Re: The situation in Cuba
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
Re: The situation in Cuba
>If the range of choices is limited to emulating the NEP, then prospects >for the future appear pretty bleak, don't they? > >Sid Schniad As I suspected, Sid and Brian Green are more interested in discussing how socialism can be achieved rather than the particular problems of the Cuban revolution. My suggestion is that they take this up with people who devote themselves full-time to this topic, like Robin Hahnel. He has the answers to all these problems. He and Mike Albert have spent years developing a model that works great in theory. What more can anybody ask? Gar Lipow provided the URL's for these and other utopian papers just a couple of hours ago. Go check them out. There's no NEP in the Albert-Hahnel future. I prefer to deal with conjunctural problems, which lend themselves more to the historical materialist tradition I work within. I don't ever try to answer the question of how socialism can work. I am much more interested in, for example, trying to figure out whether in retrospect the Sandinistas made a wise decision when they channeled so much investment into large-scale state-owned farms. Signing off on the Cuba thread, Louis Proyect
Re: The Situation In Cuba
Louis --Hope you don't mind this addition to a discussion you have officially retired from. But, you are a long time activist (probably including on this issue). I'm sure it was purely accidental that your brilliant theoretical analysis of Cuba's suffering under global capitalism omitted any references to immediate practical actions your readers could take.. Anyone who wants to actually help relieve some of the suffering of the Cuban people can do the following: Write President Clinton, Secretary of State Albright and your Congressmember urging them to support H.R. 1951 which would eliminate food and medicine from the embargo against Cuba. The supporters of this bill are also asking that people on-line e-mail all the rest of the Congress as well. A sample letter is at the end of this post. To get more details on this try the page on the Cuban Humanitarian Relief act at http://www.igc.apc.org/cubasoli/relifact.html The above is a page on the Cuban Solidarity web site. http://www.igc.apc.org/cubasoli/ This contains links to a number of other sites -- at which those with time and money to donate can find out about additional actions they can take. All this stuff I'm passing on comes from there. There is also a web site with an online petition you can sign: http://www.salam.org/activism/cuba.html BTW http://www.salam.org/ though officially devoted to the Palestinian cause is a great site on Middle Eastern politics in general -- and as the above example shows often devotes time to humanitarian causes of all kinds. For list members outside the U.S. -- writing to Clinton and Albright still would not hurt. Thanks Gar Lipow [EMAIL PROTECTED] Olympia, Washington Sample Letter Supporting H.R. 1951: Dear Pres. Clinton, Secretary of State Albright and Congressmember __ I am writing to wish to express my concern, and displeasure, with the course of our policy on Cuba. Despite the claim that this policy of isolation and embargo is intended to bring about democracy in Cuba through a change in leadership, the net result has been to greatly increase the suffering of the Cuban people. Nowhere is this result more evident than in the field of health care. (See the report published by the American Association for World Health entitled "Denial of Food and Medicine. The Impact of the U.S. Embargo on Health and Nutrition in Cuba. March 1997.") This embargo, unprecedented in its aim of withholding food and medicine from a whole population, is clearly rejected by all of the civilized world, leaving the United States government as "odd man out." The recent frenzy on the part of the Congress to intensify even the harshest aspects of the Helms-Burton Act, rather than softening those provisions as promised to the European Union, only thrusts the United States further into the role of a global bully. We urge you to begin to draw back from a path of irreversible conflict, not only with our neighbor nation, but with our chief allies, by rescinding all restrictions on supplying/selling food and medicine to Cuba. The passage of bill, H.R. 1951 to exempt food and medicine from the embargo will be a good first step to ending a long, futile and cruel policy -- the embargo itself. Very truly yours, After you have contacted YOUR representative send an e-mail message to 250 other representatives with known e-mail addresses. Click here to access a current e-mail list for the 105th Congress . Create your own mailing list and with one key stroke you send your letter to these 250 representatives expressing your support for HR 1951.
Re: The situation in Cuba
> I prefer to deal with conjunctural problems, which lend themselves more to > the historical materialist tradition I work within. I don't ever try to > answer the question of how socialism can work. I am much more interested > in, for example, trying to figure out whether in retrospect the Sandinistas > made a wise decision when they channeled so much investment into > large-scale state-owned farms. > > Louis Proyect I don't think there is some kind of political firewall separating this issue from the issue of whether the Sandinistas should have imposed the kind of neoliberal demands that the IMF was forcing upon them, thereby undermining their own popular support in the process. (See NACLA Reports at the time.) We're talking about political/economic decisions and evaluating their respectve merits. If this is an illegitimate line of discussion, the prospects for breaking out of the current impasse look bleak indeed. Sid Shniad
Re: The situation in Cuba
On Sat, 24 Jan 1998, Sid Shniad wrote: > Query: given the outrageous hostility of the States and the enormous > economic difficulties facing Cuba today, how does allowing (encouraging?) > increased income differentials (to the point where women are forced into > prostitution) help address the underlying problems? > In solidarity with the Cuban people, > Sid > This issue certainly hit me on a trip to Cuba a few years ago. And the arguments made by the leadership of the Cuban Federation of Women that the 'amateur prostition' in Cuba was different than in capitalist countries because it was not out of real need but rather for luxuries, etc. - i.e. was not really prostitution - was hardly reassuring. Castro's welcome to the Pope was a wonderful example of staying on the moral high ground. I think that closing one's eyes to the fact that people are selling themselves is a dangerous shortcut. However, it would be unfair to say the Cuban government encourages prostitution. For example, contrary to the claims by Brian that there is no difference between the Cuban and Canadian governments in terms of cutbacks to social services, the Cubans have "not closed a single hospital or school or daycare". This common phrase may be an exageration, but the basic point is that austerity has NOT been imposed on the backs of the working class, but on the whole country. Compare this to the IMF approach adopted by any capitalist governments in other poor countries in the world. No one who has been to Cuba and any other country can deny the difference in social standards and basic social solidarity. Ironically, the equality of Cuban austerity is one of the reasons we see CBC or CNN reporting on doctors and achitects selling their bodies. It's not news when an unemployed garment worker and single mother becomes a prostitute. Access to dollars is central to the issue of prostitution and income inequalities in Cuba. We could pretend that a socialist government could avoid their corrupting influence by banning dollars or even going back to the earlier restricted access to a parallel dollar market (and the latter was loathed as a double standard by Cubans I met, even if most agreed it was necessary). But when your main trade partner and source of most foreign exchange vanished off the map but you are still 90 miles from Miami? Bureaucratic corruption would explode and you would be criminalizing half the citizenry. It was also obvious to me that if cops were to arrest all the black-marketers I saw on Havana streets, most of those in jail would be Black. I have read that workers in many tourist centres volunteered to do what had been done officially by the previous approach, i.e. turn over (part of) their dollar earnings to the local hospital, day care, etc. I don't know how widespread this is, but it is a more encouraging perspective than promoting a corrupt bureaucracy and having a cop looking over every shoulder. Bill Burgess
Re: The situation in Cuba
Just a quick followup to Bill's comments: I've heard apocryphal stories to the effect that the Cuban government was encouraging women to prostitute themselves outside the dollar stores so that visiting foreigners would be encouraged to purchase imported luxuries for the women. This as a means of generating increased foreign currency for the government. Sid
Re: The situation in Cuba
On Sun, 25 Jan 1998, Brian Green wrote: > What I AM saying is that Castro (and > others in the Cuban leadership) have in the last few years begun to rely on > the same excuses as rulers elsewhere to justify anti-popular and anti-worker > legislation - namely, the logic of 'There is no alternative" (to use Istvan > Meszaros' term). > Specifics, please on the "anti-popular and anti-worker legislation"! Or at least some reference so we know what you are talking about. For example, "income tax" has now been imposed on Cubans for the first time. Sounds like 'anti-worker' legislation, just like in Canada, except that in Cuba it only applies to income from private enterprise. What's anti-worker about insisting everyone pay their share, not just those who work for the state? > productivity - the state demands ever-increasing yields to boost economic > growth, while workers consistently find new ways to resist all such attempts > to make them work more for less - Increasing yields is the ONLY way to overcome material poverty in Cuba. And the accounts of the recent union congresses and CPC convention are dominated by discussion of how workers can better organize to do this - themselves, in their own organizations, not waiting for some state bureaucrat to tell them what to do. My own personal experience may be a trivial example, but I saw this process in action in Cuba, working for a week in hospital construction. > another framework for the accumulation of capital and the > extension of waged labour. I know, this is a serious and complex issue, the difference between capitalism and socialism. But aside from the concessions to foreign ownership, which are still minimal in Cuba and not any question of principle, what "accumulation of capital" is taking place? Surely you don't think that renting out a room in your own house is a threat to socialism. And "the extention of waged labour" is a good thing; actually, it has been necessary to take a few steps back on this. Some state farms have been turned into co-ops in order to get rid of a layer of functionaries who were unproductive, and to promote more control by and higher incomes for the actual producers. This is a good thing, not bad. > As Sid pointed out, the current reform > in Cuba hearkens back to the NEP -- and rather than simply spout off about > the lack of alternatives, perhaps we should be asking ourselves these > questions: > where did the NEP lead? Socialism is not like instant coffee. It is easy to make mistakes in the inevitable NEP-type stages necessary to overcome economic crises, but it is no solution to ignore the crisis, which is what it seems to me you are arguing. > and if the supposed solution consistently resides in the > adoption of capitalist solutions to boost growth, then perhaps we need to > reconsider our conception of socialism. If we don't do this, and if we don't > critically analyze the socialism that has existed, how are we supposed to > avoid making these same mistakes in the future? > Fidel Castro says this in EVERY speach he gives. Don't you listen? Why do you think that despite the incredible pressure, the Cuban government is the only one on earth who still says capitalism is bankrupt and socialism is the only solution - and are acting accordingly? Re: Sid's note on stories that the Cuban government, in effect, pimps by encouraging prostitutes to have their customers spend more dollars. I know that Sid doesn't mean it this way, but this sounds like the kind of absurd stuff that comes out of the Cuban rightist forces in Miami. I expressed my unease about how the Federation of Women explained prostitution, but there is no doubt they and the government oppose prostitution, and are trying to find ways of combatting it. Their approach is to not victimize the prostitutes like the laws here do, but as I understand it, prostitution is still illegal. Perhaps someone else knows more about this? Bill Burgess
Re: The situation in Cuba
>Specifics, please on the "anti-popular and anti-worker legislation"! Or at >least some reference so we know what you are talking about. There are many. I'll list just a few in point form: - 1990, law promulgated for the tourist sector (Cuba's fastest-growing) releasing management from the requirement to follow the Labour Code; workers in tourism could be made to work overtime, and country-wide grievance procedures were not available to tourist sector workers. - 1992, law passes allowing foriegn individuals and enterprises to buy property and housing in Cuba, despite chronic shortage of housing for Cubans - indeed, a few years later Cuba actually had to open homeless shelters - also 1992, a constitutional ammendment allowing for privatization of state property - free trade zones were established; these are open to 100% foreign-owned enterprises, and wages and conditions are set by 'competitive market standards' rather than Cuban laws and regulations (what is more, the foreign companies themselves are responsible for determining those 'competitive market standards'. - Cuban government has helped Plyaboy seek models for a 'Girls of Cuba' pictorial - austerity has been imposed in areas of basic subsistence -- food, medicine, gasoline -- while all of these are avaialable in abundance to tourists, visiting business people etc. - unemployment has become a reality; what is more, unemploymt benefits have been capped and time-restrictions applied - the state has blamed its crisis on 'excessive egalitarianism' of socialism ; such egalitarianism has had an 'anti-economic and anti-efficient connotation' - these are our revolutionary heroes?? - the state has actually advertised its "labour discipline" as a selling point to potential foriegn investors >Increasing yields is the ONLY way to overcome material poverty in >Cuba. And the accounts of the recent union congresses and CPC convention >are dominated by discussion of how workers can better organize to do this >- themselves, in their own organizations, not waiting for some state >bureaucrat to tell them what to do. Lest we forget, the Cuba Workers Confederation is not an autonomous workers organization - it is a state body! It's newspaper, Trabajadores, is a state paper! Throughout the crisis, the Union position has been indistinguishable from other state bodies. Indeed, the union has demanded that workers develop 'discipline, efficiency and a new mentality', as this is what is required in the new partnership with global capital. So what the Union Congress says is one thing; what you will hear speaking with displaced workers on the street corner is something very different. .. Some state farms >have been turned into co-ops in order to get rid of a layer of >functionaries who were unproductive, and to promote more control by and >higher incomes for the actual producers. This is a good thing, not bad. State farms were officially named co-ops, yes. You are referring here to the 'basic units of cooperative production'. Here's the deal with these. Workers collectively 'own' the machinery and the harvest; land, however, remains in state hands, production quotas are set by the state, and the coop can only sell its produce to the state, at government-set prices. The country's established pay scales do not apply, but rather wages vary according to productivity, a measure intended to establish a subsistence-based incentive to labour - sounds alot like pieve-work/ commission to me! The state privatizes machinery, so workers now have to pay for repairs and replacements themselves; the state privatizes the harvest, so a bad year is the responsibility of the workers, and so that workers are responsible for their own subsistence. But the state retains control over land, and over the price produce will be sold at? Over all, the state has simply renounced its responsibility for the subsistence needs of farmers without surrendering its control over production quotas, market prices, and land use. >the inevitable NEP-type stages necessary to overcome economic crises, but >it is no solution to ignore the crisis, which is what it seems to me you >are arguing. I'm not arguing that crises don't exist. I'm arguing for 'a critique which doesn't shirk', and which challenges us to find solutions to crisis which do not rely on a retreat into capital. > >> >Fidel Castro says this in EVERY speach he gives. I'm not concerned with what he says, but what he does. And I think all the above is too much to ignore in good conscience. - Brian Green| [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The situation in Cuba
Brian Green: >State farms were officially named co-ops, yes. You are referring here to the >'basic units of cooperative production'. Here's the deal with these. Workers >collectively 'own' the machinery and the harvest; land, however, remains in >state hands, production quotas are set by the state, and the coop can only >sell its produce to the state, at government-set prices. The country's >established pay scales do not apply, but rather wages vary according to >productivity, a measure intended to establish a subsistence-based incentive >to labour - sounds alot like pieve-work/ commission to me! I know I should just ignore this nonsense, but my god, it is just so blatantly wrong. Green says that co-op land remains in state hands, production quotas are set by the state, at government-set prices. And what is this evidence of? Capitalism? The reason that prices are set is that the government wants to prevent price inflation, as occurred in Nicaragua during the last years of Sandinista rule. This is a socialist measure and is intended to keep a steady supply of food to the urban working-class. And wages vary according to productivity? How beastly. In the United States, wages are not tied to productivity but to the dictates of finance capital which brings in people like the CEO of Scott Paper who lays off workers and freeze wages--all so that the share price goes up. In Cuba, there is no unemployment. There is poverty, alas. What Brian Green is agitated about is poverty and austerity and social decay. He really has no answer for any of this, except vague calls for new approaches to socialism. How this will raise the standard of living in Cuba is beyond me. Everybody should find the time in their lives to read Harrison Salisbury's "900 Days", which is the story of the siege of Leningrad. After a year or so, people were forced to make bread out of sawdust and rancid grain. They died in the tens of thousands from from malnutrition and lack of heat. The bodies stacked up in the street because nobody had any strength to bury them. Salisbury says that Leningrand withstood the siege because there was a lingering sense of the worth of socialism, even with the experience of Stalinism. Leningrad was home to many intellectuals and revolutionaries who held on to the vision of the 1917 revolution. Brian's posts are the equivalent of a complaint about Russian socialism during the 900 days. "We have to disassociate ourselves from a socialism that allows people to eat loaves of bread made up of sawdust and rancid grain," I can hear him saying. Well, of course we do. But, for god's sake, this is a function of being under siege from Nazi imperialism. Cuba is under siege as well and all the social misery and austerity measures are occuring because the wolf is at the door. Instead of preaching to the Cuban government not to make concessions, the only honorable thing that we can call for is an end to the blockade. Blockade and siege is what American leftists should fight against, not try to dispense spurious advice that nobody is in a position to act upon. Louis Proyect
Re: The situation in Cuba
Thanks, Brian, for the specific examples I asked for. It makes for a more useful discussion. Having said that, I'm running up against the limits of my knowledge on specifics, so my replies are not really adequate. But, a few points: On Mon, 26 Jan 1998, Brian Green wrote: > > There are many. I'll list just a few in point form: > - 1990, law promulgated for the tourist sector (Cuba's fastest-growing) > releasing management from the requirement to follow the Labour Code; > workers in tourism could be made to work overtime, and country-wide > grievance procedures were not available to tourist sector workers. I belive it was _some_ parts of the Labour code. Not, for example, the part that guarantees union representation. But the main point is that if you want to attract foreign capital, some adjustments are necessary. The fact remains that workers in the foreign sectors are the highest paid in Cuba, almost a 'labour aristoracy' by comparison. > - 1992, law passes allowing foriegn individuals and enterprises to buy > property and housing in Cuba, despite chronic shortage of housing for Cubans > - indeed, a few years later Cuba actually had to open homeless shelters > - also 1992, a constitutional ammendment allowing for privatization of state > property As before: if you want to attract foreign capital... Are you opposed to this in principle, or in Cuba's specific circumstances? There is a terrible lack of housing stock in Cuba, mainly because they can't afford to build it, including importing the furnishings, elevators etc. Cuba does not have the capacity to produce. That is why they need the foreign capital! Still, Cubans are better housed than any other population in a poor country. There is very high security of tenure, because most Cubans actually _own_ their own apartment! Mortgage payments and rents are at _most_ 10% of income/15 years (someone correct me if I am wrong). I met Cubans who told me their rents were 5.5% of income. And there were "homless shelters" when I was there too, i.e. _dormitories_ for workers on seasonal assignments, people whose new housing was not ready, etc. There are no "homeless" in Cuba in the way we know of. Let's stick to real issues; there are enough of them! > - free trade zones were established; these are open to 100% foreign-owned > enterprises, and wages and conditions are set by 'competitive market > standards' rather than Cuban laws and regulations (what is more, the foreign > companies themselves are responsible for determining those 'competitive > market standards'. This one is new to me. Is it any different than the examples discussed above, i.e. tax and labour contract concessions to attract foreign investment? Are these unlimited free trade zones, e.g. any economic activity; no restrictions on profit repatriation, no conditions for technology transfer, etc. etc? Hosting foreign capitalits is not necessarily becoming capitalist yourself. "Free enterprise" is not transmitted by virus. > - Cuban government has helped Plyaboy seek models for a 'Girls of Cuba' > pictorial What, did they give a visa for a Playboy photographer who got around in a government-owned taxi? Anyway, so what? The Young Communists organized beauty pagents for awhile. You and I would vote against this shit, but we aren't Cuban and socialism and Cuba is strong enough to recover. Now, if they made abortion illegal that would be something. The Pope's #1 theme in Cuba was to push women back, but as the coverage shows, he didn't get very far. > - austerity has been imposed in areas of basic subsistence -- food, > medicine, gasoline -- while all of these are avaialable in abundance to > tourists, visiting business people etc. Cuba is _desparate_ for foreign exchange, foreign capital, etc. People _die_ because they can't buy drugs, etc. You can't get it without giving the tourists and business people that they pay for! Castro is right to call it a petty-bourgeois attitude to pretend that Cuba is not a poor country, and to oppose selling things to rich people, even when you don't have enough for yourself. > - unemployment has become a reality; what is more, unemploymt benefits have > been capped and time-restrictions applied Unemployment as we know it (i.e. due to overproduction) does not exist. During the worst of the "special period" most (over 60%?) of the countries enterprises were shut for lack of supplies, parts etc. Of course they had to curtail unemployment benefits (still far better than anyting here). Managers also got sent home. There are no capitalists in Cuba who kept on clipping coupons. > - the state has blamed its crisis on 'excessive egalitarianism' of socialism > ; such egalitarianism has had an 'anti-economic and anti-efficient > connotation' - these are our revolutionary heroes?? I don't know what these quotes may mean. The basic point, that I think is hard to avoid, is that Cuban policy is to _not_ follow the x-USSR-type strategy of "using market mechanis
Re: The situation in Cuba
Bill Burgess comments that these kinds of (regressive) changes are what you have to do if you want to attract foreign capital. True enough. But this is the very argument that's being used around the world by regimes of conservative, liberal and social democratic stripe. This is the essence of the position that There Is No Alternative, isn't it? How do you keep from careening along this slippery slope once you've set foot on it? Seems to me that this was the issue posed by Brian's interventions. Sid
Re: The situation in Cuba
On the cuba disucssion, it seems to me that harping over whether this or that proves that Cuba has strayed from the socialist path, become capitalist, etc., is largely a waste of time. The data Brian Green presents on anti-labor measures are very interesting and deserves our scrutiny; I thank him for it. The conlusion that this proves a march towards capitalism is, I feel, nonsense (in this I agree with Louis's notes). What is absent from this discussion is politics: participation, push and pull of actors inside Cuba, voice in making decisions. Setting production goals in coops (etc.) does not prove a march towards capitalism; it does suggest authoritarianism that, being a Cuban, one might well struggle against WITHIN and FOR a socialist project, though how, when, and how much, would have to be a constant, onging discussion. One of the things that most impressed me in Cuba were young people, conviced socialists (no desire to turn Havana into a Lima or Caracas), yet extrememly frustrated in being treated as simple receptors of state dictates, spied on, not trusted. This is a problem of power, authority, etc., not (necessarily) economic models. But, neither you nor I are Cuban, and here the issue of our respective roles arises. A firm anti-imperialism is always in order; but how to acknowledge and constructively engage the problems noted? One inspirational example of ethical, responsible criticism from without is Margareet Randall's Gathering Rage, on the difficult relations between feminism and revolution in Central America in the 1980s. I do not want to play into the hands of the right on this, and I fully acknowledge the problem is hellish, especially when the US's and Mas Canosa's (may he burn in hell) armies are ever poised to invade militarily, comercially, culturally. That said, I do think we should talk about this -- both the politics and economics -- ever vigilant to how what we say might be used. And a quote: I When my dreams started showing signs of becoming politically corrct no unruly images escaping beyond the borders when walking the street I found my themes cut out for me knew what I would not report for fear of my enemies' usage then I began to wonder II Everything we write will be used aginst us or against those we love. These are the terms take them or leave them Poetry never stood a chance of standing outside history, One line typed twenty years ago can be blazed on a wall in spraypaint to glorify art as detachment or torture of those we did not love but also did not want to kill We move but our words stand become responsibe for more than we intended and this is verbal priviledge III Try sitting at a typewriter once calm summer evening at a table by a window in the country, try pretending your time does not exist that you are simply you that the imagination simply strays like a great moth, unintentional try telling yourself you are not accountable to the life of your tribe the breath of your planet IV It doesn't matter what you think words are found responsible all you can do is choose them or choose to remain silent.Or, you never had a choice, which is why the words that do stand are reposnsible and this is verbal priviledge [] Adrienne Rich, North American Time, 1983 Tom Kruse / Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia Tel/Fax: (591-42) 48242 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The situation in Cuba
>On Mon, 26 Jan 1998, Sid Shniad wrote, about the TINA line: >> >> How do you keep from careening along this slippery slope once you've set >> foot on it? I thought Brian's intervention tried >to bypass the problem altogether by not even considering the difference >between tactical concessions and strategic concessions (poor choice of >words here, but all I can think of right now). No, this was my point. Once Cuba has set down on this path of what you call 'tactical concessions', how likely is it that Castro et al. will re-affirm socialism after the blockade comes down? And if it does become a question of 'reconstructing' socialism in a post-emnargo world, then the issue of what kind of socialism we want to see, and how to achieve it - precisely the issues Louis scoffs at -- then these will become critical. So, either way I think the issues I raise are relevant. >Castro explains each of these measures as concessions, as necessary evils, >as forced on Cuba by circumstances beyond its control. Exactly. And the question I raise is: If we refuse to accept this logic when it comes out of our own politicians' mouths, why don't we question i t coming from Fidel? - Brian Green| [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The situation in Cuba
> . this problem is trivial compared with the real > challenges in Cuba. For example, just how _do_ you overcome > bureaucratic tendencies in economic management that stifle workers > intitative and morale, especially in a poor country? This was the whole > theme of the "rectification campaign" against the USSR-type methods that > had prevailed for the previous decade or two. Much more interesting issue > for this list, IMHO. > > Bill Burgess I agree completely. Anyone want to start this one off? Sid
Re: The situation in Cuba
Louis, I was in Cuba last summer and I would agree with your assessment. The Gov actually tries to restrict joint venture hiring so that it takes place through hiring halls. JOint vantures are supposed to pay the going rate in the Caribean and the cuban employees are supposed to get a salary comparable to peso salaries - the gov gets the difference. The problem of course is that under the table compensation etc. as you have alluded to ensures that workers in the dollar economy and in the market sector make much more than those in the planned sectors. All are aware of the problem but given the extreme lack of foreign exchange and ability to borrow (CUba has to pay cash for imports - or very high private credit due to US blockade) the need to survive is paramount. Its actualy a miracle that they have - buty their not out of the woods yet - their is still a trade deficit. When I was their I gave some very critical talks on the nature of Cuban "democracy" - all the while emphasizing my support for socialism and for the gains of the revolution - I tried to promote a constitutional amendment to intutionalize democratic socilaism and make it less dependent onthe regime or the party. We had some great talks - I believe this might save the revolution and put the US policy to shame. If anyone interested I have a paper on this - but i need snail mail to send. Vinceremos! Ron ** Ron Baiman Dept. of Economics Roosevelt UniversityFax: 312-341-3680 430 South Michigan Ave Chicago, Illinois 60605 Voice: 312-341-3694 ** On Sat, 24 Jan 1998, Louis Proyect wrote: > 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 >
Re: The situation in Cuba
>What is absent from this discussion is politics: participation, push and >pull of actors inside Cuba, voice in making decisions. Setting production >goals in coops (etc.) does not prove a march towards capitalism; it does >suggest authoritarianism that, being a Cuban, one might well struggle >against WITHIN and FOR a socialist project, though how, when, and how much, >would have to be a constant, onging discussion. Absolutely. And this is precisely what started the debat. My initial post said that debates over whether lifting the blockade would bolster socialism or facilitate capitalism are really not the issue. What is important is who benefeits politically. Specifically, the end of the blockade would provide Cuba with a victory over the US, but internally would go a long way to bolster Castro's circle - and I questioned whether this was necessarily a good thing. We might do well to bear in mind that many of those responsible for Cuba's survival thus far -- the innovators of organic agriculture etc. -- these people were isolated by the regime in the years before the special period; their ideas have taken root now only because in the absence of any other strategy, they stepped forward to show an alternative. So now the question is, if the blockade comes down and Castro's inner circle remains in firm control, what will be the political impact on these people, socialists, ecologists, innovators of various types...As I mentioned in my very first post, I think these political questions are perhaps more substantive. And please, Louis, do not take anything I've said above here to suggest I am in favour of leaving the blockade intact. Of course it should come down, of course Cuba desperately needs access to the foodstuffs and medicines that are currently blocked. Leaving that aside, what will be the impact of lifting the embargo on Cuba's internal politics And what are the implications for our solidarity? Now this is an interesting question, and one not very easy to get a firm handle on. Brian - Brian Green| [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The situation in Cuba
On Mon, 26 Jan 1998, Sid Shniad wrote, about the TINA line: > > How do you keep from careening along this slippery slope once you've set > foot on it? > Seems to me that this was the issue posed by Brian's interventions. > I agree this is a real question, but I thought Brian's intervention tried to bypass the problem altogether by not even considering the difference between tactical concessions and strategic concessions (poor choice of words here, but all I can think of right now). Castro explains each of these measures as concessions, as necessary evils, as forced on Cuba by circumstances beyond its control. That they are accepted as a _strategy_ is carefully rejected. Social democracy el all around the world turn them from evils into virtues, and they don't even have to change their strategy because that was it all along. The strategy in Cuba is still to build socialism by appealing to the higher qualities that human beings are capable of, not individual greed, and to go down to defeat before submitting to imperialism. The concessions to foreign capital are still minor exceptions in the Cuban economy, and firmly within the control of the Cuban state. As tricky as it is, this problem is trivial compared with the real challenges in Cuba. For example, just how _do_ you overcome bureaucratic tendencies in economic management that stifle workers intitative and morale, especially in a poor country? This was the whole theme of the "rectification campaign" against the USSR-type methods that had prevailed for the previous decade or two. Much more interesting issue for this list, IMHO. Bill Burgess Bill Burgess
Re: The situation in Cuba
> >As I suspected, Sid and Brian Green are more interested in discussing how >socialism can be achieved rather than the particular problems of the Cuban >revolution. Certainly I am very interested in the particulars of Cuba's current crisis and reform; and certainly I am interested in concrete actions in the here and now to break the embargo, bolster Cuba's position in relation to US imperialism etc -- I would not have devoted several years to building a Cuba solidarity movement if I wasn't. Neither I am suggesting that Castro has suddenly transformed from devoted Marxist to opportunist capitalist. What I AM saying is that Castro (and others in the Cuban leadership) have in the last few years begun to rely on the same excuses as rulers elsewhere to justify anti-popular and anti-worker legislation - namely, the logic of 'There is no alternative" (to use Istvan Meszaros' term). What is more, Cuba's history -- including its post-Revolutionary history -- is riddled with instances of worker-regime conflict over what workers have demanded and what Fidel et al have deemed to be 'in their best interests'. A glaring example that comes up repeatedly in Cuba is the struggle over productivity - the state demands ever-increasing yields to boost economic growth, while workers consistently find new ways to resist all such attempts to make them work more for less -- 'for the good of the Revolution' of course. Could Cuba have survived the past 39 years as a socialist state without growth? No, of course not. Hasn't the state played some progressive role, at certain times? Absolutely! Should we not support Cuba in its continued batte with the US right? Of course. The point is, despite all of this, despite the gains, Cuban workers have experienced and continue to experience state socialism as another framework for the accumulation of capital and the extension of waged labour. That is, despite all the gains -- and there have been gains -- the experience of workers in the home, in the factory, in the fields is not far removed from the experience of workers elsewhere -- the difference is, extraction of surplus value and capital accumulation are structured differently in Cuban socialism, and for Cuban workers the day -to-day class struggle is waged not against a company but against the state. A Marxist analysis of Cuba has to deal with this issue. Particularly today, it is critical to investigate how class struggle is composed in Cuba if we are to effectively offer solidarity. As Sid pointed out, the current reform in Cuba hearkens back to the NEP -- and rather than simply spout off about the lack of alternatives, perhaps we should be asking ourselves these questions: where did the NEP lead? where is Cuban reform likely to lead? And if the logic of socialist crisis consistently insists 'there is no alternative', and if the supposed solution consistently resides in the adoption of capitalist solutions to boost growth, then perhaps we need to reconsider our conception of socialism. If we don't do this, and if we don't critically analyze the socialism that has existed, how are we supposed to avoid making these same mistakes in the future? Brian - Brian Green| [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The situation in Cuba
Louis, I'm not taken with the answer that I've "added nothing new" here. The problem we're all grappling with in this discussion of Cuba is the pattern of elites (ostensibly progressive) who, acting in the name of the people, carry out policies that are detrimental to the people. To say that similar problems arose in Russia during the NEP is "adding nothing new." The question is what policies can be pursued to break out of the stranglehold of capitalism. If the range of choices is limited to emulating the NEP, then prospects for the future appear pretty bleak, don't they? Sid
Re: The situation in Cuba
At 04:27 PM 1/24/98 -0500, Louis Proyect wrote: [SNIP] >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 > Louis, With rare exception I find your contributions to this list to be quite valuable, informative, provocative, and engaging. I have taken the liberty of sharing many of your postings with others outside the PEN-L. However, you occasionally demonstrate a level of arrogance and intellectual and political snobbery that detracts from your message and thus from your influence. This is one example. Your condescension and belittling of others communicates to many who may not be willing to engage in interpersonal cyberfisticuffs with you or an exchange of vituperous insults the message that they should just butt out of the debate or refrain from posting their views at all. Not everyone who subscribes to this list is a "scholar" and not all have a command of the literature that you appear to. Some will post ideas that are half-baked or not fully thought through. You (and I) may disagree with any number of concepts or political assumptions, not to mention factually erroneous points. But responding with patronizing and arrogant, even abusive insults wins no arguments, educates no one, and merely demonstrates your prowess at "scoring points." This is especially so when you talk down to those who may be (presumably) younger, less educated or well read, less certain, or just unwilling to engage someone who expresses such condescension toward those with whom he disagrees. (I hope this criticism does not make me the next object of your scorn.) You are always at your best when you attempt to educate rather than humiliate the rest of us. In solidarity, Michael E.
