11 June 2008
Free Markets and Democracy: The Cuban Experience
Oscar Espinosa Chepe
Cuban dissident economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe says that decades of oppression by a centralized government has ground down Cuba’s economy. Without freedom, he says, Cuba’s people can never compete in a globalizing economy.
After almost 50 years of totalitarianism in Cuba, the loss of freedom -- especially the violation of the freedom of movement in the market -- has had devastating effects on all aspects of Cuban society. The process that began in 1959 and created so many illusions, in time, turned into an oppressive system that blocked the country’s progress.
With the pretext of establishing a system of “harmonious and proportional development,” the country’s free market was replaced by a centralized planning mechanism copied from the Soviet Union, based on a harsh willfulness that created multiple distortions and an enormous waste of resources. This state of affairs was maintained until the end of the 1980s thanks to colossal subsidies, which finally sank Cuban society into the worst crisis in its history, a situation still not overcome.
One could ask, What was the initial reason to displace the country’s free market as the essential tool for the distribution of resources, replacing it with bureaucratic centralized planning? Why is the system maintained despite the repeated failures of centralization? The answer to these questions is that the system is based on the interests of a group of people whose only pursuit is maintaining absolute power over Cuban society. For these totalitarian objectives, the system’s political profitability is obvious, regardless of the levels of misery, backwardness, and degradation they produce.
Economic Freedom Lost
The same explanation shows the reasons for the mass confiscations of properties in Cuba -- far more than those in other countries that suffer from centralized systems -- as well as for the attempts to banish all traces of economic freedom. This strategy was aimed at exercising strict control over the population by converting the citizens into entities with no rights, entirely dependent on the all-powerful state.
The economic, social, political, demographic, and environmental consequences have been catastrophic for Cuba, without mentioning the damage to the people’s spiritual values, severely eroded by a crisis whose end cannot be seen. To this must be added an enormous and dangerous dependence on Venezuela.
At the economic level, a process of human and material decapitalization has affected society as a whole. Cuba, in the past a rich, self-sustaining agricultural country, according to official data, imports today 84 percent of its basic food requirements, mostly from the United States. The once major sugar provider to the world now buys sugar abroad. These dislocations occur while more than 50 percent of the arable land remains abandoned and overrun by brambles. At the same time, due to the low wages -- about $20 per month, on average -- the population is driven to crime in order to survive. As a result, according to United Nations data, Cuba has become the nation with the highest prison population in the world in relation to its inhabitants.
Hints of Change
Cuba is a sad example of the consequences of not having freedom. And Cuba could well fall even further behind as the rest of the world grapples with globalization and market integration. While those forces create enormous developmental possibilities, they also require a significant increase in competition, in which efficiency, productivity, and creativity play an increasingly important role. It is impossible to promote these elements in societies ruled by fear, where freedom of association and freedom of speech are prohibited, thus preventing the debate and the free exchange of ideas needed to identify better options for progress.
The situation is so obvious that even within the Cuban government, one is beginning to hear voices, however hesitant and incoherent, in favor of introducing structural transformations and conceptual changes in the system, especially in the economy. Hints can be found in speeches made by General Raúl Castro, who on February 24, 2008, became president of the Council of State and president of the Council of Ministers.
Perhaps the hinted changes will begin a gradual process toward reforms, bringing the Cuban people freedom. If newly awakened hopes were again frustrated, however, social instability would be the probable outcome.
The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.
