Within Cuban society, especially among the younger generations, there are latent tendencies to apathy and lack of motivation. These are triggers for the demolition of life projects and the destruction of personal futures, both material and spiritual.
By: Javier Gómez Lastra
Nevertheless, the main shortcoming of these teenagers is the lack of accurate guidance in their lives.
However, all three agree on something: they are determined not to work for the state for a simple salary; because any business brings in more money than spending the whole month working in a factory, and in the end what you get paid is not enough. In their view to do that is to sacrifice for nothing.
In the struggle
The deep economic crisis of the early 90s of last century affected almost all the families in the island, and brought all kinds of material and spiritual changes among the people.
The new style of coping with everyday existence was dubbed “the struggle”. It describes the legal and illegal mechanisms designed to cope with the drastic decline in living standards. There were many urgent readjustments families had to make in order to survive and these included substantial alterations in their way of thinking and acting which were imposed by the prevailing harsh reality.
Silhouettes of young people with bubbles
“At the same time, the situation broke the link –which had existed until then– between education and working conditions; that is, the chain: instruction-occupation-income dissipated because there was a proliferation of work proposals that did not require a high educational level, but did offer attractive incomes.”
“It should be added that this combination of elements individually and collectively impacted their vision and interpretation of reality, and many individuals did not hesitate to take on new strategies in order to solve everyday economic demands which could not be postponed.”
“Likewise, their aspirations of material wellbeing in many cases could not be satisfied by the previously generally accepted mechanism (study-work-pay). Therefore new ways emerged –some formally promoted, and others informally, or even illegal such as the activities of the underground economy. A number of sources of income and immediate benefit were welcomed regardless whether they were associated with prostitution, pimping, begging, drug abuse or crime.”
“Other behaviors stigmatized until then –like not being involved with study and work, felonies, or other such behaviors– gradually stopped receiving all the rejection they deserved, and within some social groups they gained a certain degree of approval that legitimized them. Meanwhile the coexistence rules present in other times were challenged,” said Elaine, author of the study: “Marginalization of Adolescents and Young Persons: An Analysis in Cuba.”
I got tired of being without money
Finding alternatives to address their economic needs became a major concern. This began to occupy a prominent place in Cuban daily life since the crisis began.
Amid these conditions, many young people took the strategy of migrating to provincial capitals in the country, or abroad. Selectivity of employment increased and many did not perform the job for which they were trained in their studies but did something else that could guarantee higher pay and better conditions to the detriment of personal motivations.
Among the advantages associated with formal employment is the way in which individuals are inserted into and integrated into society, and the potential for instructional upgrading and the diversity of perspectives offered to do so. Work linked to the state entails a level of security and stability that had been traditionally associated with the guarantee of salary and social security with retirement pensions for years of service, age or health conditions.
The main disadvantages of this sector are: income limitations that do not offer adequate compensation given the demands and responsibilities; lack of material stimulation; controls to which the worker is subjected; rigid schedules and inadequate conditions for the performance of the tasks in the job.
With a fuming head
The employment problem of young people is, in the current conditions of the country, another very complex and controversial issue. However, work continues to play a key role in structuring the country’s institutions and the lives of individuals, according to María Josefa Luis Luis, historian and researcher at the Centro de Estudios Sobre la Juventud [Center for Studies on Youth], in her analysis “Considerations on Work Socialization.“
She explains that “irregularities in the labor market, unemployment and underemployment rates, as well as instability and precarious working conditions are realities faced by workers around the world. For young people, these abnormalities affect personal development and conceptions about work. Although the traditional model (livelihood, rights, moral responsibility, sense of accomplishment) is valid for most, in practice it is very difficult or impossible to attain for a good number of them.”
“In Cuba, there are numerous contradictions related to employment that significantly damage employment relations and the role of these as an effective means of socialization and education of the new generations.”
“The economic crisis eroded the material and technological foundation of the workplace due to the lack of means of work, or the obsolescence of others. The rules of organization, protection and hygiene, individual and collective productivity, as well as work motivation, were affected.”
“This, in turn, had an impact on individual expectations and possibilities for job satisfaction, as well as contributions and income. It generated frustration and dissatisfaction and reduced job stability.”
The slogan promoted years ago by a domestic soap opera is a way of thinking for some Cubans for whom life is perennial leisure. They don’t realize the damage this ideology of leisure can cause.
It also indicates the boasting of a supposedly superior status, based on the myth of money, and encourages reaching that level at any price. It becomes a philosophy of lack of interest and apathy that dangerously gains ground.
Young people are a highly impressionable group, ready to make changes in search of better educational opportunities, more access to culture and employment, among other factors. In this regard, it is essential to know the expectations they have, as well as their ability to make plans and realize them under current conditions.
To meet those material goals or aspirations is not a subject for reproach. On the contrary, to live without them –doing nothing to achieve them– means a real problem, or extremely harmful conflict from a spiritual point of view.
We must not clip the wings of those who have aspirations and wish to embrace them. On the contrary, we should lead them to the realization of their goals, always on the right track; since the key issue is related to the methods or the means chosen in order to achieve these objectives.
When there is no experience, going off the right track to achieve success can be easy and have negative consequences that would last a lifetime. We must encourage and guide young people based on sound principles, openly, without reservations or fear of sacrifice, always aided by study and honest work.
The lack of real joy, in the short and medium terms, makes a dent in young people who are vulnerable to the frustration caused by repetitive promises of a bright future, in contradiction to what they live from day to day, suffering disappointment at not being able to see the announced steps to progress.
Cuba’s national hero, Jose Marti taught us: “Being educated is the only way to be free”. Under this strategy we must guide the formation of the people and especially of the new generations.
WHAT LIES IN THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
US American economists of different political orientation have been commenting these days on Robert Reich´s new book entitled Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few, in the New York Review of Books (December 17, 2015).
For Paul Krugman “It was gratifying to find the stark candor behind the title of Reich’s book. ‘Saving capitalism’ assuredly implies that capitalism is on the ropes –in danger of expiring– an implication that I both believe and welcome.”
Marxist analyst Zoltan Zigedy says that Robert Reich, Paul Krugman, and Joseph Stiglitz share lofty accomplishments in academic economics and constitute the intellectual triumvirate informing the non-Marxist left in the US.
Although they do not agree on everything, they share a core set of beliefs in the viability of capitalism and its need for reform. It is unusual to see Krugman and Reich blatantly suggesting the urgency of saving the capitalist order.
The urgency they feel turns on the dramatic increase in economic inequality in major capitalist countries, particularly the US. Krugman stresses that inequality was an issue that Reich and he “were already taking seriously” twenty-five years ago.
“That may be, but I think it’s fair to say that neither was taking the growth of inequality seriously as a structural feature of capitalism until the important work of Thomas Piketty two years ago.”
According to Zigedy, Krugman, Reich, and other non-Marxist economists modified their understanding of the causes of the growth of inequality over the last several decades. Krugman, says Zigedy, describes a currently- evolved capitalism resembling the capitalism that Marxists described well over half of a century ago.
Decades ago, liberal economists believed that rising inequality sprang from a poor match between technological requirements and workers’ skill sets –what Krugman calls “skill-based technological change” (SBTC). Education was seen as the great leveler, restoring wealth and income to those falling behind.
But with the correlation between levels of education and compensation broken today, all reject SBTC as an adequate explanation and the key to arresting the growth of inequality. The growth of debt-laden college graduates working in call centers surely shattered that illusion.
Krugman thus dismisses a technological explanation for the growth of inequality. Instead he urges that we consider the centerpiece of Reich’s study: monopoly power.
It is the concentration of economic power in the hands of fewer corporate players that accounts for growing economic inequality. According to Krugman and Reich: “…it’s obvious to the naked eye that our economy consists much more of monopolies and oligopolists than it does of atomistic competitors.”
Zigedy wonders, why did it take Reich and Krugman so long to arrive at this juncture, a place that Lenin had visited over a hundred years ago? Marxist writers like Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy devoted an entire influential book to monopoly capitalism nearly fifty years ago.
Thus, non-Marxist economists and their political allies have scorned the concept of monopoly power until recently, a concept that Marxists have made a centerpiece of their analyses.
Krugman and Reich reveal another crucial linkage –that between economic power (monopoly power) and political power. They see monopoly power as sustained, protected, and expanded by political actors. At the same time, they see political actors as selected, nourished, and guided by monopoly power. This creates a troubling conundrum for those seeking to reform capitalism.
Reich’s conclusion, in Krugman’s words: Rising wealth at the top buys growing political influence via campaign contributions, lobbying, and the rewards of the revolving door. Political influence in turn is used to rewrite the rules of the game in society. The result is a sort of spiral, a vicious cycle of oligarchy.
For Marxists, concentration necessarily begets monopoly capitalism, which subsequently completely fuses with the state, creating a mutually reinforcing synthesis. The state rules in the interest of monopoly capitalism while policing the economic terrain to maximize the viability and success of monopoly capital.
Nothing demonstrates the intimacy more than the crisis bailouts of mega-corporations (“too big to fail”) and the increasing monopoly capital’s dominance over the two-party political system that rules the United States.
January 8, 2016.
LO QUE DEPARA EL CAPITALISMO PARA EL FUTURO
Por Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Economistas estadounidenses de diversa orientación política han estado opinando en estos días acerca del nuevo libro de Robert Reich titulado Salvando al capitalismo: para los muchos, no para los pocos, presentado en la Revista de Libros de Nueva York el 17 de diciembre de 2015.
Para Paul Krugman fue gratificante constatar la sinceridad descarnada que expresa el título de libro de Reich porque “salvar el capitalismo” implica que el capitalismo está contra las cuerdas, o sea, en peligro de extinción, “consideración en la que creo, saludo y comparto”.
El marxista Zoltan Zigedy señala que Robert Reich, Paul Krugman y Joseph Stiglitz comparten altos logros en la economía académica y constituyen un triunvirato intelectual no marxista bien informando. Aunque ellos no estén de acuerdo en todo, comparten un conjunto básico de creencias en la viabilidad del capitalismo y su necesidad de reforma. No obstante es raro ver a algunos sugiriendo manifiestamente la urgencia de salvar el orden burgués.
La urgencia deriva del espectacular aumento de la desigualdad económica en los principales países capitalistas, particularmente en Estados Unidos. Krugman confiesa que la desigualdad era una cuestión que Reich y él “empezaron a tomar en serio” ya hace veinticinco años. “Pero creo que es justo decir que no tomamos en serio ese crecimiento de la desigualdad como una característica estructural del capitalismo hasta que apareció el importante trabajo de Thomas Piketty hace dos años”.
Según Zigedy, los economistas no marxistas Krugman y Reich han modificado su interpretación de las causas del crecimiento de la desigualdad durante las últimas décadas. Krugman, afirma Zigedy, describe un capitalismo desarrollado actual que se asemeja al capitalismo que los marxistas vienen describiendo desde hace más de medio siglo.
Hace décadas, los economistas liberales sostenían que el aumento de la desigualdad era resultado de que había sectores de la clase obrera que no reunían los requisitos tecnológicos o carecían de las habilidades exigidas por el “cambio tecnológico basado en la habilidad” (SBTC, por sus siglas en inglés). La educación era vista por ellos como el gran nivelador, estabilizador de la riqueza y el avance de los atrasados.
Pero con la actual ruptura de la correlación ente nivel de educación y compensación, todos rechazan el SBTC como explicación adecuada y clave para detener el crecimiento de la desigualdad. El aumento del número de graduados universitarios abrumados de deudas rompió esa ilusión.
Así, Krugman sustituye la explicación tecnológica para el crecimiento de la desigualdad, por algo que es eje central del estudio de Reich, el poderío monopólico. Es la concentración del poder económico en manos de pocos jugadores corporativos lo que lleva al aumento de la desigualdad económica. Según Krugman y Reich: “… es evidente que nuestra economía se asienta mucho más en los monopolios y oligopolios que en la competencia atomística.”
Zigady pregunta ¿Por qué Reich y Krugman tardaron tanto tiempo en llegar en esta consideración a la que Lenin arribó hace más de cien años? Escritores marxistas como Paul Baran y Paul Sweezy dedicaron hace casi cincuenta años un influyente libro al capitalismo monopolista.
Así, los economistas no marxistas y sus aliados políticos hasta hace poco desdeñaban el concepto de poder de monopolio, que los marxistas han hecho pieza central de sus análisis.
Pero Krugman y Reich revelan otros acoplamientos cruciales: entre el poder político y el poder económico (poder monopólico) y los del mercado con el poder político. Ellos observan que el poder monopólico es sostenido, protegido y ampliado por actores políticos, así como que los actores políticos son seleccionados, alimentados y guiados por el poder de monopolio. Esto crea un preocupante problema para aquellos que buscan la reforma del capitalismo.
En palabras de Krugman, la conclusión a que llega Reich es que la creciente riqueza en el segmento poblacional superior incrementa su influencia política mediante contribuciones de campaña, cabildeo y recompensas. La influencia política, a su vez, sirve para reescribir las reglas del juego en la sociedad. El resultado es una especie de espiral, el círculo vicioso de la oligarquía.
Para los marxistas, la concentración engendra necesariamente capitalismo de monopolio, que posteriormente se funde con el Estado, creando una síntesis que convierte a las normas del Estado en policías en el terreno económico encargados de maximizar la viabilidad y el éxito del capital monopolista.
Nada demuestra mejor ese maridaje que los rescates de las mega-corporaciones (“supuestamente demasiado grandes para quebrar”) ante las crisis y el evidente incremento del dominio del capital monopolista en el sistema político de dos partidos que rige en Estados Unidos.
Enero 8 de 2016.
by Ricardo Alarcón
Published on December 19, 2015 in Opinión, Política, Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
December 17 marks the first anniversary of the announcement that Cuba and the United States would reestablish diplomatic relations. Presidents Raul Castro and Barak Obama did it at the same time from Havana and Washington, respectively. They both admitted that it was barely the first step of a process toward the elimination of a hostile policy maintained for over half a century but failed in the end, as the White House resident himself acknowledged.
Since then, Embassies were reopened, some senior officials have visited Havana, several minor or relatively important problems have been solved, and representatives of both governments have held meetings to discuss a thick agenda of essential topics, including the economic blockade —still in place— the permanent occupation of Cuban territory in Guantanamo, and the subversive projects that remain in operation to undermine the Revolution. As long as Washington makes no radical changes in its policy —lifting the blockade completely, returning Guantanamo to Cuba and ending its interference in our affairs— calling such diplomatic relations “normal” would be a bad joke.
There is a question, however, that seems to be a favorite on the American side and to which several of that country’s most read publications have devoted their attention: the claims filed there for alleged losses suffered by corporations and individuals as a result of Cuba’s nationalization laws of 1960.
This issue would have to be discussed together with Cuba’s own claims for the damages caused by fifty years of economic war and aggression which are incomparably greater and have had a serious impact on the island’s population. An official document that used to be secret, but no longer is, recognizes that the purpose of the policy was to make the Cuban people “suffer” by “hunger and despair”. Approved in the spring of 1960, the text was written before the Cuban nationalizations, and its words are literally consistent with what the Geneva Convention calls the “crime of genocide”.
The revolutionary laws always included the right to fair compensation by the former owners. All those foreign companies that respected Cuba’s sovereignty and accepted our legislation benefited, without exception, from such laws, and have kept normal links with us through business and new investments. It was also the case, by the way, with individuals living in Cuba who adopted the same attitude.
The North American companies were the only ones excluded, owing to their government’s rejection of the Cuban legislation and their economic attacks.
Still, there is an aspect of this issue that the U.S. media are carefully ignoring. It’s been a long time now since those who were expropriated in Cuba received special and privileged treatment that allowed them to get compensation for what they supposedly lost to the revolutionary measures.
Starting in 1964, and ever since, regulations were amended and unique laws were adopted exclusively for that group of people that made it possible for them to obtain compensation for their losses by means of substantial tax deductions. No other American taxpayers were granted similar benefits.
As far as taxes were concerned, it was an exceptional treatment only comparable to what migrants receive under the Cuban Adjustment Act, which also came in handy to individuals who in 1960 had not yet become American citizens but also enjoyed those advantages and helped create the myth of a successful Cuban-American business sector.
It was the Cuban people who never got any compensation whatsoever. The blockade has been not only the main obstacle to the island’s development, but also the main cause of that people’s suffering. It’s a genocidal policy, the longest genocide in history. The United States has an obligation to lift it now, immediately and unconditionally, and they must try to compensate their victims if they wish to have relations with their neighbors worthy of being considered “normal”.
The film had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, where it was a great success
Author: Cubasi | internet@granma.cu
December 21, 2015 11:12:23
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Hector Medina stars in the film
Film “Viva”, set in Cuba and directed by Paddy Breathnatch, was chosen by the Irish Academy of Film and Television to represent the country at the Oscar Academy Awards as best foreign language film.
In this regard, Aine Moriarty, President of the Irish Academy, said: “The Irish Academy is delighted that this wonderful film by Paddy Breathnach and Mark O’Halloran represents Ireland at the Oscars. It reflects the creativity and diversity of points of view of this Irish team while shooting a Cuban story that is so tender, intriguing and visually captivating.”
The film had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, where it was a success. In October, it will be presented at the Busan Festival.
Written by Mark O’Halloran, the drama follows Jesus, an 18 year old Cuban who is lost and trying to find his true identity. Unsure of himself or his future direction, he works at a drag queen club in Havana. There he pursues his dreams of becoming an actor, while earning money through prostitution.
He finds his oasis at home listening to the albums his mother and grandmother left him; or even watching the boxers who train next door. Then, something comes to his life that will challenge his direction and his freedom: his missing father, a famous boxer, who returns after spending 15 years in prison for killing a person in a street fight when Jesus was a child.
The cast includes Hector Medina, Jorge Perugorría and Luis Alberto Garcia.
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