Current economic interests in Cuba
By Mercedes Varona Graupera
Taking a look at Cuban society today you will notice an important failure in the system of economic interests. This failure in the efficient functioning of material interests can also be seen in the system of individual values.
But, what exactly is the system of economic interests? It is the active combination of needs, motivations and aspirations pertaining to three different subjects: the individual, the group and society as they contribute to its development. As in any other system, the result is not the mechanical sum of its elements but it is rather the relation between them which proves to be determinant according to harmonic or contradictory qualities of the link. We cannot do without such a system because of its objective character; as a matter of fact, in a society where the state is almost fully in charge of means of production, it should be possible to manipulate it so as to make it function in harmony.
The basic law of development, that is, the satisfaction of ever-growing human needs, makes us think that individual interest is the natural motor of the system for, regardless of a variety of viewpoints, it is a fact that the human being works to satisfy those needs not covered by the state for him or herself and those closest around him.
It is thus the clearest cause of malfunctioning of this system in Cuba, the fact that what the individual obtains as a result of labor is not enough to meet his needs. Let us put it in even more concrete terms: income is derived from salaries, land revenue, subventions, independent work, remittance of money from abroad, and last, but not least, from those actions which somehow fall outside the law and whose moral impact tends to be greater than mere economic damage. Salaries are the basic source of income, and they nominally grew (2.9%) in 2009, while in real terms, according to economist Pavel Vidal, they suffered a decrease in value (45 pesos per month), that is to say, in their capacity to acquire goods and services. Moreover, it is evident that neither salaries nor subventions fulfill their roles, while remittances reach only a minor fraction of the population. If we also take into consideration that labor productivity is expected to continue to fall in 2010 (which means that every paid peso will acquire a productive value inferior to it) then we will be able to infer that the costs of production will rise, as much as the cost of living, whereas the real salary will continue its downfall, making prices go up either at the expense of the citizen or of the state.
A very serious joke is the one which has the worker saying, “I act as if I were working because the enterprise acts as if they were paying”; in other words, the individual, main character of the story, does not value his own work enough and, consequently, the interest of society, in state hands, is in deep trouble.
How to make the individual become interested in the efficiency of his own work? How to make the salary fulfill its role? What to do in order to put individual work in line with collective and state interests? This is only possible when, between work and its results, there is a direct link and not, as is very much the case, a discrepancy. The individual sees himself as alienated from what he or she produces and feels constrained to look for additional income, regardless of his/her technical or professional capacities, in order to survive. This is based on legal grounds, because in terms of illicit activities there are plenty of examples.
As to collective interest, it is worth emphasizing the growing importance of this sort of property, either in land or in its products in the field of agriculture, where it already accounts for 80% of cultivated land. Steps taken in the granting, in the form of usufruct, of uncultivated lands, in the revision of prices of direct acquisition from the producer, in the program of suburban agriculture, as well as others, should be sustained and accentuated not only in agriculture but also in the production of goods and services.
The socialist state is in charge, not only of the basic means of production, but also of the responsibility to guarantee that individual interests find an efficient way to satisfy themselves through labor. The product of each individual’s work is the building matter of a new society; at the same time, a malfunction in the chain (need-work-salary) promotes indiscipline, illegality and inequity, as well as a noticeable distortion in social morality.
To respect the ratio of distribution of wealth in relation to labor is thus the first step to take the system of economic interests and, consequently, the system of moral values, to a harmonic condition in Cuba today and therefore in the Cuba of the future.
Mercedes Varona Graupera has a Ph.D. in economics. She lives in Cuba.
