Cuba Details New Policies on Budding Entrepreneurs

[Judi Lynn]

Source: New York Times

Cuba Details New Policies on Budding Entrepreneurs
By ELISABETH MALKIN
Published: September 24, 2010

MEXICO CITY — Cubans learned on Friday the details of what they would soon be able to do as budding entrepreneurs, including renting spaces for their businesses, hanging out a shingle, and if things go well, hiring a few employees.

The Communist Party newspaper Granma published details of Cuba’s new regulations on self-employment, clearing a thicket of restrictions that had virtually choked off the country’s minuscule private sector.

“It’s going to be a different kind of socialism,” said Ted Henken, an expert on the Cuban private sector at Baruch College of the City University of New York. The new policies could “let out all of these natural impulses to network, to contract out, to be efficient and productive.”

~snip~
Cubans will be allowed to work privately as carpenters or party clowns; they will be allowed to repair computers or give music lessons. They can repair jewelry and carry passengers on their own boats. Under the new rules, they can also begin to set up their own food businesses or workshops to make shoes. They may even be able to get loans to do it. The article highlighted that the Central Bank of Cuba was studying how to make small-business loans available.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/world/americas/25cuba.html?_r=1&ref=americas

[Freetradesucks]

1. And it took them how long to realize this?

Even Castro is realizing that capitalism is a better alternative than communism.

I've been to Cuba, almost a decade ago now, and it was a terrible place for the people.

This is a good thing.

[dipsydoodle]

2. They are doing this now they feel able to do so

given continuation of the perfectly absurd period of time they have suffered under restrictions applied by consecutive US administrations.

[bherrera]

10. So they're turning to capitalism now because they can do so?

I think Fidel Castro realizes his system is not good. And he realizes the Cuban people themselves will change the system very soon. Which makes him to atempt to change it under controlled conditions. I think it is too late for them, the new generation of Cubans will destroy the communist regime from the inside. This is what happened to the Soviet Union, and to Chinese communism.

[marias23]

5. Capitalism Better?

Yes, by stealing the "natural capital" of our water and air, exploiting workers ( see recent mineworkers deaths for example), etc. I have been to Cuba and the conditions are not good - but who knows what Cuba would have accomplished if the US had not interfered.

[Imajika]

6. So capitalism defeated Cuba's noble experiment?

Just like it did the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, etc, etc?

Some economic system if crappy ole' capitalism can crush it.

Please just stop it. Cuba has been able to trade with plenty of nations. Cuba's problem is the same as every other communist system - it doesn't work. Ever, anywhere. Never has, never will.

Command economies just do not work. Period.

Mixed economies relying on private markets/individual ingenuity and regulated by the government to create a level playing field are the only really competitive systems. Too much government is bad, too little government is bad. Cuba simply had WAY too much government.

Some of you folks really need to let the marxist/leninist thing go. It fails. Utterly.

[harmonicon]

7. fails for who/what?

Yes, capitalism is amazingly good at perpetuating itself in a way that nothing else ever has been before. Communism can never compete with capital, because capital does not exist in it. I don't really think that that's a failure though.

[bherrera]

11. Communism fails, for everybody except the oligarchs who rule

It has been analysed by many experts, the way communism fails. It has several serious handicaps. For example, the marxist belief that value derives from labor, not from the value assigned by the market (those who want to pay). Marx also suffered from a very serious flaw when he assumed thinking and creating were not valuable work. This is why communist societies do not do very well in the creativity field (see the way Soviet Union computers were stone age relics compared to computers used in Europe). An additional problem, which was pointed out by Heinz Dieterich to Fidel Castro, was that a command system where there is only one party allowed (in Cuba only the communists can organize in a party), leads to a system in which individuals join the party to gain power and material benefits, not because they believe in communism. Also, because the system becomes repressive (there is no dissent allowed), those at the top lack the ability to understand when things are not working well.

The sum of all these fundamental flaws makes the communist system an archaic failure. And this is the reason why nations which become communist do change eventually, and the leadership tends to be anti-communist. When given a chance, most communist party members in these repressive societies do not join the communist party, for example when the German democratic republic fell, 95 % of the communist party members refused to join a communist party, and instead joined social democrats or right of center parties.

[harmonicon]

23. it seems that you're confusing the matter at issue though

Communism =/= totalitarianism or a one-party state. You go on to make the very critique that I said was irrelevant; that is, you criticize communism for not taking into account capitalist thinking. You've chosen a few things from history to make communism look worse than capitalism, but the opposite could be done. Is Somalia the greatest country on earth because in effect they operate on a laizze-faire capitalist system? Of course not. If communism is so bad, why was the Soviet Union so much better at so many things than the US? What about homelessness? Healthcare? Literacy rates (and other things related to education)? Rates of incarceration? Crime? Communism can't compete with capitalism, because it's based on principles of cooperation, whereas capitalism is fundamentally about competition and exploitation. That doesn't make one worse than the other. If a virus kills its host, does that make the virus the superior organism?

[marias23]

8. US waged economic warfare

I agree with your statement on mixed economies, but if you do your research you will find that the US worked hard to block much of Cuba's economic activity with other countries so we will never know how things would have worked out on its own. Here's just one example of US intervention http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/js1161.htm

[Judi Lynn]

9. The extraterritorial reach of the embargo has been protested and despised since it was created.

The U.S. has the power to block the sale of hospital diagnostic, treatment equipment, cameras, electronics, and a vast array of products with copyrights in the United States, even equipment produced overseas with only one component in them which is of US copyright origin.

The U.S. can apply pressure on smaller countries which depend upon US aid to abstain from various trade acts with Cuba, like Bermuda, during _{George W. Bush's} occupation of the White House, when Bermuda had arranged to sell Cuba its old buses, and _Bush's Latin American tool in the State Department, Roger Noriega applied pressure on them by informing them selling Cuba the buses would lose them financial assistance from the States, and they backed out of an important purchase for the people of Cuba.

A young boy in Cuba entered an art contest sponsored in another country, in the last few years, won one of the categories, went to that country to claim his prize and participate in the official activities, and was awarded a camera which just happened to have a U.S. American component, and he was immediately made to know he couldn't accept it.

When he got home, his country awarded him a very nice camera of a different brand.

Do you recall the incident in Mexico City in which the Sheraton Hotel was forced to throw out Cubans meeting U.S. American delegates who were meeting them there for discussions? We discussed it at length here at D.U. when it happened. Here's a quick recount from Wikipedia:

Law of Protection of Commerce and Investments from Foreign Policies that Contravene International Law
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
The Law of Protection of Commerce and Investments from Foreign Policies that Contravene International Law (Spanish: Ley de Protección al Comercio y la Inversión de Normas Extranjeras que Contravengan el Derecho Internacional) is the law passed by the government of Mexico in response to the Helms-Burton Act, a United States federal law. The Helms-Burton Act, passed in March 1996, was designed to strengthen the United States embargo against Cuba.

The law was published on October 23, 1996 in the Official Journal of the Federation during the Ernesto Zedillo administration. In its first article, this law explicitly prohibits individuals or organizations, whether public or private, that are within the borders of Mexico from participating in any action that affects commerce or investment if those acts correspond to the application of laws of foreign countries.

Sheraton Hotel incident
The first instance of a violation to this law happened almost ten years later when employees of the American-owned María Isabel Sheraton Hotel of Mexico City expelled a group of Cuban officials upon pressure from the United S tates government and confiscated their funds. The Cuban officials were meeting U.S. energy executives from organizations that included Valero, the United States' biggest oil refiner, the Louisiana Department of Economic Development, and the Texas port of Corpus Christi.

Voices of opposition were soon heard from the government of Mexico, the Government of Cuba, and most candidates in the 2006 presidential election. The Chamber of Deputies publicly condemned the violation of Mexican law and the rights of a group of consumers who were subjected to discrimination. On February 7, the United States Department of State declared on this matter that American law imposed upon American companies is applied regardless of the location of the company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Protection_of_Commerce_and_Investments_from_Foreign_Policies_that_Contravene_International_Law

Truly this is a vicious, internationally illegal form of economic war on Cuba which has been in effect in some form for 50 years at least, and protested world-wide. It was meant to bring so much hardship to the population it would overthrow the revolutionary government, and do to the country what would otherwise be accomplished by an invasion by the U.S. which itself would be abhorrent to the rest of the world, and protested widely.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[proteus_lives]

19. "It doesn't work."

Yep, that's the long and the short of it.

[Freetradesucks]

13. I really don't want to get into a fight,

But the reason that communism has failed in every country it's ever been implemented in, is that when you take away the incentive to excel, do your best, and benefit from your own hard work, nobody tries.

Yes, capitalism is a better system inherently, because it encourages people to be industrious. As a result the whole community benefits.

[Judi Lynn]

14. The fact the U.S. has moved heaven and earth to destroy leftist presidents,

and has sponsored, created, trained, aimed, cocked and fired coups, overthrown legitimately elected leftist Presidents, supported the bloody, murderous, torturing, mass murdering death squads, mass grave-utilizing, mind-numbing barbarism throughout the Americas wouldn't have anything to do with this "failure" of people-focused governments, would it?

A terrifc "incentive to excel" has been used in Colombia copiously by the Colombian military to reward Colombian soldiers when they murdered unarmed, unsuspecting Colombian civilian young men and counted them as "enemy" in the military's objective of claiming large losses among the leftist insurgents.

The concept of "me, first" at the great expense of everyone else is amoral, primitive. A society built on "me, first" will eventually rot, as there's nothing decent to sustain it.

If you "don't want to get into a fight," you might consider not trying to find a fight where none exists.

[Imajika]

16. If these marxist systems were so great....

..the horrible capitalist West wouldn't be able to crush them so easily now would they? Every workers paradise has either collapsed or is in the process of doing so.

Face it Judy, communism just doesn't work. Anywhere. You've got Cuba and North Korea left - and both are circling the drain as we type.

Mixed economies work. Communist societies don't.

And you never answered my question from the other day. Do you support the FARC in Columbia?

[Judi Lynn]

17. I felt irritated because it was such a wildly stupid thing to ask. You appeared to imagine

you Were going to "out" some hiding, sneaky bomb tosser. The very gall still makes me almost gag.

Whom the hell do you presume to be?

No, I'm not a FARC supporter. I have never even suggested I am a FARC supporter.

I HAVE stated unequivocally I know how evil the Colombian government is, beyond all doubt. I'll never change my view until they have a human system, which doesn't look likely, although it's good to remember other fascist hellish evil, brutal, sadistic right-wing systems in Latin America have somehow been overcome already in my lifetime.

Next obnoxious, odious, laughable question, if you really feel it's your right to demand answers from me.

Don't you ever get pushy with me again. I've given you a wide berth, you owe me the same courtesy.

[Imajika]

18. You know, my question was just to find out where you stand...

Not to uncover some "bomb thrower".

You come across as a marxist/leninist revolutionary. You may not be, but that is how I read much of what you post. The FARC claim to be marxist/leninist revolutionaries so I see it as a perfectly reasonably question. There are not many remaining true believers in the communist model, and personally I think it is a completely discredited system. However, you are refreshingly consistent. So was IG in many ways, as are some others. I like reading your actual thoughts on subjects. The huge cut and paste jobs not so much, but the actual worldview that causes you to think as you do is interesting and informative to me - and I learn from it (even when I disagree).

[Judi Lynn]

20. I wouldn't know a "marxist/leninist revolutionary" if he kicked me in the butt, I doubt you would.

Drop the Joe McCarthy act, it's well past its prime.

[Billy Burnett]

15. Have you ever opened your own business?

You risk the loss of health insurance coverage and total credit damage if you are an entrepreneur in the US and your entrepreneurial endeavor fails. Your employees too.

But, in a socialist system you don't fear the risk of loss of the infrastructure support if your endeavor falls short. Therefore, one is more able to take the dive into entrepreneurial endeavors without taking the whole ship down (your family's and your employees families down into the unemployed/uninsured abyss of America).

America is at a severe disadvantage in this area of entrepreneurialism small business/manufacturing because of just this ... and, if one cares to notice ... the socialist nations are kicking our (collective) American ass.

[mbperrin]

22. Thank you. In a nutshell, the Randians have choked off American

competitiveness with their overweening "master" thinking.

Scaffolding and support are much more likely to produce success than isolation and fear. You're right. We're getting our butts kicked.

[dipsydoodle]

3. BBC News link

Cuba issues plans to expand its private sector

The authorities in Cuba have revealed plans to triple the communist country's private sector.

They include issuing about 250,000 licences allowing people to run their own businesses.

Under the new rules, Cubans will be able to rent out rooms to tourists, work as self-employed gardeners, iron clothes and shine shoes.

For the first time, Cubans will be allowed to employ people other than relatives.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11409550

[rucognizant]

4. How ironic!

No one posting here, has made the link yet that the great democratic experiment has LOST; what Cuba the "great commie regeme is now gaining!
We have lost that priviledge HERE!
There are so many rules & regulations, one is straitjacketed from free enterprise in the USA..
When is GROVER NORQUIST going to come out with his "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED act?

[Billy Burnett]

21. They haven't quite drowned it in the bathtub ... yet.

"When is GROVER NORQUIST going to come out with his "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED act?"


When 90% of America looks like this ...


... and the other 10% looks like this.