HAVANA, January 24 (Vicente Escobal, Lux Info Press) - The year 1989 has become an obligatory reference point for beleaguered Cuban economists, revealing the contradictions of an economic system which must depend on decade-old indices, even if the economic achievements of that era may be
questionable.
Comparing economic results to those of the previous year is a widespread practice, since the dynamics of economic activity is variable, especially so in a time span of 10 years, during which time there should have occurred important technological innovations and an accelerated development of the
market with the multiplier effect derived from the well-known law of supply and demand that operates deep within this market.
In Cuba, due to the extravagance of a productive model whose theoretical strategy is to satisfy the ever growing necessities and not the generation of wealth, the economy is assumed as part of a political philosophy derived from the worn-out Marxist concepts on Man, History, Society and Nature.
It is important to remember that since 1962 Cubans depend on a system of rationing to satisfy their most basic nutritional needs.
In the last 37 years habits of consumption disappeared as a consequence of that method, and the concept of the customer was displaced from commercial practice, with all the negative implications that such displacement carry with it.
If the Cuban food industry grew in 1999, it was starting from very low levels and from a productive policy that prioritized exports at the expense of a deprived internal market, except for the well-known network of dollar establishments whose sales of domestic products is approaching 80% of
their total offerings. According to official sources, in 1999 the Cuban food industry commercialized about 1,700 million, without specifying how much was attributable to tourism, to export or to the stores in charge of withdrawing funds from circulation.
The consumer society that has so severely been criticized has yielded to a society of scarcity and to a culture of indigence. In a country where the seeds carried by birds sprout quickly in the rooftops, rescuing the culture of consumption constitutes a challenge for the Cuban food industry.
There are no valid excuses for rationing; our land is the same, only lacking a change in politics and in the way human intelligence is valued.
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