Time for changes … and responsibility

By Ariel Terrero
ariel@cubaprofunda.org

From the blog Cubaprofunda

I have a friend who is irritated by the word “change,” when used to describe transformations begun in Cuba’s economic model, visible or foretold in various fields and activities – in agriculture, investment strategy, decentralized schemes of financing for exporting sectors, wage systems, etc.

Some modifications promise novel ways to manage state-owned property in services to the population. Experiments in the leasing of barbershops, taxis and cafeterias have already begun or are being prepared. But other changes are not so unusual. For example, in the late 1990s, the Entrepreneurial Betterment plan was instituted in an attempt to modernize the rules of direction in business companies, but its application later lost impetus because of the resistance, lack of will, or downright incapacity of many entities to make the changes.

In truth, this is not the first time (and won’t be the last) that the Revolution plunges into a process of “actualization of the Cuban economic model,” as President Raúl Castro described it last December, in an address to the National Assembly of Popular Power.

What irritates me is not the aforementioned word but the slowness of some changes. Although Raúl told the deputies to avoid the risks of improvisation and haste, I don’t think that reduced speed will respond in all instances to the caution that is recommendable in any act of government.

Some of the announced modifications – such as straightening out the dual currency and other changes already begun, such as the adjustments in the policy of gratuities and subsidies – will inevitably take time. They are not things that can be fixed by a stroke of the pen. They required a productive foundation a lot more solid than the one that exists today in Cuba.

But in the delay I also perceive the ballast added by the people in charge of carrying this or that measure to a good conclusion. And I speak of the executors at all levels, because these are economic reshufflings that cannot be resolved merely by turning the government’s steering wheel. Their success depends on the participation and commitment of each workplace and every worker in the country.

While some enterprises pay, with accuracy and speed, wages commensurate with the workers’ production, according to Resolution 9 of the Ministry of Labor, others hesitate, using their desks as parapets, or stumble over a plan they are unable to turn from paper to deed. A similar deceleration and erosion are suffered by the transformations initiated by agriculture, when they clash against distribution and trading procedures that are saddled by impractical rules.

Changes in Cuba’s economic model must cope with an inefficient system of bureaucratic and administrative management that excessively centralizes decision-making and therefore tends to dilute the responsibility of each economic actor. I recently heard a minister say that the state has functioned as the country’s big warehouse, to which ministries and enterprises flock to ask for their rations, often without considering costs or providing benefits to the nation.

If I understand correctly what is going on, those concepts and practices have begun to change. The country evolves toward a model that seeks a more real commitment from each functionary and worker with the economic objectives within his reach, through a gradual decentralization of the management and the decisions. Above all, through a decentralization of the responsibility, which for a long time has been one of the weakest principles in the operation of the Cuban economy.

Evidence of that weakness is the tendency to spend without considering the availability of resources. Worse yet, to spend in investments and purchases that do not provide revenue within reasonable time or proportion, without almost anyone (especially the people involved) being concerned or experiencing repercussions in their paychecks.

Rectification is called for, not only by the severe limitation of resources our country is experiencing, caused by a combination of the worldwide economic crisis, the U.S. blockade, and internal inefficiency. In my opinion, the compass points in that direction because of the need to find a sustainable road to development.

Far from meaning the abandonment of the Revolution’s political sign, the changes will bring the nation closer to a model of economic rationality without which socialism is painfully unsustainable, no matter how beautiful its principles of social justice may be.