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Abstract
The concept of moral economy can be applied to all types of economies as they all involve conceptions of the ‘common good’ that determine who gets what, why and how, and who is responsible for this distribution, eg state or private actors. In this paper, we use the concept of moral economy to demonstrate how particular morals and logics shape public health governance in Cuba, comparing these with market liberal contexts. The paper draws from ethnographic and interview data from Cuba to evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of Cuban agri-food governance, against the backdrop of market liberal approaches. While Cuban interviewees justified their activities in terms of Cuba’s moral economy of collective need, there were also instances when the socialist moral economy conflicted with individual needs and aspirations. We conclude that, despite its faults, Cuba’s holistic approach to food and agriculture illustrates how ecological approaches to public health might work in practice.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Comparable work on market liberal economies shows how morals and logics of the market are reproduced by ‘ordinary’ people in their everyday lives (see Parry and Bloch Citation1989; Gregory Citation1997; Carrier and Miller Citation1998; Gudeman Citation2008).
2 This so-called ‘green capitalism’ (Friedmann Citation2005; Tienhaara Citation2014) is made possible through a ‘corporate capture’ (see below) of environmental and health messages of the hippie movement of the 1960s (Belasco Citation2006).
3 There have been other periods when economic rewards have replaced moral incentives. Yaffe (Citation2009) and Kapcia (Citation2008) both detail how the pendulum has swung at different times between an emphasis on moral (Guevarist/voluntarist) and economic (Soviet/materialist) incentives. As a result, Cuba currently presents a complex reality in which economic incentives are now once again at the forefront of incentivising production.
1 Lang, “Reshaping the Food System,” 317.
2 Sachweh, “Moral Economy of Inequality.”
3 Ibid., 420.
4 Scott, Moral Economy of the Peasant.
5 P. Jackson, Ward, and Russell, “Moral Economies of Food”; Wilson and Jackson, “Fairtrade Bananas in the Caribbean.”
6 Wilkinson, “Perfect Impasse.”
7 Lang, “Reshaping the Food System”; Rayner and Lang, “Ecological Public Health”; Rayner and Lang, Ecological Public Health: Reshaping the Conditions.
8 Rayner and Lang, “Ecological Public Health.”
9 Olwig et al., “Inverting the Moral Economy,” 2317.
10 Sayer, Why Things Matter to People.
11 Baden, Davis, and Wilkinson, “Ethics in Pharma.”
12 Sayer, Why Things Matter to People, 145–6.
13 Palley, “From Keynesianism to Neoliberalism.”
14 Olwig et al., “Inverting the Moral Economy.”
15 Finn, Moral Ecology of Markets.
16 Palley, “From Keynesianism to Neoliberalism.”
17 cf. Smith, Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
18 Altieri, Nicholls, and Montalba, “Technological Approaches to Sustainable.”
19 Boltanski and Thévenot, On Justification: Economies of Worth, 27.
20 Guthman, Weighing In.
21 Lang, Millstone, and Marsden, Food Brexit, 4.
22 PLoS Medicine, “PLoS Medicine Series on Big Food,” 1.
23 Kelly et al. “Density of Outdoor Food and Beverage Advertising”; Chacon et al. “Snack Food Advertising.”
24 Williams and Nestle, Big Food: Critical Perspectives.
25 Monteiro and Cannon, “Impact of Transnational ‘Big Food’ Companies,” 1.
26 Underhill, “States, Markets and Governance.”
27 Duncan and Barling, “Renewal through Participation.”
28 Lang, “Reshaping the Food System,” 329.
29 Albritton, “Between Obesity and Hunger.”
30 Ibid.
31 Duhaime-Ross, “New US Food Guidelines”; also see Nestle, “Food Lobbies, the Food Pyramid”; Teicholz, “Scientific Report Guiding.”
32 Utting, Business Responsibility for Sustainable Development.
33 Foladori, “Can PPPs in Health Cope.”
34 Emtairah and Mont, “Gaining Legitimacy in the Contemporary World.”
35 Rayner and Lang, Ecological Public Health: Reshaping the Conditions.
36 Peabody, “Economic Reform and Health Sector Policy.”
37 Torres, “Economic Transformations in Cuba”; Wilkinson, “Perfect Impasse.”
38 Castro Ruz, “Discurso pronunciado por el general”; Partido Comunista de Cuba, “Resolution on the Guidelines.”
39 Leogrande, “Can Cuba’s Miguel Díaz-Canel.”
40 Batalla and Grzelczyk, “A Future, But at What Cost?”
41 Guerra, Myth of José Martí.
42 Domínguez López and Yaffe, “Deep Historical Roots.”
43 Wilson, Everyday Moral Economies, 37–66.
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid., 5.
46 Ibid., 76–83.
47 Altieri et al., “Development and Status”; Funes et al., Sustainable Agriculture and Resistance; Rossett, “Cuba: A Successful Case”; Wright, Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security.
48 Wilson, Everyday Moral Economies, 172–6.
49 Lage, “Socialism and the Knowledge Economy”; Ziegler, “Promotion and Protection of All Human Rights”; Cardenas, “Cuban Biotechnology Industry”; Gürcan, “Cuban Agriculture and Food Sovereignty,” 136.
50 Wilson, Everyday Moral Economies, 103–4.
51 Baden, Davis, and Wilkinson, “Tale of Two Pharmas.”
52 Baden and Wilkinson, “Socially Responsible Enterprise in Cuba”; Wilson, Everyday Moral Economies.
53 Kapcia, Cuba in Revolution.
54 Bandura, “Self-Efficacy”; and Zaccaro et al., “Collective Efficacy.”
55 Spiegel and Yassi, “Lessons from the Margins of Globalization.”
56 Hickel, “Sustainable Development Index.”
57 Wilson, “Agroecology and Cuban Nationhood”; Wilson, Everyday Moral Economies.
58 Wilson, Everyday Moral Economies, 81; Wilson, “Cuban Exceptionalism?”
59 Reid-Henry, Cuban Cure.
60 Rayner and Lang, Ecological Public Health: Reshaping the Conditions, 20.
61 Wilkinson, “Perfect Impasse.”
62 Lage, “Socialism and the Knowledge Economy.”
63 Shutt, “Moral Economy?,” 1533.
64 IPCC, “Global Warming of 1.5C.”
65 T. Jackson, “Post-Growth Challenge.”
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Notes on contributors
Marisa Wilson
Marisa Wilson is a Senior Lecturer in Critical Human Geography at the School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, and a Research Associate in Human Geography at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. Her work on Caribbean food economies illustrates cultural, historical and political-economic reasons behind food preferences, agricultural land use and, more recently, the outcomes of nutrition and other interventions aimed at re-localising food. Marisa is currently exploring the use of digital methods to increase understandings of sugar’s complex and transnational histories and geographies in Scotland and the West Indies.
Denise Baden
Denise Baden is an Associate Professor within Southampton Business School at the University of Southampton. Her first degree was in politics with economics. Her background prior to academia is varied: she spent several years in industry, both employed and running her own business, was involved in script writing, films and sales and then returned to academia to do a doctorate in psychology, which was awarded in 2002. She worked in the area of social psychology for three years, and then joined the Southampton Business School in 2005, where she has been engaged in research and teaching in the areas of ethics, entrepreneurship, sustainable business and corporate social responsibility.
Stephen Wilkinson
Stephen Wilkinson is a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Buckingham and Chairperson of the Humanities’ School Teaching and Learning Committee. He is also Chairman of the International Institute for the Study of Cuba, and Editor of the International Journal of Cuban Studies. His PhD on the subject of Cuban detective fiction was published as Detective Fiction in Cuban Society and Culture in 2006, by Peter Lang. He is currently researching a book on the origins of Cuban nationalism. He currently has two articles out for review on the Cuban economy and the question of leadership in Cuba, written in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Southampton and Solent University. A chapter co-written with Denise Baden on ‘Corporate Social Responsibility in Cuba’ is to be published in the forthcoming Current Global Practices of Corporate Social Responsibility (edited by Samuel O. Idowu; Springer International).