Raúl Castro unveils plan for massive job cuts: cuba merges with the Borg

[Hannah Bell]

President Raúl Castro Sunday outlined plans that could eliminate the jobs of some 1.3 million Cuban state workers, while promoting the growth of private enterprise in the country’s service sector.

In his speech to the opening of the biannual session of the Cuban parliament, Castro insisted that the measures are merely an “updating” of the Cuban economic system, and not “market reforms” based on “capitalist recipes.” Nonetheless, the proposals pose among the most sweeping social and economic transformations in Cuba since the overthrow of the US-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

The country has faced a protracted economic crisis, exacerbated by the global financial meltdown. The main export, nickel, has seen prices drop from $24 a pound in 2008 to just $7 a pound last year. Tourism, the biggest source of income, has been hit by the global recession, as have remittances from Cubans abroad, particularly in the US, who are facing unemployment and falling wages. A series of three hurricanes in 2008 combined with a drought in the eastern portion of the island ravaged much of Cuba’s crops. Compounding these difficulties is the 48-year-old US embargo first imposed by the Kennedy administration in retaliation for the Cuban government’s expropriation of US corporate property on the island.

Those to be purged from what Raúl Castro described as “bloated” state payrolls comprise up to one quarter of the economically active population on the island. It is anticipated that virtually every family in the country will be affected, and the proposed economic changes are creating growing social and political tensions. “We have to wipe out forever the notion that Cuba is the only country in the world where you can live without working,” Castro told the Cuban parliament members. The official unemployment rate in Cuba was 1.7 percent last year and has not risen above 3 percent in the previous eight years. Full employment, one of the guarantees of the Castro regime, is being abandoned.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/cuba-a05.shtml

[JVS]

1. Hmmm, all these recent problems such as the price of nickel and the drop in tourism are related....

to the vagaries of the world's capitalist system. If anything, this should be a lesson not to integrate into such a system.

[leftstreet]

2. I'd like to read a headline: "BREAKING: Capitalists fleeing Earth!"

Then we could have a signature DU 'Don't Let the Door Hit You' thread

[Starry Messenger]

5. +100,000

[David__77]

3. Autarky is not a solution.

I support Cuba's socialist choice. That said, Cuba cannot isolate itself from the capitalist economies. It needs to engage in trade with other countries. Restructuring is called for, but it would be good if the public assets are defended and maintained.

[JVS]

4. Assimilation to capitalism and further dependence on the outside world is not a solution.

Basing an economy on tourism, export of agricultural goods, and mineral extraction is how most of latin America has traditionally been banana republics dependent on the goodwill of the US. Cuba's current economic difficulties are because they have grown too dependent on these industries that are rooted in interaction with the West. Getting themselves further involved only worsens the dependency. Any economic cooperation with the outside should be based on two goals of 1) making Cuba self sufficient as possible 2) if trade is engaged in it should be of the type aiming for a goal of Cuba exporting value added goods and not raw materials.

[amborin]

7. Burma tried it

otherwise, sounds like too much Wallerstein

[Hannah Bell]

6. k