Cuba’s Barbers to Cut for Themselves?
HAVANA TIMES, April 13 — Cuban barbers and hairdressers maybe at the forefront of a new move to allow some small scale private businesses on the island, reports Aljazeera.net on Tuesday.
While official confirmation was not available the report states that “hundreds of state-run barber shops and beauty salons are being turned over to employees in what appears to be the start of an overhaul of state retail services by Raul Castro, the Cuban president.”
“Barbers and hairdressers across the country said they would be able to rent the space where they work and pay taxes instead of receiving a monthly wage,” notes the report. Currently they work for the state.
To read the full Aljazeera article click here.
No one hz responded, so . . .
It is not private property ownership that makes an enterprise–or even an entire social system–capitalistic. It is “who owns” the property in question, & whether this property is used to exploit wage & salary labor.
A form of workable socialism there4 can have, and actually must have, respect for the legal institution of private property–plus for the small bourgeoisie.
A key attribute of this socialism wud ensure that “those who do the creative work actually own their enterprise directly, manage it according to the needs of the socialist market, and are responsible–profit or loss–for the performance of the enterprise.
This form wud have partial state ownership in lieu of taxes.
The capitalists want socialist theory to misunderstand this pivotal question. By sitting by smugly while socialists run an economy w/ massive bureaucracy & full state ownership, they play a game of discrediting socialism & watching it collapse.
I read the Aljazeera article & am greatly heartened. I’ve long felt that the Cuban leadership wud beat the dead horse of Marxian economic mis-theory until the Cuban Revolution arrived at the finish line of collapse. Now, it seems these beloved historic leaders might be coming up for fresh air.
Part of the problem w/ “existing” socialism has been its confusion as to exactly what capitalism is. It has long been thought that “private ownership” of productive enterprise is the key component of capitalism. This is a theoretical error.
Private ownership of enterprise–plant and organization–is only capitalistic if this ownership is used 1) to purchase wage labor on a market, 2) set this labor to work & 3) appropriate the use-values produced.
This is why cooperative worker ownership of enterprise is not capitalistic, esp. if a socialist state holds partial, non-controlling ownership (in lieu of taxes).
If workers own & do not exploit, it is called socialism.