Cuba Encourages Foreign Investment
HAVANA TIMES, Aug. 27 — The Cuban government extended from 50 to 99 years the right to the use of state lands by companies from other countries that invest in the island, with the aim of “giving foreign investors greater security and guarantee in real estate businesses, for the sustainable development of the country and the national economy,” according to a decree published in the Gaceta Oficial, reported IPS.
The tragedy is that the PCC still clings to the old state monopoly socialism hypothesis for a “real” socialist economy. But that old hypothesis has proved to be faulty. What is needed in Cuba is not more foreign investment, but a more scientific examination of the old hypothesis. What is needed is a new hypothesis for the further socialist experiment.
A big part of the problem is that the socialist leadership does not look at the Cuban experience as an “experiment in progress,” but as the application of an ironclad “principle” handed to the socialist movement in 1848. As long as “real” socialism is seen as this ironclad principle, rather than as an experiment where the core hypothesis can be tested, analyzed and if necessary tweaked, those in power will continue to flop around blindly and resort to such things as “more foreign investment.”
The Cuban people have enough “capital” in Cuba to solve all their problems. It is their own labor and genius. They don’t need foreign investment. They need a new hypothesis for what workable socialism truly is.
If such a hypothesis is not found, no amount of foreign investment will save the Cuban Revolution.