The Economy:
To Be or Not To Be Governmental.  That Is the Question

A CubaNews translation by Mary Todd. Edited by Walter Lippmann.

By Carlos Manuel Balán Carballo / redaccion@ahora.cu / Thursday, August 5, 2010, 06:00
To be or not to be governmental.  That is the question.  Let’s paraphrase Shakespeare to delve more deeply into this topic at the center of popular debate on the Cuban economy.  At times, it seems as if you can hear bells but don’t know where the sound is coming from. (WALTER—Whatever this means!)

Believing (at this level of development of culture and of the social conscience, which have become habits) that increasing the number of workers in the nongovernmental sector will solve the problem is an inexcusable mistake—as is hanging on for dear life to governmental formulas for managing the country’s economy, with their centralizing freight that not only paralyzes the actions of the productive forces but also makes the workers somnolent, submerged in a kind of resignation.

The solution for this problem isn’t contained in Hamlet’s sleep-dream-or-die ambivalence; it is to be found in achieving a correct, harmonious balance between the government’s power and that of the workers, using resources to seek results that will produce tangible benefits for all of society.  What is the formula?  Joint ownership, sharing ownership between the workers and the government.  For many years, we have repeated like a mantra that the means of production belong to the workers, but practice has shown that the workers don’t behave like owners.

Joint ownership should coexist with other forms of ownership, such as cooperativism and individual ownership on a small scale.  Giving real power to the workers in managing their factories, workshops, and production and service units implies a challenge and undeniably entails risks, but it doesn’t imply reducing the power of the socialist government to safeguard the principles on which the political model is based; rather, it strengthens them and brings the government closer to the theoretical foundations on which the nation’s political ideal is based.

In the capitalist model, the scourge of unemployment continues to be a sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of hundreds of thousands and millions of workers, whose survival depends on having jobs.  In the socialism that has been built in Cuba, employment, regardless of its low remuneration, is a kind of guarantee, a condition that the people’s belief in their Constitution considers to be a right the people have won, even though we don’t always honor that right with the required discipline and the productivity of which we are capable.  Changing that state of affairs implies disturbing the foundations of a deep-rooted culture, where the worst danger is that we’ll go either too far or not far enough.

The economy requires ideas and resources—including human resources, which we commonly call human capital.  That human capital, which uses the other resources to carry out economic projects, is the part that the workers contribute so they can have real power that allows them to participate in analyses, studies and decision-making with a feeling of joint ownership and to implement the pledges established by strategic planning.

Joint ownership offers the correct balance; all that is needed is the group definition of the interests of both parties, their degree of participation in management, mutual commitments, the handling of risks and the degree of participation in benefits.  With private ownership, the worker sells his labor; in the socialist concept of participating through forms of joint ownership, the worker freely and voluntarily contributes his human capital so that society’s benefits—and his own—will be multiplied.  Here there is no specious reasoning, no illusions; each one receives in correspondence with his ability and with the quality of the work he has contributed.

In short, it’s a matter of finding the correct balance between the principle of socialist distribution and reality, letting the worker stop being the wage worker of a single owner and become a joint owner of the means of production, jointly responsible for decisions and the results that stem from them.  Let’s do it and put an end to paternalism, subsidies, false contemplations and even ___. (WALTER—It said “medias tintas”; I don’t have a clue.  “Medias” are measures, and “tintas” means “dyed, colored, tinted, red [as in wine].”  How about leaving out this last bit?) Let’s do away with the concept of “I’m entitled to” and replace it with “Now I’m a joint owner with joint responsibility, so nobody gives me fish to eat; they give me fishhooks so I can fish and, by fishing, eat.”

Joint ownership is viable in medium-sized and large companies, and this change will give the workers real power, reducing undesirable actions, offering each group of workers the chance to judge its members’ performance and fire (WALTER—It said “decanten,” which means “decant” or “pour off”.  “Get rid of” sounds too much like a Mafia execution!) those who engage in negative actions that go beyond what is permissible.  History and life show that absolutes are brakes on society.  The economic model based on governmental ownership as the only opinion has failed, just as private ownership, the basis of capitalism, has also failed.  Let us be consistent dialecticians and take the best of both, throwing away what is harmful and creating a correct balance with joint ownership.

http://www.ahora.cu/columnistas/economia-cubana/3885-economia-ser-o-no-ser-estatal-eh-ahi-el-dilema.html