greater costs to shipping.
The inadequate transportation system, with so many breakdowns and lack of repairs, causes tardiness and absenteeism from work and school. There is an endless vicious circle of inadequate production and services coupled with inadequate transportation.
11. Construction Policies, Housing and Hydraulic Resources
Residential housing is to increase, in part, by establishing a system of payment based upon construction results and employing double shifts.
Cuba has never had sufficient housing for the entire population. Pre-revolutionary and revolutionary governments have accepted that too many people live under the same roof—three generations is not unusual. But young people, especially those wishing to marry and have children, are not motivated by this “custom”. Nor will they be enthralled by proposal 270, which calls for more tourism construction, including: golf courses, aquatic parks, spas, and other non-necessities, thus diverting labor and materials for necessary national housing.
The traditional lack of housing and dilapidated conditions has been aggravated by unusually strong and frequent hurricanes, in part due to climate change. Between 1998 and 2008, Cuba lost over $20 billion to 16 hurricanes and three of them, in 2008, caused half those economic damages.
The ministry of construction apparently does not foresee being able to meet the population’s needs so the government proposes to allow “new forms of construction organizing” (272), such as cooperatives and self-employed contractors, who will most assuredly demand convertible currency (CUC) payment, which only a minority of Cubans have enough of for residential construction.
Proposal 273 allows for increasing the “commercialization of construction materials”. Does this mean in CUCs as well?
Proposal 278 also needs explanation. It calls upon “flexible formulas” for exchange of housing (permute), buying, selling and renting”. Does this mean Cuba will change its long-held-standard of not permitting housing sales, in order to abolish speculation and inequalities in property relations?
New and better water works need to be built and repaired. One of the most frustrating aspects of living in Cuba for me was to see so much water go to waste, either through gushing leaks or permanent drippings due to faulty equipment and a lack of washers, or carelessness of many people, who let water flow out of faucets and tubes without regard to its loss. I was shocked to see the figure 58% “of water distributed is wasted,” and impressed that this was reported in “Granma”. (8)
So, party leaders propose (282) to promote “a culture conducive to the rational use of water” while reducing waste of all kinds. Just why is there a culture of waste? Is it not because of rampant apathy and alienation?
”The greatest obstacle has been our fear lest any appearance of formality might separate us [revolutionary leaders] from the masses, from the individual, and might make us lose sight of the ultimate and most important revolutionary aspiration, which is to see man liberated from his alienation,” wrote Che Guevara. (9)
12. Commercial Policy
Party leaders propose a re-structuring in commercial production and presentation of services both wholesale and retail. Non-state food services are encouraged. Leaders aim to diversity the types and increase the amount of products and services. Once there is one integrated currency, the differences in products and services available should disappear.
But where will all the wealth come from for these operations? It sounds too inflated, and too consumerism oriented, to me. There is absolutely no need, for instance, to shop in stores that sell ten toilet paper packages with different names.
Conclusion: Workers Power is the Only Future for Socialism
I am not alone in maintaining that without workers power real socialism cannot be built, and even half-real socialism will fail—as we have witnessed in most countries that made attempts.
Workers power should include oversight committees staffed on a rotating basis by actual workers across the country. I firmly support what James Petras wrote: “A new income policy in itself can contribute to greater incentives for productivity if it is combined with greater direct participation of all workers in the organization and administration of the work place as well as the opening of multiple spaces to discuss the restructuring of the economy.”
”What especially requires reform is a new system of public accountability based on independent accounting authorities, consumers’ and workers’ oversight commissions with the power to ‘open the books’. Workers and professional control will not eliminate corruption altogether but it will challenge the authorities through independent periodic reviews…Greater accountability within the leadership is necessary but not sufficient. There must be control and vigilance by authorized commissions from below and by a parallel independent general accounting office…a new system of elected representatives to oversee the allocation of the budget to the various ministries and the power to summon responsible officials to televised hearings for a strict public accounting,” states Petras. (5)
When revolutionary, communist, anarchist organizers are engaged in workers struggles under capitalism, one of their best arguments when confronted by management that their demands are not economically possible is the demand: “Open the books.” So when they are told they now have their own economy, their own government, their own Cuban-Marxist state why can they not see the books?
When I first started citing Fidel’s perhaps most important speech ever, that of November 17, 2005—“This country can self-destruct…and it would be our fault”—many non-Cuban leftist solidarity activists considered me to be too critical, even bordering on treachery. Today, it must be quite obvious to nearly all that internal deterioration, physically/emotionally/ideologically, has grown such that it is beyond denial.
Nevertheless, back in 2005, Fidel apparently had not foreseen that it would degenerate more, because of the measures then being taken against that. Later on in this speech he stated: “I can assure you with absolute certainty that this battle against waste, theft, the illegal diverting of resources and other generalized vices has been won in advance…”
I will close with another, sober quotation from Fidel Castro: “Capitalism tends to reproduce itself under any social system because it is based on egotism and on human instincts. Human society has no other alternative but to overcome this contradiction; otherwise, it would not be able to survive.” (10)
Notes:
- See my book “Cuba at the Crossroads”, Infoservicios, Los Angeles, California, 1994.
- http://www.afrocubaweb.com/estebanmorales.htm
- http://www.export.by/en/?act=news&mode=view&id=21977
- http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/asce/pdfs/volume19/pdfs/backermolina.pdf
- “Cuba: Continuing Revolution and Contemporary Contradictions”, August 12, 2007.
- http://www.fas.usda.gov/itp/cuba/CubaSituation0308.pdf
- See Gideon Alon, “Just a Farmer in Cuba”, as cited in (5). See also my “Cuba: Beyond the Crossroads”, Socialist Resistance, 2007, page 7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafi Eitan http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Personalities/From+A-Z/Rafi+Eitan.htm
- “En este proceso quien decide es el pueblo,” November 16, 2010, in a statement by René Mesa Villafaña, president of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resource.
- “Socialism and Man” Marcha, Uruguay weekly, March 12, 1965.
- “The law of the jungle”, October 13, 2008.
Marx did not claim to discover surplus value. Anyone who has read Volume 1 of Capital knows that. What Marx discovered was how the commodity embodies surplus value and the relationship and transformation of surplus value via its ultimate expression as money. Most comments here fail to recognize that imperialism developed after Marx died. Lenin wrote his famous thesis on imperialism to show how capitalism was transformed into its ultimate expression by development of the modern corporation and its integration with international capital. Lenin wrote Imperialism to lay the theoretical basis for workers not supporting any national government’s imperialist war. One may recall that this was a fundamental cause for the breakup of the Second International as “loyal” socialists supported “their” imperialists. So, when anyone wants to discuss the future of any worker’s state or any revolution, it is imperative to keep in mind the relationships to international capital and the global markets in all commodities that are controlled by the imperialist class.
The Cuban state leadership has nearly no control over the international commodity price of anything, including the labor exerted by Cuban workers. No leader of the Soviet revolution believed that their revolution would succeed in isolation as a national revolution. It was only after the NEP, the death of Lenin, and the “Leninist levy” that flooded the Party with functionaries, that the internationalists aspirations of the soviet revolution were channeled into a nationalist model and its aping of bourgeois culture top to bottom. The failure of the leadership, especially in the giving up of the idea of workers’ internationalism, led to the restoration of capitalism (commodity production) in the former Soviet Union. State or no state.
The Cuban workers leadership has done a remarkable job of keeping the island free of imperialist tentacles expressed as direct financial and productive capital…
Cuba will almost certainly need to reach out to establish market reforms which requires business education, etc. Havanah has most certainly bridged many gaps with her medical training and export of doctors; why stop there? Many questions loom on the horizon, not the least of which is the development of crude oil facilities on the island. Promise us that your exported revolution will no longer involve bloodshed, and grow an economy. No more Mafia, no more Batistas and free elections……………
grok: Correction – the suggested article is: Letter from Wilhelm Weitling to Moses Hess, March 31, 1846.
grok: And just so you have a chance to know the truth about Marx and Marxism, may I suggest that you go to an online thing called the Marx/Engels Institute and review a document (if I remember correctly): 1847 Letter from Weitling to Moses Hess.
This letter clearly shows that the Communist League and Karl Marx were financially underwritten by “moneyed men,” and that the influence of these “rich men” was decisive in the affairs and the publications of the League.
You do not–and possibly cannot–believe that the capitalist Engels and his privileged-class bourgeois cohort Marx were direct agents of bourgeois intrigue, and that their mission was to redefine and sabotage socialism from within. If you have the guts to review the Weitling letter, perhaps you will change your mind.
grok: I’ve just came back to this article and reviewed your comments to me. May I make one point . . .
Surplus value was not discovered by Marx. Anthropological science gives credit to the production of surplus or excess value produced by the technologies of agriculture and animal husbandry for the rise of civilization. To believe that Karl Marx “discovered” this self-evident truth during the industrial period is utter nonsense.
In order for Marxism to take over the socialist movement in the 1800s, the bankers and capitalists needed Marx to be converted into a sort of Pontiff of socialism. His word became infallible because the bourgeois media and intelligentsia focused their spotlight on him.
You may call me names and hurl epithets all you wish, but it does not change the fact that (1) Marx and Engels set forth the formula for a state-owned mode of production; and (2) this mode is dysfunctional and leads to collapse of the socialist bridge to a classless society.
You can blame this collapse on Stalin all you wish, but it does not change the fact that it is the inevitable harvest of the Marxian seed.
I only hope that you, like tens-of-thousands of Trotskyists before you, do not burn out and leave the socialist movement before you come to your senses regarding state monopoly socialism.
GRD: And let me point out too that your cartoonish caricature of the economic relationship named “Surplus-Value” by its discoverer, Karl Marx, is just that. At least be somewhat competent in at least half-understanding what you criticize, please.
> grok: May I point out that so-called Scientific Socialism is not scientific, at all. It does not rely on the basis of all science, the Scientific Method.
You can spout that bourgeois propaganda line all you want, GRD, but that doesn’t make it any less a Big Lie. And just because so many marxists are such very poor scientists of any sort doesn’t invalidate the basic truth of dialectical-materialist Science either. Bourgeois ’empirical’ reductionist science is full of incompetence, greed and self-interest as well, for that matter — so lose the double standard (as if that were possible), eh? But indeed, unfortunately, due to nearly 100 years of stalinist marxoid ‘religion’, it is indeed VERY usual for any sorts of socialists to in fact not be very scientific in their historical-materialist ideology and its daily praxis. So I would suggest, for instance, that today’s marxists very intensely study the new scientific — bourgeois or otherwise — discoveries regarding the physical makeup and functioning of the human brain-body system — and how this creates the materialist basis of the ‘eternal’ confusion over the Idealist vs. the materialist views of reality.
grok: May I point out that so-called Scientific Socialism is not scientific, at all. It does not rely on the basis of all science, the Scientific Method.
It relies instead on blind faith in the infallible genius of two bourgeois individuals who “claimed” to be representatives of scientific truth, but who were merely two rich guys building a cult of personality around Marx. Their objective was counterpoise the spurious principle of state monopoly to the original cooperative, direct worker-owned concept of socialism current at the time in Europe.
Engels said in his work “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific” that Marx proved himself to be a great scientific genius because he had “discovered” surplus-value. But surplus-value or excess-value, or whatever else we might wish to call it, was not discovered by Marx.
All social and anthropological science has known for centuries that the excess-value production made possible by the technologies of agriculture and animal husbandry is what has made slavery and civilization possible. For Marx to claim that he had “discovered” this is equivalent to claiming to have discovered the air we breath.
May I point out that, simply because “greed” and “egotism” are possibilities and historical facts of the human and social psyche, it doesn’t make them any more ‘natural’ than other, superior human qualities — such as “love” or “altruism” or even “social production”. “Scientific Socialism” is scientific *precisely* because it is based on a concrete historical understanding of the physical basis upon which we build a better, more civilized society than those which came before — and why we *will* fail, if this concrete physical basis is not materialized in time by our own, organized conscious efforts.
Simon McGuinness: Impressive response! Thanks. And may I ask a question?
In your last sentence you say: “If any theory advanced is contradicted by material experiment or observance, the theory is wrong.” I wonder if you could apply this to the state monopoly theory for socialist economy? It has had plenty of “material experiment” and plenty of “observance” over the past many decades, including in Cuba.
In the 1800s the big contention was between two opposing views of socialist economy. One was that socialism should have direct cooperative ownership of the instruments of production by the workers. The other advanced the principle that, on the contrary, the socialist state should concentrate all the instruments of production in its hands. Now, according to your criterion, Simon, it seems that Cuban state monopoly socialism has been proved wrong. Do you agree?
You apparently have a great deal of specific knowledge about Cuba. Perhaps you could share you thoughts on the proposed reforms?
Ron is out of date and/or misinformed. His analysis is at least 5 years behind events on the ground in Cuba and largely dependent on non-Cuban sources. He could do with going to Cuba and seeing things for himself. Having just returned, I find it difficult to recognise the Cuba he describes.
I also find his often contradictory ideological stances confusing and his political analysis superficial, at best. I will address just four of the issues he mentions.
He berates Cuba for importing food from the USA and yet laments its failure to import food from ALBA. Cuba is a tropical country which cannot grow temperate grains like wheat. Bread is an important component of the Cuban diet with a long social history, however much he might like to see it phased out – the only implication of his demand for zero food imports. Cuba imports wheat from the cheapest external source, which, thanks to US taxpayer supports, is the USA. The real cost of production of a bushel of US grain is at least twice its spot price on the international market, the difference being made up of taxpayer subsidies of one sort or another. Availing of these subsidies for foodstuffs it is climatically incapable of producing itself, is poetic justice. At least until GM advances allow for their substitution by domestic production.
Contradictory demands are also made in relation to “industrialisation”. Lamenting the existence of a world class export industry in the citrus fruits sector operated on a joint venture basis, he is critical of the history of one of the partners who may, or may not, have any hands-on influence over the Cuban operation. His criticism seems to centre on the nationality of the individual, which, given Israel’s undoubted international expertise in the export of citrus fruit products, is irrational, especially as the contract was won on the basis of an international tender (a tender the US citrus fruit industry and all its local partners in Latin America and the Caribbean were precluded from engaging in due to the US blockade). Citrus production is a native industry with high value export potential and that potential is realised by locating the industrial pressing, packaging and marketing in Cuba. These objectives have been realised by the joint venture.
His passing dismissal of bio-tech exports is not supported by the figures which clearly identify between 20 and 25% of all foreign earnings derived from such exports. Of course Cuba could earn more form such exports if it chose to charge third world countries the full commercial value and restrict their use to strictly commercial terms of trade. But that would eliminate the internationalist component of such exports which Cuba subsidises in order to build a better world. Ridenour may have a different view of socialist internationalism, but Cuba makes no apology for its policy and its citizens derive much pride from that policy.
His aversion to GM production is not shared by Cuban biotech experts who are developing plant, enzyme and animal organisms based on GM technology to achieve specific productive advantage. Species of fish are being developed which are suited to extensive captive marine farming in order to increase food production. GM crops capable of delivering high yields in unfavourable climatic conditions
(including rice and wheat) are being developed specifically to allow Cuba and other third world countries have a competitive seed capable of achieving Monsanto levels of production but without the suicide gene which requires farmers to purchase new seed each year from a single monopoly supplier. GM crops have been in the human food chain for almost a quarter of a century involving over half a billion daily consumers without a single case of adverse side effects. This makes GM one of the safest technologies known to man. The European aversion to GM production is (justifiably) based on the dangers of the corporate control of such technology, but any analysis which fails to account for socialist GM production based on scientific rigour and internationalist objectives is deficient. This is evidence of a failure of political analysis.
In spite of its length, he finds no room for mention of by far the biggest single impact on the Cuban economy, the US blockade. An oversight? Perhaps, but unlikely.
These are but a handful of obvious holes in his arguments easily uncovered without recourse to academic research. A true critique of such a long work could easily extend to many tens of thousands of words – the original being such a misrepresentation of reality – but, hey, life is too short for that, or at least mine is.
I would encourage Ron read my recent very brief contribution to Cubanews
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/119190) and buy a flight ticket to Cuba to assess the truth of my first hand observances before exposing himself to such obvious criticism again.
-SMcG.
If any theory advanced is contradicted by material experiment or observance, the theory is wrong.
Ron offers a balanced analysis of Cuba’s dilemma and the proposals. Socialists (but not the “infantile” sectarians) will continue their unconditional solidarity with Cuba , but that does not mean we cannot comment constructively on its experience and direction.
It is interesting to contrast the ALBA countries (with their very different histories). In Cuba there was almost total nationalisation of enterprises – including petty bourgeois ones that were not involved in capital accumulation (for further investment and accumulation, a policy that is now being reversed. In the context of US aggression, while there are impressive democratic arrangements, these work unevenly and it would be delusionary to think there is a high level of economic democracy. In contrast, Venezuela and Bolivia have left much of the economy in capitalist hands, but have made strides in developing participative democracy. I ask Cuban officials what impact the experience of participative democracy is having on Cuban mission returnees, and the question is either evaded or not understood. The point here is that while socialism is the rule of people rather than capital, it does not equate to statism – to rephrase what Ron is saying, Cuba has not got very far in establishing socialist coordination of economy and community, and there are real dangers in this since it means a bureaucratic mode of coordination (the butt of so many Cuban jokes). This is not to suggest that the path is easy for the Cuban government – opening up greater democracy is fraught with risks in the context of unending US aggression and destabilisation attempts. But there isn’t really any other way – a re-founding of the revolution with an emphasis on endogenous economic development and maximum deliberative democracy within the parameters of State and local state coordination (cf the experience of Kerala). Cuba has unparalleled human capital – it needs to use it fully.
Excellent article about the famous reforms that will be discussed next april at the PCC congress, another one my gosh. I wanna know if i can trust the writers stats findings that cuba exports in 2008 were 3.68 billions and imports 14.25 billions.How can you be that accurate with no source. I disagree with the term Tourism Apartheid, since Apartheid was just a term the Afrikaners found to name there system and yes was cruel and oppressive for more than 60 years in South Africa, I don’t find it appropriate to use it in an article about Cuba.
Yes you pointed the discrimination of nationality issue which I never thought I could feel the same discrimination on my own skin (even though am Cuban my self )while on holidays there.
Finally regarding the Transport Policy I don’t see any news related with Aviation ,the writer talks about what are the government intentions with basic transportation but they have an Airline ,Cubana de Aviacion ,If we look at the numbers that company produces every quarter then you get a big budget deficit , we all know Cubana exist thanks to the Government, for me is like the big black whole of the economy ,so like Cubana is the Army is the millions of projects not necessary and as a result you get more Inbalance.
@Jorein Versteege Fidel Castro was and is being all his life Radical Marxist Socialist is just that he was studying how to become the one without losing his popularity until 1961, before invading a fortress first you need to explore the surroundings.
The most important thing Ron’s article–and the comments exchange–reveals is that neither he, nor Walter Lippman, nor the Cuban communist ideologues have the slightest notion, or interest in, the transition to socialism in the United State. They all apparently think that ship has sailed.
Ron’s and Walter’s idea of revolutionary activity is playing rhetorical patty-cake among the isolated Left about anything but a program and transformational party for the US.
The traditional, isolated Left accepts stoically that monopoly capitalism is triumphant. Accepting this they quibble with each other over this point and that, and let the masses of the people remain an inert, non-revolutionary mass.
This is typical of state monopolism since the time of Engels and Marx–not to rely on building mass socialist consciousness as a prerequisite to socialist transformation, but to rely instead on the silly and disproved theory of inevitable collapse.
If Ron and Walter knew how to rectify Cuban socialism they would also know how to achieve socialism in the US and other capitalist countries . . . but they don’t.
Walter Lippmann at Green_Left discussion has pointed out an error I made. Esteban Morales article, “Corruption, the True Counter-Revolution” is back on UNEAC’s website (in Spanish, of course). I stand corrected. I read of its being taken off from several sources, including IPS. It had been removed but was reinstated. But I made there error of not checking the site when I wrote my piece. I am sorry.
And yes, Walter, I agree with you that History Will Absolve Me is Fidel’s most important historic speech. The important significance of the Nov. 17, 2005 speech is that it could help all revolutionaries and socialist state officials realize erroneous paths to forming or maintaining socialism that is real for and worthy of its citizens.
Ron Ridenour thinks that the discussion draft proposed for the April 2011 congress of the Cuban Communist Party points almost entirely in the wrong direction. His bitter condemnation takes nearly FIVE THOUSAND WORDS.
Contrary to Ron Ridenour, Esteban Morales’ commentary on corruption is still posted to the website of the Cuban Union of Artists and Writers, UNEAC:
http://www.uneac.org.cu/index.php?module=noticias&act=detalle&tipo=noticia&id=3123
Contrary to Ron Ridenour, while Fidel’s November 17, 2005 speech is very, very important, his most important speech EVER remains HISTORY WILL ABSOLVE ME.
Ridenour objects to Cuba’s having economic relations with the United States from which is purchases significant amounts of food. If the US blockade were lifted, Cuba would purchase even more commodities from the United States. US companies would also be able to join other foreign companies investing on the island.
While Israel votes against Cuba at the United Nations, it maintains no travel ban preventing its citizens from visiting the island. As far as I know, Israel has no military base inside of Cuba and has no program to overthrow the Cuban government. Ridenour objects bitterly to Cuba’s economic relations with Israel, as if there is something wrong with having economic relations with states whose politics Cuba doesn’t agree with.
And like some others on the political left, Ridenour, too, says the island’s revolutionary leadership is pointing the country back toward capitalism.
Ridenour, who left Cuba and has lived in Daenmark, seems to have a complete picture of contemporary Cuba, whose leadership, he thinks, is leading the island back to capitalism. Clearly, something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Ron has given us an excellent perspective on the reforms decided upon by the PCC and placed before the people for acceptance–under the rubric of discussion. As usual, he speaks from impressive first-hand experience and professional research.
Unfortunately, he clings to the hope that workers might someday, somehow be granted workplace democracy by the Cuban state and Party, and then become much more productive and less alienated.
This of course will not happen. State monopoly socialism–which comes from the sectarian mentality of faith-based state monopolism–engenders the very authoritarianism and resistance to workers’ democracy of which he speaks.
Ron fills up a page brilliantly, but misses a fundamental bit of wisdom. Let workers have cooperative ownership of the workplace and, as owners, they will automatically have workplace democracy, greater productivity and great job satisfaction.
Add state co-ownership to this and you would have a dynamic socialist economy without taxation. This would be “real” socialism.
The workers don’t need no stinkin’ permission from the big boss to have workplace democracy. They need to own the workplace.
Revolutionaries who have been schooled in state monopoly ideology consistently think of the state as the owner and boss, on the one hand, and workers as non-owners and employees, on the other.
Under capitalism the labor bureaucrat does not call for or organize employee-owned cooperatives, in order to “free” the workers from wage serfdom. Under state monopoly socialism the party bureaucrat sees nothing wrong with daddy state owning everything, but wishes those lazy, alienated workers would produce more!
Too bad Ron Ridenour cannot see the similarity and come to understand the essence of real socialism. It’s where the workers are no longer employees, but cooperative associates. Perhaps one day Ron will awaken to this and become a leader of a revitalized world socialist movement, and get a hearing from the PCC.
Cuba is not a socialist state. The Cuba revolution was not a workers one. Fidel Castro was not a ”communist” until 1960. Cuba became a ”socialist” ( stalinist ) republic in 1961, three years after the revolution.
The centralized planned economy is not working because workers have no democratic rights. They don’t control their economy. The economy of Cuba is controlled by some state bureaucrats.
A genuine socialist state requires democracy, workers selfs management and full freedom of speech. Current day Cuba is a deformed workers state. A state were the economy is controlled not for profit, but were the workers have no control over. Cuba remains a classic post 1956 Stalinist totalitarian state, ruled by a strong bureaucracy.