From: "Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba-AT-online.no>
Subject: AUT: re: The relative decline of material living standards in capitalist Cuba
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 10:46:12 +0100


Luois Proyect, you ask for sources. I did not supply those for two reason.
One and most important. I have hard to believe that such basic facts where
unknown to you, that is if you really know as much about Cuba and its
and its comtemporary and past history as you seem to claim. Two,  I wrote
about these things some years ago, I know to the anarchist Organise list,
but maybe, I am unsure now, also to Aut-op-sy, after having looked up a
lot of different sources - including official Cuban governmental ones (in
Spanish) written from almost every political perspective. I would need some
more time to find back to these now. At the moment I cannot even find what
I wrote myself back then (far more concrete and detailed). May have been
lost when my old computer broke down.

But here is something for now anyway: If you give me more time I can
find more sources to back this up. But again, I do not believe that these
are things that you do not already know, so it seems rather a wast of
time. Cuba's infant mortality rate of 32 per 1,000 live births in 1957 was
the lowest in Latin  America and the 13th lowest in the world, according
to UN data. Cuba ranked ahead of France,  Belgium, west Germany,
Israel, Japan, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, all of which  would
eventually pass Cuba in this indicator during the following decades. This
I now found through a U.S governmental source referring to U.N. but is
information that I have seen several times before also from pro-Castro
sources. To be more precise, in 1957 according to U.N. statistics, the
infant mortality rate in Japan was 40 per (1000 live births), Iceland 16,
Sweden 18, Finland 28,  Switzerland 23, Belgium 36, (West) Germany 36,
Netherlands 18, Australia 21,  Denmark 23, United Kingdom 24,
Canada 31, Ireland 33, France 34, Luxembourg 39,  Austria 44, Spain 53,
Norway 21,  Italy 50, United States 26, Israel 36, Greece 44, Portugal
(that old colonial country) 88, Cuba 32,  Malaysia 76. Now we can and
should always ask for the accuracy of such statistics, and what they
really tell us and what they do not, but the none the less.

Now according to "Resumen de Estadisticas de Poblacion no 3" printed
in Havana in 1968 the mortality rate of children under one year  was 36, 3
(per thousand  live births)  in 1958 and had risen to 39, 2 in the year
1966.  I found and checked the original source a couple of years back, but
have now had to rely on an old article from 1972 of a Swedish journalist
that proved easier for me to find back to at the moment. The same
journalist, Lennart Stridsberg, refers to a book  of Hugh Thomas positively
inclined to the Castro regime, saying that in 1958 there were was a doctor
for every each 1000 inhabitants in Cuba while one for each 1150 in Sweden.
Argentina, I seem to remember, had an even higher rate. I have
seen such figures many other places as well. They are hardly a secret nor in
any way disputed. It could also be tempting to to polemical and say that
literacy rate in Cuba has risen to what they supposedly have been in
Sweden since the middle of the 18th century, if my memory serves me
well. But even from offical UN statistics  from 1995 (and these I have
found)
several other countries in South America actually have a somwhat
higher litteracy rate than Cuba.

I would need some more time to find back to the ILO wage statistics,
(measured in dollars) but they follow the same pattern as above, suprisingly
no doubt for many. Even I was when I first found these. Now there are
always good reasons to judge such statistics critically, especially as they
generally only refer to averages (and what is referred to is hourly and not
yearly wages) but none the less, there is absolutely no doubt about for
those willing to see that in _relative terms_  the average Cuban worker have
radically decreased their material living standard since 1958 compared to
the countries mentioned above that you claim is not comparable. Well
somehow they were in 1950ies however you bend and twist it. It should
also be mentioned that unemployments benefits and such things was quite
widespread in pre Castro Cuba prior to their existence in many European
countries. .But anyway, according to 1995 UN FAO data, Cuba's per capita
supply of cereals has fallen from 106 kg per year in the late 1940's to
100 kg  half a century later. Per capita supply of tubers and roots
showed an even steeper decline, from 91 kg per year to 56 kg. Meat
supplies had fallen from 33 kg per year to 23 kg per year, measured
on a per capita basis.

Even officially there exist unemploymment in Cuba. They even publish public
statistics on this. And the figures has consistently been somwhat higher
than for Norway for instance (and i believe also the U.S). Another indicator
of this is of course the black market and the widespread prostitution, as
well as the export of labour power. People simply cannot live on the wages
or
pensions they recieve. Even such a basic thing as soap became a luxury
in the 1990ies, and the ordinary man and woman had to bring with them
their own sheets to the hospital. It is also intersting to compare the
number of car owners in Cuba compared to for instance Mexico. While I am no
great entusiast for private motoring, that Cuba is probably the only country
in the world where the percentage of car owners have actually slightly
decreased since 1958 certainly says something. You where the one insisting
on talking about bread. It would also be interesting to enter into Cuban
rulings class economic imperialsm in other Latin-American countries
during the last decade, but as I cannot find my sources at the moment,
this would have to wait.

To the question is the ruling class of Cuba moving towards a more
liberal form of capitalism. The answer is no doubt, yes. This is even
reflected in new laws, as well as that The University of Havana now
offers graduate  courses in "economic renovation," that offers topics
like sales and marketing and uses a text written by mainstream U.S.
economist Robert Samuelson. (At least this was the case a few
years back, I have not checked if this has not changed. Though I
would doubt it.)

The real question here is however. Do we support the rulling class
or the the working class (who is no way free to organise.)  Do we
support one of the in relative terms largest prison populations in
the world (again with a strong overrepresentation of "blacks") or the
guards and their masters?  Somethings should be easy to answer
to. It is the same basic question as to be a scab or not.

I honestly don't see how you manage to mix Kautsky into in this. I
find it foremost rather curious. And you are as far as I can see the
one de facto claiming that communism is not possible outside
"the West".  Though I admit that I have hard to see the possibility
to go beyond capitalism _any_ place in the world without such a
social revolutionary process spreading. You are also the one who
as far as I can see claiming the impossibility of communism, which
again seems to reason for your support of state capitalism (or
whatever you want to call it, that question is not critical). This
objectively speaking entails, however you bend and twist it, taking
a position against the working class in this countries, and in
support of their bosses, of our class enemies.You have to be
pretty desperate to support regimes such as in North Korea. If
this is not anti.communism, I don't no what is.

And for your information, though not important, as far as labels go,
I do not consider myself a marxist or autonomst but an anarchist,
even if studied the writings of Marx prettty thouroughly and also
learned a lot from this, as I have learned other things from "autonomists"
even I might not agree in all, and am generally I think a greater
believer in the importance of questions such as organisation and
consciousness. In the popular usage of the term, I might be less an
anarchist autonomists tend to be (as far as generalisations go).

Harald











     --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---