> Now that we have gotten past the discussion
>of elections and Cuba, I would like to raise a couple
>of other issues.
> The first has to do with a chart I saw in the back
>of a recent issue of The Economist (same issue with
>Gus Hall obit and Survey on Mexico). It showed Cuba
>as one of several countries where rates of child
>undernourishment have sharply increased in the last
>20 years, from almost zero to nearly 20%. There are
>others that are much worse (Somalia, Haiti, and North
>Korea were at the top of the list, with rates well over
>50%), but this put Cuba as worse than India and some
>other places that surprised me.
Actually, Cuba rated better than India if we are looking at the same chart.
(Oct. 28)
Furthermore, there are two measurements, one for the period 1979-1981; the
other for 1996-1998. In the first time frame, Cuba appears to be best
nourished country in the entire group, although it is difficult to
determine this exactly since the chart does not supply the actual
percentage--just a bar on a graph. In the period from 1996-1998, Cuba' s
malnutrition shot up. This is because of severe economic dislocation
attributable to the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is only first starting
to turn the corner. Here is a report from a conference that just took place
in Havana. Although it appeared in the rag I use to sell in my Trotskyite
days, I would guess that there is more than a kernel of truth to it:
===
Carlos Lage, secretary of the Executive Committee of the Council of
Ministers, took up questions that have been discussed informally by many
delegates concerning the economic measures taken in the 1990s to confront
the economic crisis.
He pointed to gains made in the six years since the 1994 conference.
Unemployment dropped last year from 8 percent to 6 percent. Productivity
and job conditions have improved, with production nationwide growing an
average of 4.4 percent a year since l995. Food supplies are more ample and
nutrition is noticeably better. Instead of extended, daily interruptions in
electric power, such blackouts are now only infrequent.
Foreign capital has been used to improve the productivity of some important
Cuban export industries such as nickel. But this and other measures, such
as setting up farmers' markets and legalizing the private holding of
dollars, Lage explained, are not aimed at restoring some kind of capitalism.
"These are unavoidable measures taken in new circumstances to make it
possible to continue defending the revolution, to continue defending
socialism," he said. "Ours is not and never has been a privatization process.
"We are not trying to establish a market economy, and we will never
subordinate our revolution to the market."
Lage pointed to many difficulties impeding production. In addition to the
economic war being waged by Washington, including the obstacles to getting
long-term low-interest loans, the price of the oil Cuba imports has tripled
since 1998, while the price of Cuba's chief export, sugar, has dropped
below 5 cents a pound, substantially less than production costs. "That
correlation could not be worse."
Daily life remains hard, Lage insisted. While food shortages have eased,
thanks to the enormous efforts made to encourage production and improve
distribution, prices are high and very damaging shortages remain in such
vital areas as transportation and medicine.
Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
