Economic change in Cuba: The (re-)making of a socialist development strategy

Abstract

With recent structural changes and economic reforms in Cuba, a conceptual framework for understanding what socialist development was and is today, is in order. This article integrates development analysis with interpretation of change while documenting the economic reforms now underway in this country. A clear distinction between the concepts of patterns of development versus development strategy contributes to explaining how the proposed reforms relate to the official state discourse of socialism, as well as to the policy options that will shape future economic development. Cuban and non-Cuban narratives are taken into consideration in order to provide a balanced assessment of the process. Important features are the state's shift from producer to regulator, the aperture of new market spaces and the redefinition of the term social property.

Keywords:

• Cuba
• development
• markets
• patterns
• strategies

Notes

¹ It may be interesting to note here that in his 1992 article, ‘The collapse of socialist development in the Third World’, Clapham argued that reports of the death of a state socialist development model might be exaggerated. At the same time, he says: ‘If there is light at the end of the tunnel, I would look for it in the possibility that revolution might be seen as the precursor, not to socialism, but to an effective process of capitalist development’ (Clapham 1992, 24).

² Cuba was one of three non-European countries to participate as a full member; the other two were Vietnam and Mongolia (Jeffries 1993).

³ This period coincided with the 1992 Constitutional Reform. It is worth mentioning here that social investment, especially in health and education, did not drop; on the contrary, more investment was geared towards these sectors.

⁴ In Cuba, the term aperture (apertura) or ‘opening of market space’ is used in place of the term liberalization. This is important in understanding not only state discourse but also development analysis as produced by Cuban social scientists.

⁵ The question of public debt and its remedy is yet another important factor contributing to the national debates. I have chosen to leave this out of this discussion as the figures for national debt have yet to be corroborated and lenders yet to be identified. For the impact of the global economic crisis on Cuba, see Mesa-Lago and Vidal-Alejandro (2010).

⁶ Some analysts have speculated that the Battle of Ideas was in fact an economic-ideological manifestation of the political transfer of power from Fidel to Raúl Castro (Mesa-Lago 2008; Alzugaray Treto 2009, 37).

⁷ These are entitled: I – Model for Economic Management; II – Macroeconomic policy; III – External Economic policy; IV – Investment policy; V – Science, Technology and Innovation policy; VI – Social policy; VII – Agro-industrial policy; VIII – Industrial and Energy Policy; IX – Policy on Tourism; X – Transportation policy; XI – Policy on Construction, Housing and Hydraulic resources; and XII – Business (domestic) policy.

⁸ In guidelines 25–29, two forms of cooperatives are identified: first and second grade; wherein the second may emanate from a mother cooperative, specialising in a particular service for the company. Guideline 26 clearly discourages the sale of the cooperative to individual proprietors and private companies (natural persons) or even to the state.

⁹ Those of the Regulatory Capitalism School, like David Levi-Faur (2005), argue that what we see is not neoliberalism; rather, it is privatization with the creation of new regulatory bodies and the diffusion of regulatory capitalist trends. Following this logic, we can perhaps speak of a ‘regulatory state capitalism’ in Cuba.