Sid Schniad:
>PS -- please, Louis, try to address the substantive issues that I'm trying
>to raise without engaging in ad hominem attacks on me for raising them.
You and Brian aren't raising any new issues as far as I'm concerned.
Anybody who reads a newspaper is aware of the problems in Cuba. As I said,
I posted from NY Times articles and Mark Cooper long ago on PEN-L that
described these social inequalities. This is old news.
The real question is what the Cuban government should do to protect
whatever vestiges of socialism remain. Do you have any recommendations? The
mixed economy that has spawned these injustices were forced upon the Cuban
government by the fact of their economic and political isolation. I don't
watch television news, so I can't comment on "income inequality" in the
state sector. Doctors who work for pesos have meager wages, as do
sugar-cane cutters. Higher wages are only available to those workers
employed in joint ventures. In the Mark Cooper piece I posted a couple of
years ago, there's a lengthy description of his dinner with the Cuban
manager of one of these firms. He wears a Rolex watch and has taken Cooper
out to a fancy lobster dinner. He says that capitalism is the wave of the
future. The Castroist old-guard is locked in a bitter struggle with these
people. Why doesn't it simply keep their wage at the same level as managers
in state-owned enterprises?
The answer is simple. The foreign companies set the wages and like to
reward managers handsomely so they can count on them to crack the whip. As
long as Cuba does not have the power to keep such companies out, it doesn't
have the power to affect what happens inside the plant-gate. The reason
these companies are there is that they provide foreign currency,
technological training and jobs. They also infect Cuba with the distortions
of class society. All these problems existed during the NEP as well. There
is no solution to them, alas. Capitalism is much more powerful and can
dictate to weak, isolated socialist countries.
I don't mind discussing these questions, but if people are serious about
it, they're going to have to approach them in a rigorous and scholarly
fashion. Otherwise, I will treat them with the contempt they deserve. I
have been following Cuban developments closely for 30 years and I take them
seriously. Anybody who blathers on about Castro supporting capitalism is
not really worth my time. The speech that Castro made when the Pope arrived
could not be made by somebody who favored capitalism.
Louis Proyect
