Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Cuba Nueva

I think this makes sense.

Cuba still has quite a way to go before consumerism gets out of hand. It's hard to argue with letting people use cell phones and computers.
Posted by at

5 comments:

  1. CarlosApril 4, 2008 at 12:13 PM

    I agree. It seems like there won't be much of an effect, however, given that most people don't have the resources to spend on cell phones and PCs. I think Cuba is very interesting, naturally, especially on this issue of consumerism and a command socialist economy. Planned economies, as I think someone mentioned in a previous post, are very good at heavy industry and, essentially, mobilizing resources for big projects, including big infrastructure projects. In fact, the only way I see to achieve "development" in the third world, if by development we mean providing the people, EVERYONE, with the basics: housing, plumbing, schools, hospitals, a productive industrial job, is through top-down heavy government involvement. This can be either communistic like our friends in the Soviet Union and Cuba, pseudo-socialistic like our friends in Europe, and pseudo-capitalistic, like our friends in the American triumvirate of big government, big corporations, and big unions during World War II and for the twenty five odd years after. Top-down is the only way to achieve the focused, massive mobilization of resources necessary to provide everyone in a previously poor country "the basics".

    In my opinion, one of the biggest tragedies of modern times is that having the resources to do it, excess resources, excess resources representing 30 years of "useless" capital accumulation if you will (roughly 1970 on, the point more or less from which you could argue everyone in the US and Europe had "the basics"), anyway, having all these excess resources, there are still 3 or so billion people in the world without "the basics".

    We know how do mobilize the resources, we know how to give people housing and electricity and roads and sanitation and health and productive work, we did it 50 years ago in our own countries for christ's sake.

    Cuba has done that, given everyone "the basics", in a region of the world that is plagued by massive inequality (Puerto Rico did it too, through the big-government capitalist approach, financed by the Americans, just as Cuba was financed by the Soviet Union). Every other country in Latin America (not to mention Africa and the Middle East and much of Asia) has elements of modernity but very large numbers of people without "the basics". While many of the countries were on their way up during the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, they didn't have the resources to complete the tasks before the world economic order shifted towards Reaganist post-modern mode of flexible accumulation and these countries saw their financing dry up. Compounded by other factors, of course, not least of which was corruption and incompetence in both government and industry. The result has been an incomplete project, which the last thirty years have done little to remedy. In fact, populations have exploded, and conditions have remained essentially the same.

    The capitalist system by itself, unfortunately, directs resources to the needs and desires of individual consumers, WEIGHTED by how much money they have (or can spend). In that structure, a poor country will never develop, because its people don't have significant enough income to attract the necessary resources. The World Bank et al's best hope these days, microfinance, addresses this in a sense by giving small loans to poor people, thus putting these people on the capitalist radar, and presumably diverting some resources to them. But in the best of cases, this won't lead to development the way we know and love for generations and generations. Its unacceptable, when our productive resources in the developed world are devoted to Britney Spears CDs.

    Ok, I've kind of wandered off from Cuba and cell phones, but I suppose my point is Cuba has achieved something admirable by, despite adverse economic conditions in general, being able to provide everyone with "the basics". I do not think that consumerism (necessarily) threatens that. It can certainly erode some of what's been achieved, as has happened in the US and arguably Europe and the former Soviet Union, etc, but it seems once people have the basic elements of development the system tends to maintain them. Cubans with cell phones is not a threat to their socialist achievement, and neither is Cubans with McDonalds and Cubans with Britney Spears CDs, however distasteful that may seem (I should lay off of poor Britney, huh?). All of that has certainly not denied Puerto Ricans adequate (in comparison) housing and health care.

    The real focus however should be on the close to 20 million people between Cuba and Puerto Rico in Hispaniola that live in dire and absolute poverty. We need a top-down massive government solution for them, and the other 3 billion truly poor in the world.

    Sorry for the wandering and lack of structure.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ryan F.April 4, 2008 at 2:31 PM

    I enjoyed your thoughtful comment, Carlos. You know I totally agree that "big government" is the answer to the question of basic economic development (and a lot of other thins as well). It hearkens back to the olden days of House: #317. You have truly become the World Systems Theorist we all knew you could be. And I love the "flexible accumulation" reference. I flexibly accumulate Joder's mom.

    Anyway, Cuba's socio-economic and public health accomplishments are indeed admirable, especially when you bear in mind the difficult context the Cubans faced. I think Castro has clearly done more good than harm to the people of Cuba. And who knows, maybe they needed a dictatorial regime to achieve these accomplishments (arguably FDR and Munoz Marin were borderline dictatorial in some respects). But now that they've done that the excuse for political repression has run out. Just as cell phones should not jeopardize their accomplishments, neither should basic democratic and civil rights. It's time for a liberal, democratic socialist Cuba. My guess is that you would agree.

    Also, do you think maybe Cubans can't afford these consumer items at the moment because they have hitherto been illegal, forcing people to get them on the black market and pay for them in another currency with an unfavorable exchange rate (convertible pesos, U.S. dollars or Euros)? Maybe after they've been legal for a while and they can pay for them with their own currency, prices will come down.

    ReplyDelete
  3. CarlosApril 4, 2008 at 4:44 PM

    Ah the olden times! I should get some black turtlenecks for when I write on the blog!

    Yes. I think that a dictatorial sort of regime may well be necessary to achieve the sort of political consensus (in this case, through force) needed to focus one's full energies on the task of basic development. It would be rather difficult to mobilize the necessary resources, with all that entails, without a dominating level of political control, which, as you mentioned, FDR and Muñoz Marín arguably had at their heights.

    But certainly, whereas communism and other command economies excel at moving things quickly in terms of basic development, they quickly start falling short when the important focii in the economy eventually become the allocation of resources for scented soap and athletic shoes and television sets. The market does THAT great, the production boards struggle with it. (It could be argued, however, that given the leaps in information and communications technology in recent decades, maybe these days you COULD get a command style production system that is able of receive and process enough information to allocate resources effectively from the center. Maybe.)

    Anyway, yeah, its high time for the Cubans to introduce a little bit of capitalism to their system. And along with it, just as there's no reason any longer to dominate production and consumption centrally, there's no reason not to let people have basic civil and political rights. There is no excuse at this point, and I don't think there's been an excuse in Cuba for quite a while. I think its been a case of Fidel Castro being (perhaps understandably) a little paranoid and full of himself. One problem with dictatorial systems is that they often lead to the personalization of power, and I think that happened in Cuba to the detriment of Cubans.

    The affordability issue: I don't know, I think the high black market prices are part of it, but Cubans ARE paid very little, and you get the perennial stories of the rocket engineers looking for work in hotels because they offer the best compensation. No one is paid very well. Im no expert, but I suspect they need to free up their labor markets to let in a measure of wage competition, and do what they can, despite the embargo, to open their economy and talent to the outside world. The embargo sucks, but the US economy is less than 25% of world GDP, and despite Helms-Burton, they still have access to a lot of the world economy. Their main problem, I think, is their internal economic policy.

    Like you say, they've achieved the basics, they need to get social democratic. AND I think the US would lift the embargo if they started moving in that direction, and there was a Democrat in office. (Well, maybe not, Helms-Burton WAS under Phil Klinton).

    Flexibly accumulate Joder's mom. HAHAHA :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousApril 5, 2008 at 5:16 AM

    I don't know if the fact that ordinary Cubans can't afford silly luxuries is much of a protection against consumerism quickly getting out of control.

    Cell phones for me are the clincher: the number of poor people I see here blowing their money on the never-ending downloading of ring tones and new "skins" and tote bags for their cell phones is simply uncomprehensible.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousApril 5, 2008 at 5:18 AM

    I think I meant incomprehensible.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)