Without Democratization There is No Guarantee of Cuba’s Independence

Without Democratization There is No Guarantee of Cuba's Independence /
14ymedio, Pedro Campos
Posted on April 10, 2016

14ymedio, Havana, Pedro Campos, 6 April 2016 — Politicians, analysts and
academics, both socialists and liberals, have addressed the importance
of the political and economic democratization of Cuban society as a
basis for the desired lift-off towards the development and modernization
of the nation.

For a sector of the democratic left and more than a few nationalists,
this democratization would also be a strategic guarantee for the
independence of Cuba in every sense.

In the absence of subsidies, the current state-centric political and
economic model can only guarantee its survival with a significant
increase in foreign capital investment in the joint development of state
mega-enterprises or direct investment in support of the plans for its
"portfolio of businesses."

In the belief that foreign capital will save the state companies, the
official economic policy prioritizes its alliance with foreign capital,
while opposing the full and free development of independent "non-state"
forms, whether joint-venture or fully private, because it considers them
"enemies of state capital." Not to mention the dreaded "big bad wolf":
self-management under workers' control.

In these circumstances, a democratization of the economy that put the
bulk of it in the hands of the people – workers in self-managed state
enterprises, and medium and small businesses, private or
state-associated—is what could cushion the impact, absorbing into the
Cuban economy as a whole the expected US investment once the
blockade-embargo is fully lifted.

Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez told the state website
CubaDebate that authorization for US telecommunications companies to
operate on the island and financial support the non-state sector by the
Obama administration only seeks to build opposition to the government of
Raul Castro.

The internet and the development of the non-state sector are seen as
"opposed to the government of Raul Castro." To the bureaucracy it is the
same whether the support for these activities comes from the US or from
the Moon: the US has always interfered in the free development of"state
socialism" in Cuba and wherever it has been tried.

It could not be otherwise for the "new class" generated by the statism
that tries to preserve its control-power, which explains the limitations
imposed on the internet, on self-employment and on the development of
cooperatives, despite approval by the Sixth Congress the Communist Party
of Cuba (PCC) itself, to not mention that the term self-management has
disappeared from the vocabulary.

The independent development of small and medium-sized private and
associated businesses (cooperatives, mutual or stock) in the short and
medium term would displace inefficient and anti-worker state
enterprises, as is already happening, if the regime does not move
quickly to self-management or co-management. Were they to do so, workers
would no longer be simply underpaid employees, but can become become
effective owners of companies and participate directly in the property,
or carry over to full or partial control of domestic or foreign
capitalist enterprises.

In the first variant, the current state monopoly savage capitalism,
which exploits the workers and impoverishes them, would thus be forced
to transfer real economic power to the workers, which it has always
refused to do because it would imply a decrease in and/or disappearance
of the power of the bureaucracy and the current control exercised on all
dividends generated by state enterprises. This is why they have
preferred the second variant, an alliance with international capital so
that power can continue to support itself, now sharing the exploitation
of its employees with foreign capital.

But this involves delivering much of the country's economy to foreign
capital and eventually to the great American capital.

The principal enemy, the limitless capital of the United States, would
become the government's main ally in the joint exploitation of Cuban
workers and in a fundamental way would lead to a new socio-economic
dependence: a kind of virtual annexation to the United States, where
there is no blockade and it costs little more to travel to Miami than it
does to go from Havana to Varadero.

The communists who still believe that socialism relies on the salaried
state company, where the workers continue to be widgets for which they
don't even have to pay full cost, are making the game into one of
virtual annexation.

The fault is not the United States', but the official policy against
free labor. Without democratization and socialization of the economy and
politics there will be no guarantees for the future independence of Cuba.

Source: Without Democratization There is No Guarantee of Cuba's
Independence / 14ymedio, Pedro Campos | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/without-democratization-there-is-no-guarantee-of-cubas-independence-14ymedio-pedro-campos/