Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 00:08:21 -0600 (CST)
From: "Harry M. Cleaver" <hmcleave-AT-eco.utexas.edu>
Subject: Re: AUT: capitalist cuba?


On Tue, 5 Mar 2002, Louis Proyect wrote:

> >The Cuban government has displayed no hostility toward the production of a
> >surplus that I have ever heard of. Its socialist ideology makes it hostile
> >to "profit" just as the Soviet Union was hostile to "profit" but that
> >never kept either one from doing their best to realize a surplus, and the
> >highest rate of surplus that it could manage.
>
> >From reading the autonomists and other untainted breeds of communists, one
> would never gather that the main problem of Soviet-type economies,
> according to many economists, is that the production of surplus (or profit,
> depending on your terminological preference) seemed to matter little at
> all.

Sorry, that is not my reading of those economists who studied the Soviet
Union at all. The production of surplus mattered a great deal to the
planners. The whole push for industrialization was based on not only the
desire but the reality of realizing as much surplus as possible as quickly
as possible. Their problem was that not enough Soviet citizens cooperated
with that goal. Thus collectivization to collect the agrarian surplus,
thus the gulag to force labor out the recalcitrant.

> From Alec Nove to Wlodzimierz Brus, you hear an unending tale about
> the lack of dynamism in so-called socialist societies.

Virtually the whole Western economic literature is devoted to
demonstrating the relative inefficiency of Soviet efforts to extract
surpluses and invest it in development. Given the ideological bias of most
of the commentators the accent is on rigidities of planning and lack of
incentives. Both can be read in terms of resistance.

> Although I am not
> privy to the financial data of the Cuban consumer goods producing sector, I
> somehow doubt that the same kinds of strategic planning goes on as it does
> at the Gap or Coca-Cola.

Financial data? It would be more interesting to know what, if any, methods
are used to determine the desires of the Cuban people and what methods are
used, and to what degree, to meet those desires. Che. at least, apologized
for the taste of Cuban cola after the revolution.

> >I didn't notice anyone mentioning foreign investment in Cuba. The question
> >raised concerned relative rates of surplus extraction.
>
> Yawn. That's not the interesting question, Harry.

It may not be of interest to you Louis, but it was of interest to the
person who raised the question. Instead of trying to drag the discussion
onto my favorite terrain where I can beat my favorite drums, I tried to
answer the question. If the question bores you, ignore it.




............................................................................
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Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
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http://www.utexas.edu/students/nave/
............................................................................



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