To privatize: ‘To be or not to be’
By Aurelio Pedroso
Last December, I traveled through Placetas, a city in the center of the island. It was fiesta time and the fragrance of barbecued pork flooded the streets. In a makeshift kiosk, a vendor cut off a piece of bread after making each sandwich and threw it into a garbage pail.
Intrigued, I asked him why he mutilated the bread. This is what he said, almost verbatim.
“For sure you’re not from these parts. Look, I’m a government worker, a food worker; this kiosk and the barbecued pork belong to the government. Today, my company could not supply me with bread and I had to get it myself. Because each loaf is heavier than the weight established by the rules for pork sandwiches, I have to throw away part of it – lest an inspector stop by and fine me.”
Throw away bread. A sacrilege to churchgoers and unbelievers.
The controversial topic of privatizing or cooperativizing some sectors of production and services is, in my opinion, more than exhausted. And even if it’s not at the center of the economic problems in Cuba today, it might well represent one of the measures to restructure the economy, a process urgently needed.
Those of us who, for long years in our Humanities classes, waded through the books by renowned Russians Afanasyev, Lomonosov and Nikitin, plus the tomes issued by the extinct Academy of Sciences and other thinkers, recall that all of them advocated “social property over the principal means of production.” The principal means. That was all.
The excessive control and participation of the Cuban state, the abominable centralization that attempts to give the state control over a simple ice-cream vendor, has brought upon us more than just one lamentable problem.
Sectors of Cuba’s so-called ultraleft flatly refuse to open the doors. They’re first cousins of the Miami ultraright, twins joined not at the hip but at the rectum. The daily Granma, spokespaper for the Party Central Committee, has been broaching this issue on its letters-to-the-editor pages every Friday for I don’t know how long, in a debate that seems never to end.
Some tentative efforts have been made. Recently authorized were the barbershops and beauty shops, but, to be honest, the bureaucracy does not allow them to get very far.
What do the people think about it, that unending source of popular wisdom?
They say that on July 26 President Raúl Castro will announce new changes and measures that are long overdue. That’s the rumor from some knowledgeable people with good connections in government institutions. And if it isn’t the 26th, well then, the 1st of August, when the National Assembly of People’s Power goes into session.
One measure they cite with the greatest emphasis and logic is an increase in self-employment, known here as “cuentapropismo.” Also, they expect announcements related to production or cultivation of foodstuffs. In this connection, many decisions have been made recently, yet the production has not reached the ordinary Cuban’s table.
We shall wait for the predicted dates, like July 26, which, as many recall, was the date of the raid on the Moncada army barracks in 1952. This time, the celebration will be held in Santa Clara, capital of Villa Clara province, the same province that governs Placetas, where bread is thrown away and where Guillermo Fariñas would do well to eat a succulent and comforting loaf of bread with pork slices and some homemade mojito.
Aurelio Pedroso, a Cuban journalist, is a member of the Progreso Semanal/Weekly team.
