Omar Everleny Perez Villanueva at the Bildner Center's "The Cuban Economy Today" Symposium. Photo Credit: Ted Henken

The Times They Are (indeed) A-Changin' - but how fast and how much?

Since El Yuma first started traveling to and following Cuba back in 1997, there have been a number of ups and downs in US-Cuban relations, just as there have been various cycles of ups and downs in the Cuban Economy and the socio-political situation within Cuba itself.

On the US side, we've gone from Clinton to Bush to Obama - with some shifts in US policy but mostly at the margins. On the Cuban side, we've gone from Fidel to Raul - also with some small shifts in economic policy but without any real changes in the state apparatus or the leadership's ideological commitments and emphasis on control over growth and reform. The Cuban economy has come back from the brink of the special period only to remain always on the verge of breakdown, with no real development policy or way forward aside from putting out fires and staving off collapse.

However, I would say that there has been a significant change in Cuban society - especially in terms of what Cubans are willing to say publicly about the state of their revolution (love it or hate it). And while I generally agree with Julia Sweig, who has argued convincingly about the continued strength of Cuban state institutions, the last year has seen some small but significant changes a on a variety of fronts - some initiated by the Cuban government itself, others pushed by dissidents, bloggers, and other independent (non-state) actors, and still others set in motion by external forces, including the new Obama administration.

Without trying to catalogue these various changes, here I will point out a few examples that were discussed at the Bildner Center's symposium, "The Cuban Economy Today" last Friday, April 16, moderated by my colleague Katrin Hansing and featuring University of Havana economists Omar Everleny Perez Villanueva and Armando Nova.

The first thing that struck me during the Q&A with Perez Villanueva and Nova was their common argument that the Cuban leadership had gotten communism wrong! They both insisted that, "The market is not capitalism." In other words, they argued that the market functions and has always functioned in Cuba (like it or not) and declaring that it doesn't exist or railing against it has only proven to be counter-productive since banished economic activity has only shifted to the black market, constituting a parallel market that nearly all Cubans turn to when the rigid and highly regulated state market proves inefficient. They said, in so many words, that politicians can claim that this is "corruption" but in reality it is only survival. Taking a page out of Das Kapital, they also reminded listeners that the idea that Marx had wanted to abolish the market was ridiculous since he had always claimed that the state should own/control only the "fundamental" means of production, not all of them.

For those of you who are lucky enough to have never studied political economy this translates as: These Cuban economists (who live in, work in, and yes plan to return to Cuba) are in favor of a greater role of private property and small businesses in Cuba.

My favorite part of the Q&A was after I asked the speakers to comment on the recent decision to turn over state barbershops and beauty salons to those who actually run them. Perez Villanueva said point blank, "Esos negocios nunca fueron del estado" (Those businesses were never really owned by the state). Of course, what he meant, as he went on to elaborate, was that the employees of these and many other small businesses had long ago figured out how to get theirs (earn a little extra) while bowing to the public illusion that these were state enterprises. In other words, they had privatized (or in some cases cannibalized) these small-scale state enterprises from the inside. Thus, the government's recent decision to "hand them over to the workers" (anyone ever heard of the motto: "la tierra debe ser del quien la trabaja") was really just an exercise (important though it was) in coming to terms with reality.

Perez Villanueva added that we can expect similar government declarations regarding state taxis (in the next few weeks) and private housing (perhaps in the summer). Thus, while some have poked fun at barbershops and beauty salons as small potatoes, the symbol of recognizing and legalizing private enterprise at this small level could lead to much more important changes in the realm of transportation and especially housing. We all know that a private housing market already exists in Cuba - but it is extra-legal and rife with insecurity. It exists because it is necessary. If it becomes legal, and Cuban homeowners can include the right to buy and sell their homes as part of the rights of home ownership, that indeed will be "change you can believe in."

[Imagine: I have a Cuban friend who, even though she doesn't know how to drive, got stuck with a 1967 Czech Skoda convertible after a permuta (a housing swap) she was a party to fell through. She had already paid the other party the money to "swap" houses (his was bigger and better than hers so she passed him some cash) but he changed his mind after she had paid him and had already spent her money so he gave her his car to make things right!]

Similarly, Perez Villanueva responded to a question about the Libreta (ration booklet) by saying (sin pelos en la lengua) "La libreta tiene que desaparecer" (The ration booklet must disappear). In place of a guaranteed (if woefully inadequate) monthly ration provided to all 11M Cuban citizens, he reasoned that the state should be "more selective," concentrating its limited resources on just the most vulnerable members of society, such as the retired, the poor, and young children. The government, Perez Villanueva argued, "No puede desangrarse" (can't bleed itself dry). Besides, he argued, the libreta is only "symbolic." As it is, "it covers only 7 or 8 days of the month." The issue," he insisted,"is the insufficient peso salaries and the dual currency. We have to find a way to raise the people's salaries."

The last issue that briefly came up in the Q&A were the various daring declarations made recently by Cuban academic Esteban Morales. Perez Villanueva quoted him as taking Raul Castro to task in a public meeting of the National Assembly for having promised changes in the functioning of that legislative body and not having delivered yet. Also mentioned was Morales' opinion piece harshly criticizing various instances of high level corruption originally published (and then erased from) the UNEAC website.

You can go here and here to get summaries of his article - it sounds to me like a synopsis of one of Leonardo Padura's crime novels featuring Inspector Mario Conde - but the most interesting thing about the article seems to me to be that:

(1) He wrote it and made it pubic at all,

(2) He focuses his criticism not on the small potatoes corruption of paying employees a little "extra" to give them some real stimulation or on the common practice of employees stealing and reselling merchandise, but on high level officials of the party and military setting up foreign bank accounts and readying themselves financially for the end of the revolution (as happened in the Soviet Union), and

(3) The fact that the article itself has now been "kidnapped" (like previous articles a little too honest or critical airing the revolution's dirty laundry) from the UNEAC website.

You know what they say: "Pueblo chiquito, infierno grande."