Conceptualization of the economic model
By Jesús Arboleya Cervera
Although hardly mentioned in the news related to the event, one of the most relevant issues of the recent meeting of the Cuban National Assembly of Popular Power was the announcement that the government has given top priority to the “conceptualization of the economic model” to be instituted in the country.
From what has been approved up to the moment, some premises may be assumed that will be part of this conceptualization: the state-owned enterprise as the basic cell of the economy, although coexisting with other forms of ownership, whose capitalization levels will be held in check by a policy of progressive increases in taxes; planning as a guiding element of the economy and its coexistence by an expansion of the internal market under conditions of supply and demand; administrative decentralization and the establishment of criteria that are basically economical for the operation of state-owned enterprises; and the adoption of a labor code that will be discussed with workers throughout the country.
Nevertheless, most expect that this conceptualization will not be restricted to stating organizational criteria for the development of the economy, but as can be inferred from the words of President Raúl Castro, but the establishment of the “main lines of sustainable development” in order to abandon thinking only in terms of survival and establishing both the country’s objectives and how to reach them.
All things considered, the proposal is to design a model of the Cuban socialist system that stems from the present reality. Something that besides being a vital need for the country would contribute in enriching and updating the “theory of socialism” that came into crisis as a result of the debacle of the former European socialist block.
Considered until then by many the only valid method of “socialist construction,” after the disappearance of the USSR some heralded the definitive demise of the socialist alternative. This has not happened, but it is obvious that the present socialist projects lack a theory that would support the political project, a fact that not only restricts its implementation, but also the mobilization of the people who make it viable.
In the case of Cuba, an objective analysis of the experience that was its integration to the socialist block has not been carried out, for besides its insufficiencies and errors, it was a relatively successful attempt of cooperation among countries that were supposed to function under standards that differed from the ones imposed by the capitalist world order. Under these circumstances the Cuban economy reached one of the highest indicators in Latin America and thus promoted universal access to education, public health and social security, which was the origin of a human development without equal in the Third World, as well as a certainty in the model’s perspectives, from which emanated the resistance that explains its survival. This is evidence that it is an integrationist project recoverable in many senses.
Some analysts underscore the defects of the project, which was conditioned by outdated technology, high fuel consumption, low productivity, and egalitarianism that slowed down incentives for workers, as well as administrative deformations that generated a huge bureaucracy, the result of excessive government centralization of the economy.
Although such problems do exist and the present reforms aim to solve them, I believe that they could have been overcome in the integrating scheme of the socialist market if that world had not disappeared as a result of its own contradictions, more a consequence of political error than of its economic limitations. This was the cause of the Cuban crisis of the 1990s that created the need for transforming substantially the existing economic model in the country. Additionally, the crisis limited the political discourse to “saving the achievements of socialism and preserving national sovereignty,” legitimate goals at the moment, but once extended in time have generated a void in expectations particularly harmful to the commitment of young people, for it lacked clarity in relation to future goals and the socialist standards that should rule individual and collective development.
It is obvious that Cuban socialism cannot be conceived as before. This is no defect but a virtue, for even if dogmatists do not recognize it, its adaptation to praxis is a virtue of socialism. This implies that it is senseless to believe in a “single model” for socialism as a system. Each country will have to adapt it to its particular conditions, because it has been proven that the economy does not regulate itself, and not even economic development guarantees the social reforms the system aspires to.
It is patently obvious that Socialist Utopia lies in the advancement to an equal development of society, which can only be attained through social distribution of wealth and the formation of a collective conscience in relation to its goals. The problem is how to bring it about. Thus I believe that Cuba’s fundamental contribution to this endeavor would be to demonstrate its viability and clarify its basic principles.
No doubt this will be an intellectual effort in which experts from many fields should be involved, but it can only succeed if popular conscience, through the active participation of all, turns it into a project of life for the majority of Cubans. Thus the need for the political and ideological importance of an adequate “concretion of the Cuban economic model.” This in itself should constitute the project for the nation’s future.
Progreso Semanal/Weekly authorizes the reproduction of all or part of the articles by our journalists as long as the source and author are identified.
