Cuba may be considering a more market-driven economy

Cuba may be considering a more market-driven economy
By Ray Sánchez | Havana Bureau
October 8, 2007

HAVANA - Two dozen theater workers recently sat around a sun-splashed
garden cafeteria in the Vedado neighborhood. They had been summoned by
bosses to discuss Cuba's economic woes.

Skeptics abounded. "Why ask us what we think when nothing ever changes?"
grumbled one worker.

A manager opened the three-hour meeting reading excerpts from a speech
Raúl Castro delivered on July 26, criticizing the state bureaucracy, low
salaries and poor agricultural production.

Some theater workers were emboldened hearing Castro had publicly
ridiculed the failings of the system.

"Somebody got up and said, 'I simply want to eat steak and I can't
afford to on my salary,'" recalled José, a 42-year-old stagehand who
asked that his full name not be used.

"Others got up and said their $12-a-month salaries got them through the
first three days of the month," he said. "The rest of the time they had
to steal or do whatever else was necessary."

The grass-roots discussions, which were also tried in the late 1980s and
mid-90s, auger a more market-oriented approach to an economy that is
growing in some sectors but has yet to result in higher income for
workers. It is a policy Raúl Castro has long embraced and his brother
Fidel long rejected, according to analysts both here and abroad.

"Consensus doesn't mean everybody agrees with everything," said Rafael
Hernández, editor of Temas — Issues in English — a scholarly quarterly
published in Havana about Cuba's political and economic scene. "It means
there is a basic acceptance of the rules of the political game and
objectives of the system. You cannot enrich that consensus simply by
allowing people to talk. You have to deliver results."

The debate has generated proposals long considered taboo: expanding
private agriculture and small enterprise, decentralizing the economy,
extending private ownership to other sectors, boosting foreign
investment and increasing incentives to workers to boost productivity.

"The fact that now no topics are considered to be outside the scope of
the discussion reveals a willingness to listen," Hernández said. "Some
people are skeptical. But the fact that the meetings are happening and
the discussions are lively indicates that most people think this is
worth it."

Philip Peters, a Cuba expert at the Lexington Institute, a think tank in
suburban Washington, D.C., said Raúl Castro's interim government has
forced itself to take up economic reforms in the coming year.

"Cuba is engaged in an economic policy debate of potentially great
consequence," Peters wrote in the institute's "Cuba Policy Report" in
late September. "Fidel Castro started this debate, but the longer it
goes on the more it seems to follow a path that he would not have
planned. ...

"There is consensus that something must be done — for both political and
economic reasons," Peters wrote.

The grass-roots meetings, which take place at work sites, union offices
and neighborhood watch groups throughout the island, are not the first
of their kind. Similar discussions were held in the late 1980s,
Hernández said. The collapse of Cuba's longtime benefactor, the former
Soviet Union, brought them to an end in 1991.

During the economic crisis that followed the loss of Soviet subsidies,
similar public discussions began in 1993, before the implementation of
economic reforms that included legalization of the U.S. dollar. The
government retreated from the liberalized policies and discussions in
1996 because they strayed from socialist ideology and undermined
political control.

"Cuban politicians know very well that people expect change and
improvement in their lives," Hernández said. "They can't ignore these
expectations."

At the gathering of theater workers, people complained about food
prices, inadequate transportation, and the inability of Cubans to travel
freely. Still, many doubt the meetings will result in significant reforms.

"Honestly, I don't expect major changes," said Juan, a 44-year-old set
builder, who did not want to give his full name. At least, the meetings
give the public an escape valve. We talk. They listen. Nothing changes."

Ray Sánchez can be reached at rlsanchez@sun-sentinel.com.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-flacubaecon1008nboct08,0,1645539.story