UPI. Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2000. NewsMax.com
HAVANA – In Ernest Hemingway's "To Have and Have Not," it's pretty clear in the novel who the down-and-outers are in Havana and Key West, where the action takes place.
Among them, the book's anti-hero, Harry Morgan, winds up transporting unwittingly by his fishing boat a gang of Cuban bank robbers, getting shot dead for his efforts to make a few bucks.
In Cuba today, it might not be that dramatic, but the have-nots are a problem that clearly worries this country's authorities as they struggle with a new and fragile prosperity based on the U.S. dollar.
Cuban officials from Fidel Castro on down claim that the Cuban Revolution, if it means anything, will never leave anyone behind.
The Soviet command economy may be junked (and vociferously despised), plans for promoting revolution around the world may be dropped, creating a socialist paradise where money would no longer be needed can be abandoned, but not the essential core in which Cubans are supposedly provided the
basics of food, clothing, medical care, housing, and education.
And no one – visibly, of course – will be conspicuously better off than the lowliest guajiro.
Giving the state such responsibility in a society that had little personal incentive to create wealth was possible only through massive hand-outs from the Soviet Union. That defunct empire provided Cuba everything from meeting the island's energy requirements to military hardware.
Admittedly, the imports, especially consumer goods, often were of poor quality, but their sheer bulk enabled the Cuban state to invest lavishly in education and public health, not to mention guaranteed employment where no one had to work very hard despite frequent exhortations to emulate Che
Guevara that were mostly ignored.
All that came to an end when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapsed in 1990 and Cuba was forced to enter a period where, by its own estimates, the gross national product shrank 35 percent in four years – comparable to America's Great Depression of the 1930s.
Cuba's problem was compounded by the fact that despite the lavish largesse from Moscow, the average Cuban was still chained to his monthly ration book, which never made ends meet. So desperate was the regime that in 1993 reforms were enacted that permitted for the first time private holdings of
U.S. dollars.
Even more shocking, Cubans could now start small enterprises (outlawed since 1967), and the Soviet-style collective farms were abandoned for private holdings and cooperatives. These measures combined with making the luring of foreign tourists to the island a priority may have gotten Cuba out of
the worst of the period, but it soon raised other problems.
The Love of Money Is the Root of ...
Foremost among them is an emerging two-tiered society of those with dollars and those without. Those who do either have relatives abroad who are generous with their remittances, or the cash nexus lies with the burgeoning tourism industry.
That means the new wealth is concentrated in the urban areas such as Havana and Santiago or beach resorts such as Varadero. Rural areas, favored by the revolution, are left to make do unless one is a private farmer with access to the cities where one can sell one's products for dollars at
so-called peasant markets. The retired and government workers are scarcely better off.
It also means anyone with only pesos is left with very little indeed.
Pass on Those Pesos
No one in his right mind will sell anything for the national currency. And although the market rate is more or less 20 pesos to the dollar, in reality there is no working rate of exchange. Anything of value is sold in dollars.
Peso earners have to depend on the ration book and other state subsidies. But food allowances don't cover even basic needs anymore, and that means that part of the population – probably 60 percent – without dollars are left scrambling in a desperate search for survival.
Their desperation is compounded by the state having fewer resources available for public services including health and education. That means if you are sick and have only pesos, don't count on obtaining medicine or being able to get into an even minimally equipped hospital.
For those who lose their jobs at state-run enterprises, wages are half of what they were and they are in pesos which these days buy less and less.
All this has Cuba's officialdom worried and looking for answers that are not there. On the one hand, there is a growing number of Cubans who are finding independence through the accumulation of dollar wealth thanks largely to their own efforts.
That, too, has serious implications for revolutionary rule of one party. But for those who have not, they cannot any longer rely on the socialist state for even the minimum, which also spells trouble for the regime. When confronted with these questions, the usual answer is a shrug or a candid "I
don't know."
That may reassure Cuba's growing new class of dollar holders, but for the old class clinging to their ragged pesos and a still more ragged welfare state, that's no comfort at all.
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