Translation: Conference on self-employment

I noted in a previous post that official Cuban discourse doesn't distinguish between the self-employed, the owners and employees of small private businesses and members of cooperative societies: all are lumped together under the Spanish term trabajo por cuenta propia, or self-employment.

As far as I'm aware this fudging of the distinction between bosses and workers in small private enterprises has never been explained. It has the positive effect of undermining prejudice against allowing small private enterprises to flourish in Cuba's socialist-oriented economy — but at the cost of blunting social awareness of the unequal power relationships involved. 

Somebody who employs four other people to work in their restaurant may work alongside their employees, but they are not "self-employed". They are an employer, a boss. They belong to that class of people that Karl Marx labelled the petit-bourgeoisie, French for "small capitalist", a term that has the merit of scientific accuracy.

Conference on self-employment held

By Jose Alejandro Rodriguez, Juventud Rebelde, April 9, 2012

Translation: Marce Cameron

The interdisciplinary gathering addressed the viability of various forms of non-state economic management, from the diagnostic and scientific point of view, as part of the changes and transformations of what has been called the Cuban model.

The 1st Conference on Self-Employment in Cuba, organised by the Technology and Knowledge Management Enterprise of the Ministry of Science Technology and Environment, took place yesterday.

Featuring presentations and panel discussions by academics, researchers, economists and social scientists, the multidisciplinary event discussed the viability of various forms of non-state economic management, from the diagnostic and scientific point of view, as part of the changes and transformations of what has been called the Cuban model.

The debates – which centred on the already irreversible expansion of self-employment and the potential of non-agricultural cooperatives, which will begin to be set up on an experimental basis outside the farming sector – demonstrated that non-state forms of management can stimulate significant advances for Cuba’s economy and socialism.

Economist Dr. Pavel Vidal gave a very positive assessment of the relaunching of self-employment in Cuba, in the midst of the complexities of a structural overhaul, with a far more flexible regulatory framework. At the same time, he identified factors that, in his opinion, limit the advance of this form of employment in Cuba: among others, the absence of a wholesale supplies market and the few skilled job categories in which self-employment is permitted.

Two panels of researchers in the field took up the importance of integrating these non-state forms with the core of the socialist system, the state enterprises, which are in turn poised for profound transformations. This was addressed at both the macro-economic and the local and household levels.

Conference participants agreed to establish a network for analysis and the sharing of information among researchers of the non-state forms of management in Cuba: the starting point for systematic scientific research into a sector that will have a growing weight in the Cuban economy.

Translation: Cooperative bakeries debate continued

Before translating some materials on the November 10 housing reform that allows people to buy and sell their own homes, I though I’d share with readers this further contribution to the debate in the letters pages of Granma about whether or not local bakeries should be transformed from state enterprises into cooperatively managed enterprises.

This week the government published a decree law handing over the management of small barber and beautician salons with one to three seats to their workers, who will lease the premises from the municipal government. The workers will charge whatever the market will bear and pay taxes, retirement pension contributions and utility bills and be responsible for the upkeep of the premises. This follows a successful trial of the new approach in selected salons. I’ll post more details soon.

We have to make changes and not only in bakeries

By N. Paez del Amo, Granma letter to the editor, November 4, 2011

Translation: Marce Cameron

Regarding the possible leasing of the bakeries, opinions are expressed that reject change on the basis of conservatism and the die-hard attachment to centralised schemas of management.

Let’s begin by clarifying that the cooperative forms of production and services are fully compatible with the socialist distribution principle “from each according to their ability, to each according to their work”, nor is the concept of private property in and of itself at odds with the building of a more just world. The enormous difference between capitalism and socialism [i.e. the socialist-oriented society – translator’s note] lies not so much in the type of property but in who holds power, in whose hands are the fundamental means of production, as well as in the equality of opportunities and the more equitable distribution of wealth that this allows, which is the basis of its greater fairness.

I really cannot imagine workers stealing from themselves with impunity, as happens in the centralised system, in which many collude to swindle the socialist state and enrich themselves though the diversion of raw materials and other inputs that this state makes available to them. A large proportion of these materials and inputs end up on the black market to the detriment of the product on offer or the service provided. Often they end up in the hands of the self-employed who, in the absence of a wholesale supplies system, supply themselves through these “vendors”.

If all these bakeries (as well as retail trade in general) had to purchase in stores the raw materials and the goods they sell, create a product or provide a service of high quality that is capable of being sold in a competitive market governed by supply and demand (an economic law that is fully applicable under socialism despite our desires to the contrary) – as well as covering costs and paying state taxes, after which the earnings would be shared – I don’t believe any worker would be permitted to appropriate for their own personal benefit or waste what actually belongs, and not in an indirect form, to the whole collective. And if through their efforts they’re able to create wellbeing for others and also earn money through efficient management, such earnings that are the fruit of work and the satisfaction of the needs of the population would be welcome.

The Communist Party and the proletarian state, with their infrastructure and socialist institutions, will be there to protect the system and the people against all wrongdoing.

At the present level of social development, workers need the fruits of their effort and work to result in wellbeing for themselves and their family, which continues to be the basic unit of society. The population must see their daily labour translated into the satisfaction of their growing needs. This is the fundamental principle of socialism.

With paternalistic and egalitarian practices and the demonisation of mechanisms of proven effectiveness, we will not be able to break the inertia nor put an end to foot-dragging and bureaucracy, which like an invisible brake stops us advancing along the path set out by the Sixth Communist Party Congress and its Guidelines.

Translation: Cooperative bakeries debate

In the previous post I promised to also translate two earlier contributions to this debate in the letters pages of Granma. Here they are.

The leasing of bakeries: a different viewpoint 

J. Bernal Camero, Granma letter to the editor, October 7, 2011

Translation: Marce Cameron

I don’t think the idea of leasing the bakeries to the workers is wise. Nor do I believe it will eliminate theft.

It would seem that theft in the bakeries is generated by the nature of property. Private property has engendered every kind of theft and is the champion when it comes to the variety of methods employed, beginning with the most subtle of them all – the exploitation of man by man. There is theft in every kind of cooperative all over the world, including those based on families, and in every type of business. From ancient times to the present day there is theft and deception between buyers and sellers.

I interpret and understand the policy of leasing [small productive and service entities] to be aimed fundamentally at creating jobs and guaranteeing services or products that the state cannot adequately provide. But this is not the case with the network of bakeries that exist throughout the length and breadth of the country, in which the state has made numerous investments and has employed a sizeable number of workers in a stable manner.

The state has provided a basic nutritional necessity with imported flour even in the most difficult economic circumstances, among them this long Special Period, which I don’t know if anyone can tell us when it will end, considering the serious international crisis situation and that of the production and commercialisation of food in Cuba.

I don’t deny that we can study and get up and running non-state bakeries where it may be advisable for various reasons, and that this would benefit the state [by relieving it of a burden] and the consumers, but I am convinced that the production of bread in state enterprises, if we do it properly, may be better, more secure and more beneficial than other options.

Finally, if I were a baker I’d vigorously protest at the characterisation of thieves levelled against an economic sector which, like all sectors, needs to do better and has the potential to do so in the framework of socialist production. 

Let’s not be dazzled by production and services based on self-employment or other non-state forms, as we were dazzled in an earlier time by state production and socialism. Everything is going to require the intelligent improvement of our socialist society as a whole without despising small-producer property, leaseholders and others that integrate our economic system and the dedication and effort needed to advance systematically in the satisfaction of our material and spiritual necessities.*    

Bakery/cake shop mural, Old Havana, Cuba

More on the leasing of bakeries

O. D’Angelo Hernández, Granma letter to the editor, October 14, 2011-11-06

Translation: Marce Cameron (the Spanish text is here)

I’m going to refer to the interesting opinion expressed by J. Bernal Camero on the topic, published in the October 7 edition.

This is a very important issue whenever the forms of the leasing of service and other enterprises appear in the Economic and Social Policy Guidelines for the updating of the economic model, and it’s one of the measures about which little is known.

Camero’s starting point is the opinion of others that leasing is a solution to the theft of merchandise. I’m not going to refer to this controversial topic, though it could be said that a greater sense of responsibility towards the enterprise – encouraged by collective forms of property ownership or management (cooperative or communal management, etc.) that give the workers more of a stake in the results of work and in the growth of collective awareness, as well as the organised action of the consumers in this regard – could lead us towards possible solutions.

I support, resolutely, the promotion of the various forms of leasing, above all when they imply collective management by the workers that would facilitate the democratic mechanisms of election [of managers], the equitable distribution of the earnings and the social responsibility of the enterprise in question.

It would be possible to apply this in multiple production and service activities, on the basis of consultations with the workers and with the population.

I agree with Bernal Camero, however, that we would have to cautious in deciding which are the necessary sectors. In the case of the bakeries, whose production and price are subsidised by the state, I believe it would be impossible to offer the bread that is now available through the ration book if the bakeries were converted to other forms of enterprise management, given that any other form of production (cooperative, etc.) would necessitate making a profit on sales.

The possible bedazzlement alluded to by Camero towards other, non-state forms [of enterprise management] makes some sense if we see them, as has happened, as urgent measures to be generalised immediately. But one thing is certain: the state enterprise, in its current form, tends towards inertia and the “detachment” of the worker from the conditions and the results of their work. The hoped-for feeling of being a socialist proprietor that this form should generate is often not achieved due to top-down management and centralisation that is alien to the work collective.

I agree with the disproportionate emphasis on what can be achieved with self-employment, if it is seen as “the” solution; it could lead to greater individualism. Small [productive] property has its place in the economy but I’d bet on more socialised forms of property, even encouraging the partnership of the self-employed with their communities and with other forms of economic activity.

Forms of ownership and management that foster “the freely associated labour of socialism”, as Marx called it – which do not necessarily pass through the current form of the state enterprise without co-management or worker self-management – would be paths towards the creation of a democratic culture and a greater sense of collective and social responsibility. However, this cannot be implemented, in my opinion, as a top-down and generalised formula without taking into account the inclinations and the willingness of the workers and the specific conditions of each sector of production and services at a given time.

This would mean taking one step at a time, “without haste but without pause” [as Raul Castro has said], which would allow us to progress with an advanced form of social organisation, in which the intelligent combination of forms of property or management would spur social and economic development towards another conception of the socialism that we need. 

  

Translation: Property and socialism

This Granma letter to the editor illustrates the depth of some of the debate in the letters pages of the Friday edition of the paper. Here, a reader relates his experience as a Popular Council president in relation to state-owned and managed local bakeries. Many or all such bakeries are likely to become cooperatively managed enterprises, with the premises leased from the municipal government, as foreshadowed in the Economic and Social Policy Guidelines. 

The timeline for implementation is unclear. The government has yet to publish a decree law detailing the functioning of non-agricultural cooperatives. Also pending are bank loans for the non-state (self-employment, small businesses and cooperatives) sector. (Meanwhile, the big news is that this week the Cuban government approved the sale and purchase of homes. More on this in a future post.) 

The Popular Councils were set up on an experimental basis in 1988 and were generalised from 1991, acting as a level of local government intermediate between the municipality and the neighbourhood delegate. 

I'll translate some of the thread of this debate in Granma so you can get a sense of it, in particular the two previous letters mentioned by the author below.

Poster: "More discipline, productivity and efficiency"

Property and socialism: an inseparable binary

By J. P. García Brigos, Granma letter to the editor, October 28, 2011

Translation: Marce Cameron

The letter to the editor by J. Bernal Camero on October 7 about the bakeries and leasing has provoked others to write in with their opinions, such as those of D’Angelo Hernández published on Friday 14th. This motivates me to return to the issue which lies at the heart of the interesting exchange: property and socialist construction.

Perhaps many people think that the form of organising the production of our daily bread can be decided very simply. If we resort to the oft-repeated principle that socialism is “social ownership of the fundamental means of production”, they would surely not include the bakeries in this category. Moreover, it’s important that we ask ourselves again: What is social property?

I think that an indication of our lack of clarity on the content of socialist social property is precisely the constant theft in our [socialist state] entities, a phenomenon that is by no means limited to the bakeries: if socialist social property means that we’re all owners, it makes little sense that an owner would rob themselves.

It’s impossible in a letter to the editor to set out all the ideas that it is necessary to discuss regarding property in the building of socialism. There is a rich practical experience, accumulated during the more than 90 years that have elapsed since that glorious Russian October [Revolution of 1917]. There is a theoretical legacy that must begin with Marx, Engels and Lenin, without ignoring the subsequent ideas of partisans and enemies of socialism.

This is not about defending at all costs the state form of the organisation of property as we have known it up to now, nor the opposite tendency of viewing cooperatives and self-employment as the paradise that we need. Nor the “controlled” mix of forms and economic mechanisms that some put forward.

The socialist content of property is more than just the form of organisation of the economic-productive process; it’s not just how the economic entities are constituted in this or that juridical form. At the same time, it does not depend exclusively on what is done with the “fundamental” means of production, by which is usually meant the large or important productive and service activities. This case of the bakeries allows us to appreciate the complexities that must necessarily be considered regarding property, in order to be able to act consciously and effectively for its necessary socialist improvement. 

In such critical moments for our country as the years 1991-3, when this bread whose quality we continue to complain about was almost the only reliably available food in Cuban daily life, the municipality in which I live – where I was the president of the Popular Council and consequently a municipal government delegate for my immediate neighbourhood – was for many years exemplary in bread production. It wasn’t a “paradise”, but the quality was superior to that of others, working with the same supplies. Slumps in production were far less frequent and criminal acts were all but eliminated. 

These and other features characterised our UBIA (as the bread enterprise was then known by its initials – it was as state-run as it is today), and it achieved and maintained the status of vanguard enterprise. Our bakers were as Cuban and as working class as the others, they were neither “saints” nor “thieves”, the unfair generalisation that is made. Their salaries were no different to those in other municipalities, nor were they privileged in their working conditions. Accordingly, it might be asked: What differences can we identify in the functioning of this state enterprise during these years, which had a lot to do with its achievements? 

It goes without saying that when the presidents of the Popular Councils and the neighbourhood delegates got to know the bakers in the fulfilment of our functions, we kept an eye on things and we were demanding. Very much so, because at the time the Commander in Chief [Fidel Castro] had just proposed how he wanted the presidents of the Popular Councils in the City of Havana to act. But we also took part in work shifts with those in the “workshops” (the name given to the part of the bakery where the bread is made) and, without disregarding the fact that we carried out different functions in society to the bakers, we shared with them the experience of the productive process, and to a large extent even their lives, with their personal affairs.

In this municipality we also had in these years a director of the UBIA who, without having any prior involvement in the sector, within two months of his appointment (which many of us opposed on the basis of the “cadre policy”) was already known by his name and surname by all of the workers in his enterprise (note: all, not only those in the office). Day by day he became ever more aware of – and concerned about – their personal circumstances, as just another worker, without ceasing to be the director who was demanding when it came to results. Of course, he knew what was going on in all the local bakeries despite not even living in the municipality. But he wasn’t the only director: there was an active trade union, engaged with the workers, their lives, and with the progress and the results of the productive process; there were Communist Party and communist youth activists that were exemplary in everything, and with their example, with their political functions and as workers, their contribution was decisive.

I haven’t referred to an idyllic situation, a theoretical construct. I may have idealised something or other, but I believe that we can allow ourselves to do so when we refer to historical episodes that we lived through very intimately, as long as we don’t distort the essence of what transpired. It was a very real situation that was possible in very difficult times for our country. A state enterprise functioned well, without being perfect, in very complex circumstances for everyone [i.e. the harshest years of the post-Soviet “Special Period” crisis]. Why?

It’s worth reflecting on experiences such as this, because it’s not unique. An economic entity is not only a productive or service organisation that corresponds with certain legal criteria, to certain norms and economic-administrative mechanisms.

Let’s reflect on this so we don’t renounce the state enterprise, nor forget that it’s necessary to change the current situation, with other approaches; that we have to develop on the basis of our present realities. It’s important to be able to open up spaces in our society to other forms of organisation of production. But not “anything goes”, nor with controls that don’t always get to the bottom of it. It’s about reproducing socialism, which is a lot more than productivity and profitability and, above all, socialism is the only thing that will allow us to continue existing as a nation.

Translation: Granma article on cooperatives

This Granma article discusses cooperatives in a positive light. An accompanying text box mentions the book Cooperatives and Socialism: A Cuban Perspective, an extract of which I translated recently, and informs readers of the International Cooperative Alliance, an international NGO that promotes the interests of cooperatives. 

I'll resume my translation of the Economic and Social Policy Guidelines soon.

Cooperate with the economy in other ways 

By Anneris Ivette Leyva, Granma, September 2, 2011

Translation: Marce Cameron

“Cooperatives help to build a better world”. Put like this, such a statement may seem over the top or, at the very least, somewhat trite. Nevertheless, this is the slogan that the UN has chosen to designate 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives.

It seems that when the hegemonic imperialist system is in crisis, when the contradictions between the owners of big capital – or those beholden to them – and the workers who reproduce capital in their daily practice grow ever sharper, forms of socialised property and equitable redistribution emerge from the most unlikely cracks and help to break chains. 

It comes as no great surprise, then, that delving into history reveals that while the principle of working together and sharing the fruits of labour is as old as tribal society, modern cooperatives arose as a reaction to the conditions of extreme exploitation in which the Industrial Revolution developed in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century. 

Restaurants and cafes could benefit most from the spread of cooperatives

In the case of Cuba, however, where the oppression of the proletariat was overcome through the triumph of the socialist revolution more than half a century ago, cooperativism emerged early on as a complement to the state economic management model (the Credit and Services cooperatives during the 1960s). 

Article 20 of our Constitution says that “cooperative property is recognised by the State and constitutes an advanced and efficient form of socialist production”, though the constitution restricts cooperatives to the agricultural sector.

In the Economic and Social Policy Guidelines approved by the Sixth Communist Party Congress, however, the door is opened to the possibility of extending this experience to other sectors through the incorporation, according to Guideline 25, of people who “associate with the aim of producing goods or providing services that are useful to society”.

To understand the desire to broaden this economic management model to diverse sectors, a model that brings to mind rural vistas in the Cuban imagination, we need to know a little more about the essence of cooperativism.

Management that is more social

Without disregarding profitability, the cooperative has as its aim the satisfaction of the needs of its members, their families and the community. Its social contribution is as embedded in its raison d'etre as its economic activity. This is why they are recognised around the world as “forms of the solidarity economy”.

According to the International Cooperative Alliance, a cooperative is defined as an autonomous association of people that have come together on a voluntary basis in order to satisfy their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations, on the basis of collective property and democratic administration.

A cooperative is an association of people, not of financial capital. Consequently, regardless of the contribution of each cooperative member, the responsibility for decision-making and the right to receive a proportion of the earnings are shared equitably.

Having dedicated more than 30 years to studying cooperatives, Dr. Claudio Alberto Rivera Rodríguez, president of the Latin Amercian Cooperativism Network and director of the Centre for Studies on Cooperative and Community Development at the University of Pinar del Rio [in Cuba], affirms that we still have a lot to learn about this other “form of socialist social property”.

Rivera Rodríguez told Granma that given this, it is somewhat paradoxical that our research output and international recognition in this area have allowed us to offer advice on cooperativisation processes in other countries in the region.

Among the advantages he points to in the Cuban case with regard to this economic management model is the scope for action that the political [i.e. Communist Party and communist youth] and mass organisations [e.g. trade unions, neighbourhood committees] have in cooperatives; greater budgetary revenues and lower costs [for government at all levels]; and higher levels of efficiency and effectiveness due to a more direct relationship between work and earnings.

In addition, the reorganisation of production and services [i.e. the conversion of state enterprises into cooperatively managed enterprises] improves the quality of life of cooperative members and the community. This is because, as a rule, cooperatives create jobs, there are more and better goods and services on offer and production costs are lower, thus allowing prices for the consumer to fall.  

Joaquín Remedios, who holds a Sciences doctorate and is president of the National Association of Economists and Accountants (ANEC) in the westernmost province of Pinar del Rio, points out that cooperatives tend to strengthen control over resources because they instil a sense of belonging to the enterprise. However, he says that for the creation of cooperatives to be fruitful in other economic sectors in our country we should not dismiss the experiences of existing cooperatives in agriculture, where some very positive examples flourish but also inefficiencies that must be overcome. 

Among the indispensable factors to be taken into account when considering establishing a cooperative, Rivera Rodríguez emphasises, is its nature and sector – whether it will be for production (for example of construction materials), services (such as restaurants and cafes, transport) or associated labour (where, for example, people from various trades form a cooperative to renovate housing).

It also has to be formed, he stresses, on the basis of clear statutes and regulations that set out its specific accounting mechanisms, define its relations with state institutions, etc. He sees advice and basic training as being equally important to the process of establishing cooperatives.

Dr. Odalys Labrador Machín – deputy director of the Centre for Studies on Cooperative and Community Development and vice-president of the Cuban Cooperativism Society, an ANEC affiliate – agrees. In her opinion, education in the values and principles of cooperativism should be taken just as seriously as specialised technical training in the activity to be undertaken by the cooperative.

With the aim of finding a place within the project of updating the Cuban economic model for the object of their multiple studies, these specialists agree that when the principle of collective property takes centre stage, cooperativism is a counter-hegemonic alternative for the market economies and, in the Cuban context, a means to develop our socialist economy.

* * *
According to a review of the book Cooperatives and Socialism: A Cuban Perspective, published by Editorial Caminos, the first officially registered cooperative was the British Society of Equitable Pioneers, formed in Rochdale in October 1844. It was established by a group of 28 weavers from the cotton spinning factory in the Rochdale, Manchester, neighbourhood who decided to come together to create a cooperative store in which they and their families could acquire basic goods on preferential terms with regard to quality and price. This was achieved by all the members contributing money to a common fund during about a year, after which they had the minimal capital required (equivalent to $128) to rent the premises in which they set up their consumer cooperative.

This example inspired the development of cooperatives in other countries, such that in 1895 there was a need to establish the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) to represent all organisations of this type in the world. Currently, the ICA has more than 260 organisations in 95 countries. More than 1 billion people are represented in these organisations, which also provide 100 million jobs.

Translation: Cooperatives and Socialism in Cuba

Cooperatives and Socialism: A Cuban Perspective is a new Cuban book published in Spanish earlier this year. This important and timely compilation is edited by Camila Piñeiro Harnecker. Avid readers of my blog will recall that I translated and posted a commentary by Camila, titled "Cuba Needs Changes", back in January. Camila lives in Cuba and has a degree in sustainable development from the University of Berkeley, California. She is a professor at the Centre for Studies on the Cuban Economy at Havana University, and her works have been published both in Cuba and outside the island. 

Camila hopes her book may be published in English soon. In the meantime, she has kindly agreed to allow me to translate and publish this extract (about a third) from her preface to Cooperatives and Socialism with permission from a prospective publisher. I hope that sharing this extract with readers of my blog will make you want to read the whole book. If it does become available in English I'll post the details here. If you read Spanish you can download the 420 page book as a PDF here or here.

At the end of the text you'll find the footnotes, translated from the Spanish, followed by the table of contents.

Cooperatives and Socialism: A Cuban Perspective 

Camila Piñeiro Harnecker, Editor 

* * *

Preface (extract)

By Camila Piñeiro Harnecker

Translation: Marce Cameron

This book arises from the urgent need for us to make a modest contribution to the healthy “birth” of the new Cuban cooperativism and its subsequent spread. Given that cooperatives are foreshadowed as one of the organisational forms of labour in the non-state sector in the Draft Economic and Social Policy Guidelines of the Sixth Cuban Communist Party Congress, the Dr. Martin Luther King Memorial Centre approached me to compile this book. The Centre has made an outstanding contribution to popular education aimed at nurturing and strengthening the emancipatory ethical values, critical thinking, political skills and organisational abilities indispensable for the conscious and effective participation of social subjects. The Centre considers it timely and necessary to support efforts to raise awareness about a type of self-managed economic entity whose principles, basic characteristics and potentialities are unknown in Cuba. There is every indication that such self-managed entities could play a significant role in our new economic model.

For this to happen we must grapple with the question at the heart of this compilation: Is the production cooperative an appropriate form of the organisation of labour for a society committed to building socialism? There is no doubt that this question cannot be answered in a simplistic or absolute fashion. Our aim here is to take only a first step towards answering this question from a Cuban perspective in these times of change and rethinking, guided by the anxieties and hopes that many Cubans have about our future.

When it is proposed that the production cooperative be one – though not the only – form of enterprise in Cuba, three concerns above all are frequently encountered: some consider it too “utopian” and therefore inefficient; others, on the basis of the cooperatives that have existed in Cuba, suspect that they will not have sufficient autonomy[1] or that they will be “too much like state enterprises”; while others still, accustomed to the control over enterprise activities exercised by a state that intervenes directly and excessively in enterprise management, reject cooperativism as too autonomous and therefore a “seed of capitalism”. This book tries to take account of all these concerns, though there is no doubt that more space would be required to address them adequately.

The first concern is addressed to some extent with the data provided in the first part of the book regarding the existence and economic activity of cooperatives worldwide today. This shows that the cooperative is not an unachievable fantasy that disregards the objective and subjective requirements of viable economic activity. Thus, the experiences of cooperatives in the Basque Country, Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela that are summarised in the third part of the book demonstrate that cooperatives can be more efficient than capitalist enterprises, even on the basis of the hegemonic capitalist conception of efficiency that ignores externalities, i.e. the impact of any enterprise activity on third parties.

The efficiency of cooperatives is greater still if we take into consideration all of the positive outcomes inherent in their management model, which can be summarised as the full human development[2] of its members and, potentially, of local communities. The democratic abilities and attitudes that cooperative members develop through their participation in its management can be utilised in other social spaces and organisations. Moreover, genuine cooperatives free us from some of the worst of the negative externalities (dismissals, environmental contamination, loss of ethical values) generated by enterprises oriented towards profit maximisation rather than the satisfaction of the needs of their workers.

It’s not possible to take up here the arguments of enterprise administration theorists who hold that cooperatives are inefficient. These criticisms are based, in general, on the fact that democratic decision-making takes time, ignoring the fact that this participation is also the principal source of the advantages of cooperatives over other, non-democratic enterprises. In addition, they condemn cooperatives for not resorting to dismissals, as well as for a supposed tendency to undertake little investment due to the maximisation of member incomes and their aversion to risk. However, such behaviour is not revealed in the practices of the cooperatives analysed in this book, practices which also demonstrate the advantages of democratically managed enterprises in terms of the positive motivation of cooperative members. While the negative incentive of the fear of dismissal is undoubtedly effective in eliciting certain behaviours, not even this is sufficient. The tendency of capitalist enterprises to incorporate methods of democratic management suggests that they understand that participation in decision-making is needed in order to achieve the levels of worker motivation necessary for competitive success in the capitalist market.

We hope that those who, on the basis of the Cuban experience, doubt that it is possible for a cooperative to be truly autonomous and democratic will find this concern adequately addressed in the first part of the compilation. Here, when we explain what a cooperative is, we point to the basic differences between a cooperative and a socialist state enterprise. In a genuine cooperative, the participation of the cooperative members in management does not depend on the enterprise management council deciding to involve them more in decision-making; such participation is a founding principle, concretised in the rights of members established in the internal rules of functioning and exercised through bodies and decision-making procedures that are drawn up and approved by the cooperative members themselves. Although the degree of autonomy of the new Cuban cooperatives will depend, of course, on the content of the anticipated legislation on cooperatives and on the implementation of the regulations it establishes, the Draft Economic and Social Policy Guidelines seem to indicate that they will be granted the powers of self-management that characterise cooperatives everywhere, and without which democratic self-management is impossible. We hope the legislation resolves the deficiencies of the current legal framework for Cuban agricultural cooperatives, which are analysed in the fourth part of this book.

The third concern, that which gives rise to the inclination to reject the cooperative as an option for socialist enterprise organisation because it is considered too autonomous and therefore incompatible with broader social interests, takes up the most space in this book. Beginning with the first essay in the compilation we attempt to demonstrate that genuine cooperatives function according to a logic that is diametrically opposed to that of capitalist enterprises. Instead of profit maximisation for the shareholders, the driving force of cooperatives is the satisfaction of the human development needs of their members, needs which are inevitably bound up with those of local communities and of the nation, and even of humanity as a whole. Throughout the book it is suggested that while it’s true that cooperatives cannot be incorporated into the national economic plan or regional or local development strategies though mechanisms of coercion or imposition, it is possible to harmonise and coordinate the orientation of their activities towards the fulfilment of social needs identified through the planning processes, above all if the latter are democratic and respond to the interests of the surrounding communities or those to which cooperative members belong.

However, to argue for the relevance of cooperatives as part of a socialist project we need to begin by clarifying what we mean when we refer to these socioeconomic entities. In the first part of this book, Jesus Cruz[3] and I try to define the cooperative as simply as possible. Here, it is important to stress that in the international context, cooperatives carry out a great diversity of economic activities, and that a not insignificant part of the global population either belongs to one of these organisations or directly benefits from their activities. This should not be surprising if we consider that the form of the organisation of labour that characterises a cooperative, self-management, has existed since the emergence of humanity. The cooperative has persisted as the most common organisational form chosen by groups of people that seek to resolve common problems through their own efforts.

What differentiates a production cooperative (referred to hereafter as “cooperative” since we emphasise this type[4]) from other forms of enterprise organisation is emphasised, based on an analysis of the cooperative principles[5] that have contributed to the success of these organisations since the emergence of the first modern cooperatives. These early modern cooperatives understood the imperative of achieving an effective enterprise management that would allow them to survive within the more savage and monopolistic capitalism of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. To the degree to which cooperatives have observed these principles in their daily practice, they have benefited from the intrinsic advantages of this form of enterprise. These advantages ultimately derive from a democratic management model that permits the harmonisation of individual interests with those of the collective (i.e. of the common interests of cooperative members) and even, though in a less axiomatic way, with the social interests of the local communities with which they interact the most.

The observance of these principles is also what allows cooperatives to reduce the inevitable corrupting effects of the capitalist surroundings in which the majority of them have developed. The capitalist environment privileges individual over collective solutions; makes it difficult to achieve equality by generating and reproducing differences in abilities and social status among cooperative members; denies them the time needed for democratic decision-making; punishes genuine acts of solidarity; and promotes the super-exploitation of human beings and nature. While this undoubtedly limits the horizon of human emancipation – the overcoming of the barriers that stand in the way of us fulfilling our human potentialities – an emancipatory dynamic has always been latent in genuine cooperatives. The capitalist environment is not an absolute barrier to cooperatives becoming spaces in which these principles are put into practice, and in which the values that such practices instill may develop. The experiences of successful cooperatives presented in this book demonstrate the economic and ethical-political potential of these organisational principals, above all when cooperatives that embody these principles are able to link up with other self-managed entities, and when they promote the approval of laws and regulations that undermine the prejudices that exist regarding cooperatives in the legal framework and in the practices of capitalist enterprises and state institutions.

As Julio Gambina and Gabriela Roffinelli argue, the cooperative should be seen as one of the many forms of the self-managed social organisation[6] that will allow us to transcend the capitalist logic of maximising narrow individual interests. Because it takes no account of human nature and its social and ecological constraints, such economic “rationality” is in fact irrational and suicidal. For as long as it pervades our daily practice, the logic of capitalism will not only distance us ever more from the socialist or communist ideal of complete social justice; it is also taking us to the brink of an irreversible rupture in the dynamic equilibrium of the biosphere.

The rationality that drives a cooperative, as with all forms of genuine self-management, is the necessity for a group of people to satisfy common needs and interests. It is based on the recognition that they share collective interests that correspond to some degree with their own individual interests, and that it is collective action that allows them to pursue these interests most effectively. This, together with the recognition that all its members are human beings with the equal right to participate in decision-making, results in democratic management in which the cooperative members decide not only who the leaders are and how revenues should be allocated, but also how to organise the process of production: what is produced, how and for whom.

The managerial autonomy of the collective that makes up the cooperative – the ability of this group of people to make decisions independently – is the key reason why the historical experiences of socialist construction have rejected their relevance to the building of socialism and have relegated them to agriculture or marginal economic spaces. Some see in autonomy a disconnection from, or a wanting to have nothing to do with, social interests and the strategic objectives embodied in the socialist economic plan, and ask the following questions: Is it possible to “hitch” an autonomous enterprise to a planned economy? Can a cooperative respond not only to the interests of its members but also to wider social interests? When one thinks in terms of absolute autonomy and authoritarian (i.e. undemocratic) planning, if the interests of collectives (groups) are considered a priori to be indifferent to social interests, then the answer is obviously negative. The authors of this book are motivated by the certainty that the answer is affirmative. We argue the case here, though we are unable to respond to all of the questions about how this can be achieved in practice.

Here, we must point out that we make no claim to have solved this practical problem which dates back to the times in which socialist theories were first elaborated. It is perhaps more of a conceptual problem than a practical one, since there are examples of collective and even private enterprises that satisfy social needs more effectively, and that have established decentralised horizontal relations that are more socially responsible, than some socialist state enterprises. Our focus here is on the form of organisation of labour within a productive unit and not in the economic system as a whole. The analysis of how a socialist-oriented society should guide the management of enterprises, or of the form in which the fruits of cooperative labour should be distributed in society, are thus topics that we do not attempt to grapple with in this initial approach to the problem. However, we do put forward some ideas in relation to these themes throughout the book.

The “fruits” of cooperative labour that interest us most here are the human beings themselves that are “produced” as a consequence of the particular form in which the productive process is organised in the enterprise: the social subjects that work together as members of a cooperative and who are motivated to give the best of themselves to the success of their enterprise and, potentially, to local communities.

What differentiates a cooperative member from an employee of either a capitalist or socialist state enterprise? In light of the experiences of cooperatives analysed in this compilation, the member of a genuine producer cooperative, or other form of self-managed entity, is the true owner of their enterprise and thus feels like it. He or she, together with the collective they belong to, participate in a conscious and active way in strategic and managerial decision-making, as well as in their implementation and in verifying that decisions are carried out. What characterises a cooperative is not legal ownership of the means of production (premises, land, machinery) by the collective or group of people that comprise it, but the fact that decisions regarding the use of means of production are made by the cooperative as a whole, either directly or by representatives that they elect, in such a way and with such powers as decided by the collective. Albeit limited to the cooperative enterprise and its activity, this is a concrete form of self-management, of the exercise of popular sovereignty.

Given this, for Gambina and Roffinelli the relevance of various forms of worker self-management, in particular cooperatives, to the building of socialism depends on the degree to which they serve as an “an apprenticeship in administration outside the control of capital”. Thus the value of the cooperative lies in the nature of its daily practice, in the social relations of production that are established among its members: relations between associated producers rather than between wage-workers and capitalists. Cooperative members are not obliged to renounce, in exchange for wages or salaries, their capacity to think, be creative and make decisions. They exercise these capacities via democratic mechanisms in conditions of equal rights and duties. There are no bosses and subordinates in a cooperative but an organisational structure and a technical division of labour that have been collectively drawn up and approved.

Thus cooperatives can be valuable weapons in the struggle to build socialism. They are not the only such weapons, they are insufficient by themselves and are not devoid of risks and challenges, but they are nevertheless tools – perfectible and adaptable – for socialist construction. They are tools that we should not allow to be abandoned due to either state-centric dogma or the misconception that only what is privately owned and managed, and operates according to capitalist logic, works. As Gambina and Roffinelli argue, “... there is a dialectical relationship between socialism and cooperativism that is either promoted or discouraged in specific socio-historical conditions.” The extent to which cooperatives contribute to the building of socialism depends on the context in which they arise and develop, and on the relationship they establish with this context. 

[Extract of preface]

Footnotes  

[1] By “autonomy” we mean the ability to make decisions independently. As we shall see, no social organisation anywhere in the world is completely autonomous since its options are always conditioned in one way or another by its social context.

[2] The term full or integral “human development” is used to make clear our rejection of the progressivist and economistic mythology that reduces development to achieving an abundance of material goods, without taking into account that development also has intrinsic ethical and spiritual dimensions, in which people can achieve professional fulfilment and the realisation of their potentialities as social beings.

[3] A brief biography of each of the contributors to this compilation is included at the end of the book.

[4] Cooperatives can be classified as either production cooperatives, in which cooperative members unite in order to collectively produce goods or provide services; or consumer cooperatives, in which the members acquire goods or services collectively.

[5] Essentially, as is clarified in the first contribution to this compilation, a cooperative must be: (1) open to members joining and leaving and flexible with regard to its internal organisation; (2) run democratically; (3) based on the labour of its members; (4) managerially autonomous; (5) prioritise the education and training of its members and the general public; (6) establish mechanisms for cooperation with other cooperatives; and (7) committed to the community.

[6] Other forms of enterprise self-management are the various forms of co-management (in which the work collective participates in the management of the enterprise together with the legal owners of the means of production, or owns shares in the company); professional partnerships (professional associations in which members provide services on an individual basis, but pool a part of their incomes to acquire services and goods collectively; they are usually limited liability companies); associations, etc. There are also forms of self-management outside the economic enterprise sphere, such as self-management in regions, communities and local governments.

* * *

Cooperatives and Socialism: A Cuban Perspective

Compiled and edited by Camila Piñeiro Harnecker

Editorial Caminos, La Habana, 2011, 420 pp.

ISBN: 978-959-303-033-5

Table of contents

Preface, Camila Piñeiro Harnecker

Part 1: What is a cooperative?

1. An introduction to cooperatives, Jesús Cruz Reyes and Camila Piñeiro Harnecker

2. The construction of alternatives beyond capital, Julio C. Gambina y Gabriela Roffinelli

Part 2: Cooperatives and the socialist theoreticians

3. Cooperativism and self-management in the perspectives of Marx, Engels and Lenin, Humberto Miranda Lorenzo

4. Socialist cooperativism and human liberation: Lenin’s legacy, Iñaki Gil de San Vicente

5. Che Guevara: cooperatives and the political economy of the socialist transition, Helen Yaffe

6. The basis for self-managed socialism: the contribution of István Mészáros, Henrique T. Novaes 

Part 3: Cooperatives in other countries

7. Mondragón: the dilemmas of a mature cooperativism, Larraitz Altuna Gabilondo, Aitzol Loyola Idiakez and Eneritz Pagalday Tricio 

8. Forty years of self-managed community housing in Uruguay: the “FUCVAM model”, Benjamin Nahoum 

9. Solidarity economy in Brazil: the current state of cooperatives for the historical emancipation of the workers, Luiz Inácio Gaiger and Eliene Dos Anjos

10. Worker self-management in Argentina: problems and potentialities of self-managed labour in the aftermath of the crisis of neoliberalism, Andrés Ruggeri

11. From cooperatives to community-managed social property enterprises in the Venezuelan process, Dario Azzellini

Part 4: Cooperatives and building socialism in Cuba

12. Cuban agricultural cooperatives from 1959 to the present, Armando Nova González

13. The Basic Unit of Cooperative Production (UBPC): redesigning state property with cooperative management, Emilio Rodríguez Membrado and Alcides López Labrada

14. Key features of the legal framework for Cuban cooperatives, Avelino Fernández Peiso

15. Challenges for cooperativism as a development alternative in the face of the global crisis and its role in the Cuban economic model, Claudio Alberto Rivera Rodríguez, Odalys Labrador Machín and Juan Luis Alfonso Alemán

Translation (corrected): Cuba needs changes

[I'd like to invite readers of this blog to check out a new blog, "Venezuela: Translating the Revolution" by Owen Richards, a sister blog to "Cuba's Socialist Renewal".]  

Alongside and intersecting with the grassroots debates on the Draft Economic and Social Policy Guidelines and the informal debate, there is a rich discussion and debate taking place among Cuban intellectuals and academic specialists from a variety of disciplines and a spectrum of political perspectives within the broad camp of the Revolution. The Cuban magazine Temas (Themes) is one publication that carries contributions to this debate among Cuba's revolutionary intelligentsia. 

The demise of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1990s precipitated not only the Special Period economic crisis in Cuba, but also a flourishing of Cuban social sciences in the Marxist tradition. With the Soviet manuals on "Marxism-Leninism" discredited, a revival of genuine Marxism was spurred by both the ideological challenge presented by the demise of Soviet Stalinism and concrete investigations into the changes taking place in Cuban society as the Special Period unfolded.

Camila Piñeiro Harnecker holds a degree in sustainable development from the University of Berkeley, California. She is a professor at the Centre for Studies on the Cuban Economy at Havana University, and her works have been published both in Cuba and outside the island. Here is a complete and corrected translation of one of her recent contributions to the discussion on Cuba's economic reforms (replaces an incomplete translation I posted earlier).

How to reassert the principle "to each according to their work" without money-making becoming the main or sole motivation to work? Here, Piñeiro Harnercker's concerns echo those of Che Guevara in the 1960s. Today, revolutionary Cuba returns to the classic debate over material vs. moral incentives four decades on with the Soviet Union itself long gone but its presence still felt in many of the Revolution's concepts, structures, methods and mentalities, and with the PCC leadership acknowledging certain idealistic errors. Rather than the victory of one side over the other in this decades-old debate, the new Cuban "model" of socialist development that is emerging will be a synthesis of the valid contributions of both sides. 

Cuba needs changes, but to take us forward rather than backwards

By Camila Piñeiro Harnecker

October 20th, 2010

Espacio Laical No. 4, 2010, pp.15-18

Translation: Marce Cameron

Finally I have the opportunity and the frame of mind to respond to a comment published in Espacio Laical No. 2, 2008 on a commentary that I wrote titled "Socialism needs solidarity and is not constructed with appeals to egoism", published in Temas magazine No. 52. This commentary was written in response to the views expressed by Aurelio Alonso in an interview for Progreso Semanal on October 7, 2007.

Aurelio is someone I have a lot of respect for and I know we agree on essentials, but it seemed to me important to initiate a debate on the objectives that must guide the changes we will make in Cuba and the means to achieve them. When I read what Juan Valdes Paz wrote in response to  our exchange, also published in the same edition of Temas, I thought I had managed to explain my views clearly enough, except for the very complex theme of the role of the market and of planning in socialist construction. Given that I agreed almost completely with Juan Valdes Paz, it did not seem necessary for me to respond.

At the time, I had intended to organise meetings around these themes related to the construction of socialism in various more or less academic spaces, because it seems crucial for the future of our country that we engage in a constructive debate that contributes to clarifying certain gaps in understanding and confusions — and I am no exception in this regard, of course —  that could lead us to propose and support changes that are not the most appropriate to resolve our problems, and that in the long run would result in capitalist restoration or a continual zigzagging without a clear horizon in mind nor the paths that would take us toward this goal.

For this reason I decided to re-enter the public debate and run the risk of being misinterpreted again. In fact, the commentary in Espacio Laical revealed a communication problem, motivated perhaps by my difficulty in expressing myself and by a superficial and prejudiced reading of the ideas I put forward then and which I still hold to. While it is doubtless relevant to know the life experience of those that defend a position, it seems to me unnecessary and even counterproductive — if the objective really is a constructive debate — to cast aspersions on those who participate in an exchange of views. So, without personalising the debate, I'll try to explain better what I wanted to say and what many think, both of my generation as well as others, who are concerned for the future of our homeland, not because of ideological stubbornness but out of genuine concern for the conditions that will impact the lives of Cubans and the repercussions of what we do for other peoples of the world.                  

I reiterate once again what is obvious to anyone who knows Cuban reality: that we must change innumerable structural aspects of the organisation of our society in all spheres of economic, political, juridical, communication, etc, life. We must break the inertia of so many years of not addressing the root causes of the grave problems that wear us down and degrade us and provoke a generalised and justified discontent.

However, it's important that we realise that something as simple as any change will not necessarily allow us to solve the problems and advance towards what we want. Since we are human beings with the capacity to think and be sensitive to the fact that the negative consequences of erroneous measures will fall on the most vulnerable people and those who have sacrificed themselves the most for a better future for all of us, it seems to me important to try to do it as best we can. We must also avoid derailing what has been achieved to date, above all the humane outlook that characterises us.

What I propose are really radical changes, which does not mean extremism but recognising that it is necessary to go to the roots or deep causes of the problems that stalk us to really solve them. For example, in place of the decentralisation of [state] enterprise management and of government, I propose their democratisation, which is something more. Democratisation implicitly includes decentralisation, but to democratise means that people can participate in decision-making about that which affects their lives, in its implementation and control; and there are innumerable decisions that fundamentally affect a work collective or a specific community, so these are the decisions that — taking into account the broadest social interests — should be taken in a decentralised fashion. What is proposed here is that the power to decide, to manage, no longer be in the hands of the management councils of the enterprises or local governments, but in the hands of the workers and citizens themselves.

If we promote a decentralisation that is not democratic, the management of these decentralised spaces, and therefore with greater autonomy, will be guided by the individual interests of the administrators and not necessarily by those of the collectives they should represent. The growth of corruption among state administrators that has taken place since the [economic] reforms of the 1990s is due not only to the fact that they cannot satisfy their necessities with their [low] salaries, but also because neither workers or citizens had the means nor the motivation to control their management [of enterprises or local governments]. In addition, democratic management is indispensable for the full self-development of individuals, not only by satisfying their spiritual necessities but also by allowing them taking greater control over the conditions required to satisfy their material necessities, both individual and collective (shared with their communities or collectives of work, residence or other social activities). 

I was also branded as conservative or naive because I drew attention to the importance of taking into consideration that the interests of human beings cannot be reduced to individual material interests. However, I propose that instead of creating a system of incentives that focus on individual material incentives — as is proposed in the call for "allowing the people to make money" —  what we believe is needed is a system of incentives that takes into account that people also have collective and social material interests that cannot be satisfied in an individual way; as well as spiritual interests. 

To avoid confusion, it's important to note that the spiritual interests or needs of people are not satisfied solely with social recognition or so-called "moral incentives", that have rarely been concretised as demonstrations of social recognition given their merely formal character rather than being the fruit of a collective and truly demanding evaluation. Social recognition is important and just, but people's spiritual necessities also require opportunities for personal, professional and human realisation, and are closely related to people's daily experiences in their interaction with other human beings.

All these interests, material and spiritual, individual, collective and social, must be taken into account when we organise our institutions, especially if are interested in promoting a full and integral human development, that is, one that takes into account all these dimensions of human individuality. This, as I said then, is the horizon that socialist ideas that do not deny their humanist essence point towards. To be alert to the importance of taking into consideration the other interests that move human beings as well as individual material interests, is not to ignore the irrefutable importance of the latter, but to promote a more complex understanding of human nature and conduct.

What motivated my commentary was precisely that Aurelio Alonso in his interview appeared to suggest the use of individual material incentives as the lever or motor of economic activity. And it is when the focus of human activity is "making money" or "self-enrichment" — as the Soviet defenders of economic calculus [a system of relations between state enterprises and the socialist state] and the Chinese leadership would say to justify their pro-capitalist reforms — that the view of what is essential in the building of socialism has been lost. I insist that we're not going to arrive at the same place [i.e. socialism] as a society if our objective, instead of full human development, is the satisfaction of material necessities.

Of course, I am in agreement that individual material incentives are needed to motivate people to increase their productivity and the quality of their work. Moreover, it is unjust that those who don't make an effort or do not carry out their responsibilities receive the same incomes as those that do. But the motivation of the people involved in the building of socialism cannot be reduced to their personal incomes. The logic of profit maximisation or individual benefit, the driving force of capitalism has proved incapable of solving problems related even to the satisfaction of material necessities for basic consumer goods; as well as the spiritual impoverishment of people.  

As I said then, the underlying cause of the low motivation of the majority of Cuban workers cannot be reduced to the fact that their wages do not cover all basic necessities or the size of the additional incomes they earn, there is also the fact that they cannot participate in the management of their enterprises. This has been seen in the limited results obtained following the introduction of payment according to output (Resolution 9 of the Ministry of Work and Social Security), since this was not accompanied by other resolutions to grant state enterprises the powers they would need to be able to manage effectively, as well as allow real participation by the workers in enterprise management. Thus, many workers and [enterprise] managers when interviewed said they were even less motivated, because it's unjust that their incomes depend on decisions over which they have no real control, since they are handed down by superior entities.      

The managers and workers will be really motivated when they are able to democratically manage their enterprises, and [when] one of the many managerial decisions they make is how to distribute the net earnings among themselves, after the payment of taxes and other financial commitments, as well as ensuring the availability of their working capital, investment funds and reserves. Only in such a situation will the workers really be motivated to make an optimum effort and ensure that their work colleagues do the same, because individual interest joins with the collective interest of the enterprise achieving the best possible results. That is to say, it's not necessary to choose between individual material and spiritual ["moral"] incentives, it is possible to do both simultaneously if we democratise the management of enterprises.   

My response was also motivated by Aurelio Alonso seeming to suggest — although in other writings he clarifies his preference for democratic enterprise management — that private capitalist enterprises are a better option than enterprises managed democratically as cooperatives. Also because, like many others, he did not point to the possibility of combining market relations with [social] planning in a new synthesis.          

As I explain in a draft commentary, a synthesis of which was published on Rebelion.org under the heading, "Risks associated with the expansion of non-state enterprises in the Cuban economy and recommendations for how to avoid them" [English translation here], to promote small capitalist enterprises and market relations in Cuba would be a backwards step in the levels of social justice achieved by our country and would not necessarily contribute to the satisfaction of our material necessities, much less spiritual needs. To clarify for those who read it superficially, while I am against the promotion of [small] capitalist enterprises and market relations in our country, I do not want to say that I do not recognise the convenience of legalising and regulating that which for a long time have been operating illegally in our country. In fact, it is impossible to prohibit people from organising their economic activity in such a  way that they maximise their individual material benefit wether by the contracting of other workers as subordinates, without the right to participate in management (wage labour); or by trading without taking into account social interests (that is, market relations).    

   

What I propose is that both [the hiring of labour and market exchange by small capitalist enterprises] are legalised and strictly regulated, but that we at the same time do promote, through credit and other state assistance, that both state and non-state (cooperatives and other forms of self-management of small and medium enterprises) are managed democratically and that they establish horizontal exchange relations that respond to social interests. If we understand the "market" or market relations as simply relations of horizontal exchange that are not necessarily guided by the logic of narrow individual benefit, then our differences are not so great. But I do think that it is important to recognise that for horizontal exchange relations to internalise the social interest, it is essential that first of all we identify these social interests through democratic planning mechanisms; for which it is evidently also indispensable to democratise our political system, in such a way that the local governments have the powers they need so that their public administration really is democratic and effective.

Of course, any analysis of the changes we need to make to solve the current problems and advance in the construction of socialism (which is nothing more than advancing towards a truly just society) must take into account the objective conditions (productive capacity, distribution of economic power, international insertion, etc.) and subjective conditions (education levels, political consciousness, solidarity etc.) in our society. But when differentiating between short-term goals — given the limitations imposed by existing conditions — and long-term goals, we must not fall into the error of neglecting the latter. Short-term goals must point towards the achievement of the conditions needed to reach long-term goals; and not, as some propose, that make us neglect the long-term goals. 

Moreover, where is the Marxist methodology when it is repeated that we must achieve a high level of development of the productive forces before we can construct socialism, without perceiving that the technologies of the developed world where, according to Marx [in the late 19th century], the objective conditions for socialist construction existed are superseded in relatively underdeveloped countries today? Have we really understood Marx when we reduce the "productive forces" to technologies, forgetting that according to Marx men and women constitute the most important productive force?

It should be clarified that the "abundance" that Marx foresaw as characterising the society of full justice (called "communism" or "socialism") is not identical to abundance in the sense of having all material necessities satisfied, but in the sense of ensuring the conditions so that people can fully satisfy their material and spiritual human development needs. Those that today try to seduce us with the promise of material abundance do not warn us that the path towards this supposed abundance — by means of material incentives — will leave many of us behind, that is, it will be abundance for only a few. Moreover, these few will have lost their human essence along the way. What they propose, in appealing to narrow individual self-interest, does not recognise the social nature of human individuality, and what's more, one's need to internalise the interests of others.

Precisely because I take into account the objective and subjective conditions in Cuba today, it seems unwise to me to promote capitalist enterprise and market relations. If this were some other country, dominated by capitalist monopolies or with a low level of education and solidarity, perhaps it would be correct to promote capitalist businesses to the same extent as self-managed enterprises [i.e. cooperatives]. But since in Cuba the majority of the means of production were de-privatised, and people have relatively high levels of education and solidarity, and it is also a well-organised society, it seems to me an error to promote capitalist businesses and market relations when the conditions exist — without prohibiting the latter — to promote self-managed enterprises, popular self-government (municipal, provincial and national) and socialised exchange relations.

I understand people who have lived in our country for a long time and [that are] now, understandably, disappointed with this attempt to build a more just society. I understand that they're tired of a "socialism" that promises a better future but makes daily life a frustrating odyssey. But I don't understand those who identify, in the errors committed in Cuba and in other attempts at socialist construction, irrefutable proofs in the infeasibility of a society superior to capitalism, call it socialist or whatever you want.

I draw attention to the importance of how we organise our economy at the level of the enterprise, the community and the society precisely because I understand the essence of the Marxist doctrine, according to which the social relations of production (understanding production to be everything in the production-distribution- exchange-consumption cycle) determine the institutional superstructure of a society (or mode of production, in the words of Marx), to which human conduct ultimately responds. Precisely because of this, I defend the thesis that if we want to construct a society in which everyone will be able to develop themselves fully as human beings, we must organise our enterprises and local governments and all spaces of social activity in such a way that the social relations are of association and cooperation, not subordination and competition.

What I have explained in various works where I analyse the relationship between democratic practice and the development of solidarity by people involved in these experiences (in particular a group of Venezuelan cooperatives — see Temas Nos. 50-51 and 54), is that solidarity is not promoted effectively through formal education, appeals or even the example of leaders. Rather, solidarity is promoted above all through organising social institutions in such a way that people's daily practice (or, in Marxist terminology, the social relations that are established) promotes these values. It's precisely for this reason that I try to alert us to the fact that if we promote the hiring of labour [by capitalist small businesses] and exchange via market relations, in place of the democratic management of our enterprises and exchange relations guided by the social interest as determined by democratic planning, we'll be undermining, as we have been doing, the levels of [social] justice, dignity and solidarity achieved in our country.

I repeat once more: we should not fear Cubans democratically administering our enterprises and local governments, and eventually our economy and society! We should fear and distrust the "tired" ones that tell us that all solutions pass through narrow individual self-interest and that only certain elites are capable of administering effectively, because these two fallacies are precisely the ones that have historically justified injustice.