Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 10:15:21 -0500
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: capitalist cuba?


Harald:
>That is the reason I assume that  in 1957 the infant mortality rate
>in Spain was still 60 per cent higher than in Cuba, and in Portugal
>close to three times higher.

Leaving aside the accuracy of your figures (you never provided an exact
citation, but asked me to trust you), you cannot understand Spain versus
Cuba purely on the basis of such figures. For example, Kerala has a lower
infant mortality rate than Maharashtra, but the latter state is
economically more advanced. To understand Spain in 1957 requires looking at
things like labor productivity, the level of industrialization, etc. Franco
adopted an autarchic national development program that although brutal to
the working class did eventually take Spain forward. His state-run INI
(National Industrial Institute) attempted to lessen imports and make Spain
industrially self-sufficient by rapidly expanding petroleum refining,
shipbuilding, automobile assembly, aeronautics, and the production of
chemicals, fertilizers, petrochemicals, and electricity. Using less brutal
methods, Peron led a similar ambitious development program in Argentina.
Now what does this have to do with poor, miserable Cuba that lacked any
kind of locally owned manufacturing capacity? Unless Harald thinks that the
cigar industry was as important as Franco's automobile or aeronautics
sector. Cuba was owned lock, stock and barrel by American corporations with
the exception of the agrarian sector which was underutilized. Let me remind
my good automat comrades what James O'Connor said about Cuba before the
revolution:

"The Cuban economy was based on export agriculture. The main crop was
sugar, followed by tobacco, cattle and coffee. Agricultural resources were
underutilized. For the hacienda owner, this was no problem. It might mean
spending January through March in the US or Europe, shopping or attending
the opera. For the farm worker, this meant unemployment and suffering. In
1954, for instance, Cuba's 424,000 agricultural wage earners averaged only
123 days of work; farm owners, tenants and sharecroppers also fared poorly,
averaging only 135 days of employment."

"Unemployment led to all sorts of hardship. 43% of the rural population was
illiterate. 60% lived in huts with earth floors and thatched roofs. 2/3
lived without running water and only 1 out of 14 families had electricity.
Daily nutrition was terrible. Only 4% of rural families ate meat regularly.
Most subsisted on rice, beans and root crops. Bad diet and housing caused
bad health. 13% of the population had a history of typhoid, 14%
tuberculosis and over 1/3 intestinal parasites."

Does Harald think that 60 percent of the people in Spanish countryside
lived in huts with earth floors and thatched roofs? Well, maybe he does.
I've learned to expect nearly anything from such a frenzied anticommunist
whose vision of Cuba seems shaped by Miami gusano think-tanks more than
anything else.


Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org




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