Economic surgery in Cuba

03/12/2010

To a certain extent, most resorts are indistinguishable from one another.

The quality of the food can vary; some have nicer rooms and facilities—but for the most part, they’re all pretty similar.

That is, till you get to Cuba.

For one thing, the place is full of French Canadians—a veritable petite belle province. Then there’s the almost complete absence of Americans, save for the occasional thrill-seeker and self-proclaimed izquierdista who got lost somewhere in Central America in the eighties and never managed to find their way home; and finally, there’s the brain surgeon who moonlights as crooner, singing covers at night to make up for the pittance he’s paid by the state.

It’s the surgeon who came to mind when I read the front page editorial in Granma on Wednesday. The theme was the debates taking place in the lead up to the ridiculously delayed Communist Party Congress in April—debates which are to focus entirely on economic issues.

At its most melodramatic, it simplifies the complexities of Cuba’s latest capitalist experiment: “…what’s in play is the future of the Cuban nation…”

The Cuban nation. Of course. People like the brain surgeon I met…ten years ago?

Ever since the Bay of Pigs, the world has been waiting for a catalyst—another revolutionary moment in Cuba, though revolutionary in the sense of return. Not to the days of Batista. The majority alive now weren’t alive then. But to the days when remuneration, if not equitable, was at least somewhat logical.

No one imagined a piecemeal process. But hotels and tourism came in the 90s, and lo and behold, surgeons could finally make some money; then a few years ago came cellphones, computers, and permission for Cubans to vacation at Cuban resorts.

Was this really how it would play out, though?

A country run by geriatrics attempting to control the perception of each concession with caveats about the fragility of the Cuban model?

Maybe.

But what happens as the concessions get bigger? Does it really matter that they’re borne by necessity as opposed to ideology?

Crippling debt in Europe has shown the expense of an inflated public service isn’t sustainable. Greeks must shudder at the thought of what that means in Cuban terms: roughly 85% of the workforce. The difference is that most Greeks fear austerity measures, as anyone would who’s told their getting a significant pay cut. Cubans, however, can see opportunity in the 12% of public service jobs to be eliminated in 2011.

The inundation of requests for self-employment licenses, which have come with the government’s announcement of an increase in the number of those granted, has shown how eager most Cubans are to embrace any entrepreneurial leeway they’re given; it’s also focused attention on a black market far more pervasive than the PCC would ever publically admit.

But do either of the Castro brothers really believe these economic changes will sustain or preserve anything? Or is the burden of the judgments and evaluations of Cuban posterity finally starting to weigh heavy?

Again, the changes themselves are more important than the reason for them.

Bank accounts, social security for the self-employed, access to credit—the right to buy and sell houses?

How long will it be till the once aspiring surgeon trades in their textbooks for whatever they can get on the latest financial derivative?