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Jorge I. Dominguez. Posted on Wed, May. 29, 2002 in
The Miami Herald.
President George Bush and former President Jimmy Carter recently spoke about
their hopes for Cuba's future.
But how do Cuban elites ponder Cuba's post-Fidel Castro future and their own
role in it?
The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba is the regime's key
political organ. The median birth year of its members is 1943. Three out of four
of its members joined the Political Bureau after the collapse of the Berlin Wall
in 1989 and have governed Cuba for over a decade without Soviet subsidies or
troops posted in Africa.
They are not ready to retire. They expect to govern Cuba after Castro's
passing, and they believe that they can govern it effectively according to their
preferences.
The Cuban political system survived the collapse of the Soviet Union and
European communist governments. Cuban leaders take credit for this political
success. Domestic political instability has declined compared to the early
1990s. The economy has recovered since 1993. The policy changes adopted for this
recovery worked as the leadership had hoped. The economy has not regained its
level of the late 1980s, and it was hurt by the worldwide recession in
2001-2002, but Cuban leaders believe that the worst is over. Moreover, they
believe that no new significant economic reforms are necessary because the
recovery remains on course.
And yet, biology matters. Fidel Castro will not live forever. Cuban leaders
are well informed about trends in other countries. They face three broad choices
regarding the organization of politics, the governance of markets and the design
of firms.
Cuban leaders know that some former communists have re-invented themselves
as democrats in much of Europe and that they govern several Eastern European
countries. They know that the public has returned former communists to power in
Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Bulgaria and elsewhere. Cuban leaders, too, could
earn honor, success and prosperity if they follow this path.
And yet, others argue, better for Cuba to emulate Vietnam and China. Why
surrender power when prosperity may be possible by enacting far-reaching
economic reforms under the aegis of the communist party? Either path would
change Cuba significantly from today's circumstances, but only the first change
would drastically alter its politics.
Cubans have rediscovered two forms of the market economy. One is capitalism
re-born in crime. These illegal or semi-legal market transactions encompass a
significant fraction of the retail economy and engage both ordinary citizens and
lower-echelon officials and party members who must make ends meet.
The other is concessionary capitalism: The state regulates access to the
market and the firm's labor force and stipulates precisely what can and cannot
be done.
The first form of capitalism is adverse to the restoration of the rule of
law and of the habits of a law-abiding society. Numerous inefficiencies and
opportunities for corruption mark the second form.
Most Cuban elites wish to overcome the first but refuse to see the second as
a problem. Yet they can address the first problem only through wider and deeper
economic liberalization that could undermine concessionary capitalism. The
status quo is unstable in the long run, and choices will have to be made.
At the end of the 1980s, the Cuban government began to promote foreign
direct investment. The internal style and incentives to manage a number of state
enterprises also changed to make them conform to market constraints and
opportunities. Cuban leaders know that market-oriented firms work better. And
yet, in the name of prosperity, should they open up the economy more to foreign
firms that the leadership might not control and even to Cuban-owned businesses?
Or should they take their cue from many state enterprise managers in former
communist European countries: do-it-yourself privatization?
Managers of Cuba's more market-oriented state enterprises are well
positioned to privatize and seize the firms they currently manage at a moment of
future change. The anti-nationalist alternative, some claim, is for foreigners
or expatriates to run the commanding heights of Cuba's economy.
Finally, Cuban leaders worry about another biological fact that will shape
Cuba's future. Since the late 1970s, its population has been growing below the
rate needed to sustain a stable population. Even taking no account of
emigration, Cuba's population will start to decline around 2025. In the
meantime, wrenching policy decisions must be made. The Cuban pension system
cannot fund the rights that the law currently accords to pensioners in the
future. Healthcare must shift from pediatrics to geriatrics. Building homes for
the elderly deserves priority over building kindergartens.
This demographic decline both comforts and worries Cuban leaders. The
birth-rate decline is only possible thanks to changes in education, healthcare
and related successful social policies that enable Cubans to take charge of
their reproductive lives. No matter the name of the president or the form of the
political regime, Cubans want these successful policies to continue
indefinitely.
And yet, the demographic decline signals as well a lack of confidence in the
future, a fear that prospects for children are not good in the Cuba of tomorrow,
an implicit but powerful demand for substantial change.
These are the choices facing Cuban leaders. The world outside Cuba might
seek to give them incentives to make the right decisions.
Jorge I. Domínguez is director of the Weatherhead
Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. | 
