Cuba: Socialism within Globalization [1 ed.] 9590903479, 9789590903472

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José Bet LARA SS

EDITORIAL JOSE MARTI

CAAEF, Inc. P.O. Box 5113 SLO, CA 93403-51 13 [email protected] e www. cubamer.org Tel. (805) 627-1959

Wns FEpuArves

Cuba Socialism within

:

Globalization

77

Socialism within

Globalization

JOSE BELL LARA

EDITORIAL JOSE

MARTI

Edition

Cecilia N. Valdés Ponciano and Maritza C. Garcia Pallas

Design Andro Liuben Pérez Diz

Desktop publishing René A. Pria Artaud Enrique Mayol Amador © 2008, José Bell Lara

© 2008, Angie Todd

© 2008, Editorial JOSE MARTI ISBN

978-959-09-0347-2

Impreso en Colombia - Printed in Colombia Impreso por Grdficas de la Sabana Ltda. INSTITUTO CUBANO

DEL LIBRO

Editorial JOSE MARTI Publicaciones en Lenguas Extranjeras Calzada No. 259 e/ Je 1, Vedado

Ciudad de La Habana, Cuba

E-mail: [email protected]

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Content

Introduction

Chapter 1. Globalization, Development and Underdevelopment Antecedents Globalization and Development Globalization and Undervelopment Chapter 2. Proposals and Conditions for Development

The Neoliberal Project The ECLAC Proposal

The Disconnection Proposal

Conditions for Development

68

Our Concept of Development

70 7

Chapter 3. Cuba’s Perspectives for Development within Globalization

81

Conditions in Cuba

81

The Policy of Development

91

Conclusions

119

Appendix: The Harvest of Neoliberalism in Latin America

121

Constantly Increasing Inequality

121

Constantly Increasing Unemployment, Underemployment and Precarious Employment

123

Constantly Increasing Poverty

126

Increasingly Informalized but Under-Informatized Societies

128

Deterioration of Living Standards and Descending Social Mobility

129

Constantly Increasing Violence and Criminality

131

Expropriation of Political and Social Rights by the Market

132

Societies without a Future Prospect

134

Bibliography

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Introduction

We are living in-an era ofinequality. “There are 358 people in the world whose assets are estimated at more than $1 billion each, with

which they possess more than the combined annual income ofthe countries in which 45% of the world population lives.”' This con-

stitutes the vertex of a pyramid ofinequality: 0.000000059% ofthe world population has a fortune that is superior to the income of 2.7 billion people. Throughout the 1990s the contrast between wealth and poverty became more acute: the 200 richest people in the world doubled their assets, resulting in the fact that three multimillionaires have a fortune superior to the combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of all the least developed countries in which 600 million people live. The countries of the capitalist center, with 19% of the world population, have more than 80% of the world GDP, 71% of the com-

mercial trade of goods and services, 58% offoreign investment, and 91% ofinternet users.” Never in the history of humanity has a period existed in which such a concentration of wealth can be seen in so few nations and in such a small number ofindividuals. Today, the contrast between wealth and poverty on an international scale is at its strongest, which has brought into the foreground the _ development-underdevelopment contradiction. However, reflections 9

on strategies aimed at eliminating underdevelopment are no longer a priority and there are no new advances in theories of development, on the contrary, what has been called one way of thinking predominates. There is hegemony of the ideopolitical points of neoliberalism, a universal recipe whose real objective is to create the best conditions for the functioning ofcapital and thus ensure that the world continues to become more polarized. The Marxist precept that the dominant ideas are those of the dominant classes is thus demonstrated on an international plane,° only that in this sphere they translate into the universalization of economic policies that express the hegemony offinance capital. The fact that reflection on development is not in the foreground does not mean that it is unimportant. We are talking about the possibility of changing the conditions in which three quarters of humanity live. For the underdeveloped countries such reflection is crucial and this alone justifies the need to approach this issue with the seriousness that it deserves. This book approaches development and underdevelopment as part of the historical discourse of the capitalist system, which has moved into the current processes of globalization, whose principal traits and incidence in the problematic of development are also analyzed. Existing proposals of possible courses for the underdeveloped countries are presented and critically evaluated as is an abstraction of the conditions that will allow an underdeveloped country to break the chains of dependence and set out on the road to development. That is the context for analyzing the experience of the Cuban Revolution and exploring the possibilities of maintaining its socialist project within the current global conditions, as well as for evaluating some of the problems and obstacles that it has to face. As a basis for sustaining the socialist project, Cuba must find its own means of development within the conditions of globalization. Without this, all resistance is condemned to failure in the long term.

Ifa degree of economically self-sustained autonomy is not achieved in relation to the world system of capital, the latter will absorb and/or 10

destroy the alternative project. With this premise the text is a general reflection, a reading of the pronouncements and measures adopted by the leadership of the Cuban Revolution to maintain the socialist project in the current circumstances, starting from which we have abstracted the aspects that configure the Cuban strategy for development. During the 1960s the Cuban Revolution was a heresy, the first Socialist Revolution in the Western world. In the first decade of the 21st century it continues to be so, by maintaining aloft the banners of socialism when the winds of capital have been, let us hope only temporarily, imposed on the world. This book is a modest tribute to that concrete utopia. NOTES 1.

PNUD, Informe sobre el desarrollo humano, 1996, 2.

2.

PNUD, Informe sobre el desarrollo humano, 1999, 3.

3.

Roberto Regalado, “Riesgos y alternativas,” Tricontinental, no. 143. The author invites “".. reflection on the extent to which neoliberal propaganda has penetrated—in some cases openly and in others surreptitiously—the debates ofthe left on the construction of an alternative.”

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CHAPTER

: Globalization, Development 1: and Underdevelopment .

Antecedents Visualizing the world before the birth ofthe capitalist era—precisely prior to the 16th century—diverse historical systems can be ob_ served in distinct geographical areas, with their own dynamics and civilizing processes. Although they coexisted in time their relations were scant and, in some cases, inexistent. While in Europe there were formations based on tribal groupings, in the Ancient East interesting civilizations were flourishing. In the Americas, diverse types of social formations coexisted at various levels of evolution with societies in the phase of gathering and hunting coinciding with those in which the Asiatic mode of production had developed. Whereas the Arab peoples were building a commercial-taxation empire, in other parts of Africa some ethnic groups were in states of the primitive community and a few others were formed as local empires. Generally speaking, there is a vast span of history in which the courses ofthe various historical systems had great autonomy. Their markets were local ones and their commercial links very weak; wars of conquest proliferated but the world as a whole was not subjected to a common expansive source. The disintegration of one of these historical systems, European feudalism, was part of the process of European commercial expansion that led to the birth of capitalism. 13

This new system constituted a qualitative rupture with earlier ones; the law ofvalue began to rule not only over commercial life but also all aspects ofsocial life.’ From its beginnings capitalism demonstrated a clear vocation for dominion and universal expansion, given that the search for wealth constitutes its central objective. Columbus reached America while searching for a new trade route to India; the Portuguese had skirted the Cape of Good Hope to break the Arab monopoly of trade with China and India. The conquest and colonization of the Americas was part of the expansion process ofcapital and the emergence of a world market; what Marx would call the original accumulation of capital. Actually Capital covers an analysis of the colonial phenomenon insofar as this is part of that process and demonstrates the capitalist rapaciousness and barbarity in the pursuit of profits: The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation,

enslavement and entombment in mines ofthe aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn ofthe era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation. . . . The different momenta of primitive accumulation distribute themselves now, more or less in chronological order, particularly over Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, and England. In England at the end

of the 17th century, they arrive at a systematical combination, embracing the colonies, the national debt, the modern mode oftaxation, and the protectionist system.” The history ofcolonial expansion is, simultaneously:

1. A history of banditry in which all imaginable atrocities were permissible in the pursuit of wealth. In Chapter 24 of the first volume of Capital, Marx highlights some of the acts of barbarity, cruelty, infamy and ban14

ditry that accompanied the process of colonization; among them, the atrocities committed on the slaves. In that context

he states, in relation to a compilation by Charles Comte: “This subject one must study in detail, to see what the bourgeoisie makes of itself and of the laborer, wherever it can, without re-

straint, model the world after its own image.”? 2. A process of capital concentration in Western Europe. For Marx, the vast wealth obtained in the colonies was

converted into capital in Europe; the principal role of the colonial system was to strengthen nascent European capitalism via the regime of mercantile monopoly and the intensive accumulation of capital: “The treasures captured outside Europe by undisguised looting, enslavement, and murder, floated back to the mother-country and were there turned into capital.”* Ernest Mandel has calculated the product ofcolonial plunder from the 16th to the 18th centuries at more than 1000 million pounds sterling, which represents more than the value of all European industry in that same period.° 3. A process of unequal development and international polarization ofthe capitalist system. The history of colonialism is full of examples that reflect how the colonizing powers implemented measures in the colonies that prevented setting the bases for autonomous development or destroyed existing ones.

4. A process of modeling and subordinating colonial economy and society: “The colonies secured a market for the budding manufactures, and, through the monopoly ofthe market, an increased accumulation.”© In this way the economies of the colonies were subordinated to the economies ofthe metropoli, constituting the first complementary economies in which 15

the productive process responded to metropolitan needs or those of the world market.

One characteristic of the capitalist system is that it brings about an international division of labor. In previous historical systems what was produced was exchanged for what was needed, but subsequently, the expansion of capital annexed the economies of the colonies as part of the productive cycle of the metropolises by providing the former with resources while converting them into a market for their products, all of which crystallized into a specialization of the periphery. In summary, the proto-history of underdevelopment has to be sought in the primitive accumulation of capitalism. Latin America was incorporated into the world market and, as a result, capitalist relations expanded in it; in other words, capitalism is not the endogenous product ofthe growth ofits productive forces, to a certain extent it is an implant that will destroy and/or reorganize what exists in this region in function ofthe interests of metropolitan capital so as to allow a greater exploitation; hence, the origins of underdevelopment have to be sought in the birth and development ofthis articulation. Capitalist expansion Is not a purely economic process, although its principal result might be. As a matter offact, the main vehicle of expansion ofcapital in this period was the capacity of the European states to undertake military and naval operations overseas, which allowed them to incorporate territories into their dominion.

Military and economic successes were closely linked in the 17th century’ and persisted during the following centuries of the evolution of capitalism. It is not per chance that England was called “the workshop ofthe world” and “queen ofthe seas.” Quite simply, the military and naval power of Britain consolidated its position as the hegemonic center ofcapitalism in one period. The unequal development of capitalism led to social formations of a specific and distinct nature in the center and the periphery, or 16

what has also been denominated

the developed and underdevel-

oped nations. Understanding the nature of underdevelopment as one part of a sole machine: the world capitalist system,® allows underdevelopment to be ruled out as befitting a means of production independent or different from capitalism. Underdeveloped capitalist formations are capitalist; underdevelopment is a form of capitalist development designed for obtaining high monopolistic profits. The movement ofthe capitalist system takes place via two poles, the center and the periphery. Both, as forms of the development of capitalism, exist in a relationship of domination-subordination and,

as adequate forms, reproduce themselves materially and socially. While it had its variations, the expansion of European industrial capitalism—basically British—to the periphery in the 19th century, followed the general/line of establishing trade relations by - swamping the Portuguese-Hispanic colonies with cheap merchandise. In some cases it maintained relations along commercial lines and in others it fomented the production of raw materials, which were increasingly indemand in the industrial centers. That exchange/of raw materials for manufactured items characterized relations between the metropolis and the periphery for more than a hundred years, to such a degree that certain theories and political movements identify industrialization with development. The reasons for that process lie in the function assigned to the colonies within the international division oflabor: providing cheap raw materials to the industrial countries to produce manufactured goods and foodstuffs demanded by the growth ofthe working class and urban population. As Karl Marx noted, “To the extent that foreign trade cheapens partly the elements ofconstant capital, partly the necessities oflife for which the variable capital is exchanged, it tends to raise the rate of profit by raising the rate of surplus-value and lowering the value

of the constant capital.”? 17

Latin America played an essential role in the increase of relative surplus value in the industrialized capitalist countries in that period—and is still doing so—through the provision of cheap goods and supplies and low wages. In Latin America this exchange tended to fortify the social classes that benefited from it—the oligarchy linked to the latifundia, to agricultural exports and the large traders—, which have utilized state apparatuses to guarantee the best conditions for their development. It can thus be confirmed that dependence is a relation of subordination in the framework of which the means of production of the subordinated nations are modified or recreated to ensure the widespread extension of dependence. The greater the demand for raw materials and foodstuffs on the part of the center, the more industrial growth in the periphery is aborted, and thus, that international division of labor is consolidated; the

countries of the center do not need to use force as a primordial instrument to reproduce and extend dependence and thus, exploitation. In the phase offree competition, the subordinate relationship is consummated on the commercial plane while the center is not sufficiently strong to subordinate the productive and financial sectors of the peripheral countries, which are, on the other hand, still very incipient. From the political point of view, the preponderance of central capital is reflected in various forms, although military force has been wielded on various occasions. Thus, underdevelopment was shaped during the phase of free capitalist competition via the international division of labor and the colonia! system. During the imperialist phase, given the prevalence of the monopoly and the primacy of the export of capital, the penetration of foreign capital accentuated as the large monopolies came to directly control the export sectors of many countries, concentrated on raw materials; the income generated by exports was transformed

into the import of manufactured goods in such a way that an en-

dogenous industry could not develop." 18

In the 1930s and 1940s in Latin America some industrial processes began to emerge, such as the so-called Industrialization for Imports Substitution (ISI), but broadly speaking, they did nothing more than change the type ofimports from the centers given that the situation of subordination was already consolidated. This process did not take place just from outside, with the periphery in a totally passive role; there was a dynamic in which the social groups and classes _ that benefited from this relationship were dominant in the political ambit and gained state control, via which they encouraged such relationship, thus liquidating and/or dismantling the resistance of other social classes and groups opposed to this status. In the case of Latin America, the structural nature ofthis relation-

ship and its link to the political sphere are clear. Latin America has been incorporated into the world market and, as a result of that incorporation, capitalist relations have expanded in it; in other words, capitalism is not the endogenous product of the growth ofits productive forces but, to a certain extent, an implant that is going to destroy | and/or reorder what exists in function ofthe interests of metropolitan capital. That is why capitalism occurs in the sphere ofcirculation before it does in the sphere of production, and why the commercial factions of the national dominant classes, being the privileged link in © the chain ofexploitation, are the main forces. Their link with the international market—and with the driving

forces within it—allowed those factions access to the pollitical control of their societies . . . the national dominant class was thus the faction that could secure for itself the role of the

privileged associate of foreign domination within its own society. The nation, as the form ofpolitical domination of Latin American bourgeoisie, was in real terms the institutional ex-

pression ofinternational domination." Thus, subordination ofthe capitalist economic-social formations _ of the periphery to those of the center does not entail a conflict 19

between their overall social interests. On the contrary, that subordination is only made possible because the interests of the power blocs of the periphery and center formations overlap, which does not exclude contradictions between the two, fundamentally related to the benefits of the system. Therefore, it should not be overlooked that the predominant interests within the societies in the periphery correspond to the interests of the system in its conjunction, adapting themselves at each historical moment to the emerging trends in the general movement of capital and in its processes of reproduction and accumulation. The concept of accumulation is not reduced to a specific process, it covers a range of manifestations of social relations in the productive and circulative spheres; relations between social classes through which surplus value is generated and appropriated. These relations are not only economic but also ideological and political. It is the process of capitalist accumulation that generates polarization both within countries and at international level. In other words, it is the functioning of the law ofvalue that generates polarization at one or another level and, in this context, polarization is an immanent law of the capitalist system.'? Its very development permits the exploitation of the periphery, the underdeveloped countries, without political domination.

Globalization and Development Today we are witnessing a new stage ofcapitalism, or more appropriately, imperialism: the so-called globalization. In this chapter we do not intend to make an exhaustive study ofglobalization, but to highlight those aspects that are most directly related to the problematic at the core ofour study: development. The capitalist restructuring process that began in the 1970s led to the current globalization processes, a stage resulting from the extraordinary technological developments of recent decades—to which capital had to have recourse in order to get over the accumulation crisis of the 1970s—, from transformations in the relations of 20

power at international level and from the very evolution ofthe system that necessarily led to greater concentration and internationalization. Thus, transnational corporations became the determinant organizational form: “Transnational corporations constitute

the basic unit of the current world economy.” As their name indicates, transnational corporations operate globally, plan their location and distribute the volume and type of production in each country in line with the advantages that they obtain in each case. In this way, they can decrease or increase production, open or close factories, reduce or increase jobs, place or remove the I+D centers, etc., in one place

at the expense ofanother.'* Their economic power is superior to that of many states. The

sales of General Motors are higher than that of the GDP ofIndonesia, those of Sony are equivalent to the GDP of Egypt, and those of IBM are in excess of the combined GDPs of Chile, Costa Rica and

Ecuador.'° The level of accumulation and expansion oftransnational corporations alongside the processes of. capital concentration have propelled the processes of internationalization of the economy based on the extraordinary advances in transportation and telecommunications. The transnationals have based their enormous and growing power on the processes of innovation and diffusion, inherent within the progress ofscience and technology that has taken place in recent decades. The reduced time of fixed capital rotation and the acceleration of technological advances have made the search for new products and new production processes essential, with the inherent risks: huge outlays for research-development and maximum production and sales of new products. Transnational corporations operate with a strong dynamic of vertical integration; their production processes, located in various countries and regions, benefit from the hierarchical arrangement of 21

planetary economic space implanted by capitalism itself centuries back, such as the unequal development of raw materials sources, technological innovation and the accumulation of capital. Hence, the establishment of the parent company-subsidiaries system, based on the transnational’s capacity to separate into parts the production of certain lines, geographically disassociating it in different stages, but retaining central control over the whole process. Transnationals provoke the situation ofdistinct phases ofproduction being linked together in different countries; the social division of labor within one single productive process adopts the form ofan international division of labor, the component parts ofone final product are produced in subsidiaries located in various countries, to have their final assembly in another country. Nowadays, international trade does not only constitute a moment of circulation but moments ofinterchange

among distinct parts of one same production process.'© Independently of others, the central motivation behind this trend toward the creation of subsidiaries is the possibility of utilizing a high-productivity, low-cost workforce for manufacturing industrial goods for export. International competition drives transnationals to seek the lowest production costs at global level by locating phases of the manufacture where they are most profitable. New technologies facilitate the spatial decentralization of production and the elevated division and sub-division of work for which only minimal qualifications to do specific work are necessary. We are not only witnessing the apparition ofglobal capitalism but also, for the first time in history, the creation of aworld labor market and a world re-

serve army of workers together with a world production market.'” Without taking into consideration variations in the price of products, what really interests transnationals in terms ofcapitalist profit is the absolute difference between the wages they have to pay in the country oforigin given existing regulations and agreements between 22

employers and trade unions, and those they pay in the underdeveloped countries where their subsidiaries are located. Transnational capital is displacing the national capital of the underdeveloped countries and is taking new spaces in order to reactivate its valorization and accumulation at global level. By means of isolating production processes with the mass intervention of awork-

force and its transfer to areas where it is possible to exploit it intensively, it is achieving an effect equivalent to what it could achieve in the countries of the center if itwas possible to extend working hours, increase work intensity and, above all, reduce wages. The headquarters-subsidiaries system is directed to the export of manufactured goods, a major part of which are only assembled in the underdeveloped nations, a type ofindustry referred by some authors as offinal touch. Although statistics reflect these exports as being from the underdeveloped nations, in real terms little is actually manufactured in them. Transnationalization constitutes an objective process of current capitalism. It is the result, at the same time, of the interaction

of a combination of aspects such as the use of highly productive technologies, but simple and uniform in all or part; of the structural and political specifics of the underdeveloped nations whose states guarantee the required conditions for these companies to obtain exceptional profits: low wages, weak worker resistance; and of the impressive development of the means of communication and transport that swiftly interconnect the most distant regions ofthe planet. Thus, the world has become a large economic space in which states and national borders have lost significance. As a result of that multidimensional process, capital’s scale of operation has expanded and its rate of monopolization and inter_nationalization has accelerated. In reality, the broad scale across which monopolies are operating has been introducing changes in the process of internationalization of the economy: “What is today distributed and articulated at world scale is the combination 23

of the productive process, of its planning and execution, and the commercial network.”'8 The internationalization associated with globalization is characterized by a more rapid growth oftrade and international investment than that of the aggregate production of the conjunction of countries; in the second half of the 1980s direct foreign investment (DF) increased at an annual rate of 30%.'? The rapid increase of DFI has advanced in line with a change in its composition; today services constitute approximately half or more of the DFI undertaken by the

principal capitalist countries.*° A large part of the DFI is directed at mergers and acquisitions, via which the degree of concentration and - centralization of capital is raised. For example, in 1999, 63 % of DFI

flows from the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OEDC), amounting to $131 billion, was directed toward

transnational mergers and acquisitions.*' The 37,000 headquarters of the transnational companies, with more than 200,000 subsidiaries throughout the world, control close to 75 % ofall the world trade of merchandise, manufactured items and services.?? If we add to this

the fact that more than one third ofthat trade is intra-company, we have to conclude that the policy of opening up and eliminating trade barriers is not generating free markets, but converting the world market into the internal market of the transnationals. The process ofinternationalization is also expressed in the growing mobility of capital, which is giving rise to an increase in the merging of financial markets into a single circulation of capital.?9 In 1998 financial transactions reached the astronomical figure of

$1.5 trillion per day.74 Since 1980 the total value of financial assets has increased two-and-a-half times more rapidly than the aggregate GDP of all the rich industrial economies. . . . Hard-currency exchange transactions were ten times greater than world trade in 1983; just ten years later, in 1992, those transactions were 24

sixty times greater. In the absence of this explosive growth of the world financial markets we would probably not be talking

about globalization.*° That movement is for the most part speculative; it is calculated that for every dollar backed up by real production, thirty to fifty dollars from the financial market (fictitious capital) are circulating in the world. Thus, some analysts have concluded that “. . . finance capital and, in particular, financial speculation exacerbated by deregulation is the distinctive sign of the globalization of the world

economy.”° The accelerated rate of technological progress in electronics, communications and transport has brought about such an increase of the potential to transfer information and resources, as well as to cut distances, that the global village predicted by Marshall McLuhan ‘thirty years ago has become a reality, with the Information Highway as its technocratic imagery, one that should lead to a “capitalism free of friction.”?” Telecommunications traffic is growing at an average annual rate of 20 %, reducing its cost, and the development _ of aircraft with greater cargo capacity is constant. According to The Economist, air-dispatched manufactured goods currently amount to almost one quarter ofthe value of such exports. And finally—no less important for being at the heart of the productive system—are organizational changes in the labor process. The new model, generally known as post-Ford, integrates thought and action at all levels of operation within the organization seeking to combine the advantages of hand-crafted production with the Ford production chain, which involves changes throughout the whole chain of added value. Its central characteristics include simultaneous engineering: design and production are no longer separate processes but integrated into face-to-face production involving both designers and producers; continuous and gradual innovation: all workers as-

sess improvements to processes and products, not just the experts; 25

team work: the organization of flexible working groups with some degree ofself-management, integrated by workers susceptible to retraining and who reveal multiple skills; plus on-time production, the principle of total quality and the integration of the chain of supplies.28 In other words, in the new situation of work, flexible automation, computerized management and the organization of work based on circles of quality control are linked and combined in conjunction with the decentralization of the productive processes—even spatially at international level—conjugated with continuous flows ofinformation in order to maintain control over the entire process of

product configuration.7? All of the above makes it possible to manufacture the components of any product in various countries without losing control of the process. At the base of these potentialities and closely related to the globalization process is the extraordinary scientific and technological revolution (STR) underway. There is no doubt that modern biotechnology, new materials and microelectronics are central elements of the new STR. Some authors note that the axis of the current STR is constituted of microelectronics in its various applications: robotics, telematics, telecommunications, etc., in other words, the combination of informa-

tion technologies. Some authors—Toffner,

1982, Castells, 1999—consider the im-

pact of information technologies as a third movement in the development of humanity, the first of which would be the invention ofagriculture, and the second the Industrial Revolution. After each one ofthose revolutions people lived in a distinct manner. Castells introduces the distinction between mode of development and mode ofproduction, for him “‘. . . the modes of development are the technological mechanisms via which labor acts upon material to generate the product, definitively determining the quantity and quality of the surplus. Each mode of development is defined by the element that is fundamental to foment productivity in the produc26

tion process.”°° In line with this he proposes three means of development: agrarian, industrial and international. The first one took thousands of years to take over on earth; the second, some three-

hundred years; and the third is just beginning. Returning to our leading thread, the common factor ofdevelopments provoked by the current STR is that they heavily rely on scientific knowledge.

... the cycle of accumulation of capital is less and less dependent on the intensity of natural and labor resources and even on the intensity of productive capital; instead, it concentrates on a technological accumulation based on the intensity of knowledge. The concentration and centralization of technological knowledge is more intense and monopolistic than other forms of capital, thus increasing the gap between the North

and the South.*! The weight of the knowledge component in production can be evaluated by observing that in the high-tech sectors like microelectronics, costs represent 70 % of the total value; in older industries

such as the automotive industry, the weight of knowledge is 40 % of the final product.°? These extraordinary processes are monopolized by the hegemonic centers of capital, which do not transfer them to the underdeveloped world. They transfer productive processes but do not transfer the process ofcutting-edge scientific and technological creation. Globalization is closely linked to the extraordinary development of the productive forces of recent decades, which is also leading to “.. . a remarkable concentration of economic, commercial, fi-

nancial, scientific and technological power, etc., in an extremely reduced number of states, internal agencies, supra-national organizations and transnational corporations as never before.”°? Independently of it being an objective process it is also a project of the 27

forces benefiting from it, which try to accelerate its dynamic via measures of power and influence. It is not coincidental that the globalization process is accompanied by the circulation of neoliberal points of view contained in economic policies imposed and/or promoted by the central states of the system. Neoliberalism is not only an economic school of thought; it is also an ideological-political concept of the functioning ofsociety. At the risk of over-simplification, because it is not our objective to make a study ofneoliberalism, it could be stated that as a predominant economic-ideological school it postulates total freedom for the international movement ofcapital, merchandise and services although, paradoxically, it restricts that same movement for the merchandise workforce, actually promoting for the latter the so-called flexibility, via which historic gains of the labor movement are annihilated. In summary, “Neoliberalism is, above all, definable as the

theoretic expression of the internationalization of a new model of accumulation and domination ofcapitalism.”°4 The above characterizes the current globalization process; hence,

one can properly speak of neoliberal globalization. As is the case in any social process, globalization is not exempt from contradictions, notably those existing between the center and the periphery, between the globalized base of capital and the existence of national states, and the polarization between the countries of the system and within each country. From the point of view of political analysis, the most notable aspect of the globalizing process is to be found in the extraordinary concentration of power that it has generated, which from a broad view refers to ownership, control, influence, monopoly and

leadership.°° The most visible and first definition of neoliberal globalization is the

extraordinary inequality in the distribution of wealth that exists among countries, and thus, its concentration among a few. One view of current capitalism as a regime of exploitation can be synthesized in words written eighty years ago and which, while seeming to be in an obso28

lete language, have not lost their validity: “Capitalism has been transformed into a global system of colonial subjugation and the financial strangulation ofthe vast majority of the population ofthe planet by a

handful of ‘advanced’ countries.”°° At present Lenin’s appraisal may

be confirmed by consulting the statistics published by the very official agencies of the system—the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, etc. “Twenty percent of the world population—the industrialized capitalist countries—receive 82.7 % of the world income, while 80 % of the population only receives 17.3 %: the famous

‘cup ofinequality.”?” At the end ofthe 1990s one fifth of the world population living in the countries with the highest income had: > 86 % of the world GDP, while the inferior fifth only had 1%;

> 82% of the world export markets, while the inferior fifth only had 1%; > 68 % ofdirect foreign investment, while the inferior fifth only had 1%.°8

The above is the result of the laws of the development ofcapitalism; the greater the expansion ofcapital, the greater the inequality. In 1820 the difference in income between the superior and inferior countries was 3 to 1; in 1870, 7 to 1; and in 1913, 11 to 1. By the

end ofthe 20th century this process had accelerated; the difference in income between the fifth of the population living in the richest countries and the rest stood at 30 to 1 in 960, rose to 60 to 1 in

_

1990 and, by 1997, was 74 to 1.°? “The Group of Seven and central 800 million inhabitants, control more informatic and military power than the four billion people living in Asia, Africa, 29

capitalism, with around technological economic, rest of the approximately Eastern Europe and Latin

America where, similarly, an exclusive minority shares the relations

and living standards of the North.”*° It is a clear manifestation of the law of polarization being immanent in the capitalist system.*! But globalization is also an objective process of accentuation of the social polarization within capitalist social formations, not only of polarization among the social formations that make up the system in its conjunction. In relation to polarization within each one ofthe national, capitalist societies, their growth is linked to the processes of concentration and centralization ofcapital in the framework ofneoliberalism, which allows them to operate in fields that were not previously subject to the market, such as social services; as well as linked to the deregulation of

their activity and to rapid changes in technology and labor organization in the framework of capitalist competition; and to the growing unemployment rates currently afflicting the world. All forecasts on the growth of the workforce, production and employment in the next few years point to employment growth lagging behind in relation to the two other factors, in such a way that the concept ofgrowth without employment has been sealed.*? Increased unemployment, flexibility and the precarious nature of the labor market are essential tendencies of globalization, which points to the existence of higher levels of poverty and inequality in the world. There exists a global process of concentration of power resulting from the processes of concentration and centralization of capital at international level which, in its turn, further impels these processes of concentration. The merging of the interest of the transnational monopolies and the central states of the system is contributing to the creation of the best conditions for the expansion of monopolist capital. “There have been various models of articulation between the state and the expansion ofcapital in different eras; the differentiation between governments and business

companies has varied over time, including moments of symbiosis

between one and the other.”43

30

We are currently experiencing a period leading to the symbiosis between the hegemonic states of the system and beyond, between the groups that they conform and the large transnationals.

Not

without reason on their side, certain theoreticians state that we are

moving toward a phase of transnational monopolistic capitalism.*4 In fact, a new world institutional arrangement is being set in motion in which international agencies are becoming dependencies of a transnational government embryo formed from the apparatuses coordinating the politics and economy of the large capitalist powers under the political-military hegemony ofthe United States. This tendency is reflected by the emergence offinancial agencies from the Bretton Woods conference: the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which have turned into institutions that design, prompt and control structural adjustment policies. A second example is the emergence of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which is extending its sphere of action in comparison with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), an institution that preceded it, by establishing for all countries the obligatory nature of the agreements made, thus venturing into areas where the GATT had no competence. The third and most known example is the appropriation of the UN Security Council by the central powers, principally the United States. And finally, a project underway: the Multinationa! Investment Agreement (MIA), which attempts to place transnational companies on a par with governments and to subordinate governments to the dictates of these companies.*° Thus, we can understand that globalization, though an objective process, is being assumed as the project ofthe rule of capital with no other laws or regulations apart from profit:

The project being promoted by the principal circles of world power is directed at imposing their (macro) economic policies, their criteria in terms ofthe political organization of society, the establishment ofthe institutions that are convenient 31

to them, their concepts in relation to new standards and principles for the regulation of international relations, as well as at permeating all the inhabitants of the planet with a determined system ofvalues.4”

What is being demonstrated with globalization is not only the limits of capitalism, but also—and this is fundamental—the limits of the industrial civilization that gave it its place. These limits are visible both in interpersonal relationships and in the social trends that they generate, such as human beings’ relation to nature, expressed in the non-sustainability of the generalization at planetary level of a sole way oflife. Firstly, due to the inequality and polarization of the wealth that is generated both at global level and within countries, which creates an instability that tends to be explosive. And secondly, because the quality of life provided by the industrial civilization of the total market, while it might be notable regarding the material opulence of a few, is generating an anti-human social environment of which some expressions are:

> The explosion of drug addiction, which is making the production of drugs and the trafficking to the giant markets of the North one ofthe largest businesses of the century. Drugs form a transnational industry with an annual production value of $500 billion, in excess of that ofoil and only superseded

by the arms trade.*® > The high levels of narcotics consumption in the industrialized capitalist countries, which have turned drugs into a legal/illegal industry that covers all spheres of society and responds to frustrations and tensions generated in those societies. > The generalization ofcorruption in the public sphere, where scandals range from North to South and East to West. In some countries of the Organization of Economically Devel32

oped Countries (OEDC) the payment of bribes on the part of their foreign enterprises is deduced from their taxes.*? > The increase of criminality and violence, which is converting citizens’ insecurity into a daily issue. Criminality’s annu-

al growth rate is 5 % higher than the average GDP growth in many countries. >The increase of xenophobia and the expansion of fascist groups, the explosions of nationalism, emigration and other phenomena that, in their entirety, point to the appearance of the so-called global society as a society of malaise.

> A kind of human being whose ideological model is characterized by ferocious individualism, lack of solidarity, lack of communication; ultimately, alienation before the altar of wealth symbolized by the possession ofthings. >A relation between humans and nature characterized by the

structural incompatibility between life on the planet and the means of development of the industrial civilization underway. On a planet with limited resources and with a regime of development that only benefits one fifth of the population, a policy of resource predation threatens the sustenance capacity of humanity in the future. Negative impact on the ozone layer, environmental contamination, desertification, limited fuel reserves etc., indicate that

the current ways of attaining well-being and the existing model of development are unsustainable. In other words, poverty cannot be ended by generalizing a model that promotes the present level of consumption and production of the industrialized capitalist countries because that would exceed the sustentation limits ofthe planet. The arguments and examples are multiple and many of them can be deduced from simple calculations. 33

If by mid 21st century the consumption ofthe world population reaches the average consumption per inhabitant registered in the U.S. ten years ago, oil reserves would be exhausted in seven years,

those of aluminum in eighteen, those of copper in four, those of zinc in three and those ofcoal in thirty-four, just to mention some of the planet’s mineral reserves; not to mention that the rate of

world contamination would quadruple.°° These facts constitute irrefutable evidence that the industrial civilization has placed a physical limit on the development possibilities of the underdeveloped world if the current industrialized capitalist countries are posed as a model. In summary, the new phase of capital demonstrates that today underdeveloped countries can not be expected to achieve development as approached by industrial civilization. Industrial capital is structurally incapacitated to end poverty on the basis of its development patterns. The consumer society to which it gave rise cannot be universalized. In other words, the lifestyle of industrial capital or, more exactly, of the consumer society, is only accessible to a minority; any attempt to extend it to humanity as a whole while understanding this as development, would endanger the existence of humanity itself.

Globalization and Undervelopment Historically, every phase of capitalism has corresponded to a privileged form of subordination, which has contributed to the accumu-

lation in the centers.°' For example, during primitive accumulation colonial dependence was the most general form ofexploitation of the periphery; with the consolidation ofcapitalism and the industrialization of the centers subjection became basically financial-industrial while the periphery played the role of foodstuff and raw materials provider. The new advances ofcapitalism in the 20th century likewise led to the industrialization of the periphery and dependence assumed a technological-industrial form.*? 34

In the dynamic of the globalization process the external debt has become the articulatory axis of anew and more sophisticated form ofexploitation ofthe periphery by introducing significant changes in the underdeveloped societies that tend to reinforce their

condition.>* This results from the way the process ofindebtedness has unfolded, although its roots are to be found in the accumulative mechanisms of dependence, associated with the presence of foreign capital in the Latin American postwar industrialization model: industrial development promoted by foreign capital that generated mechanisms to deepen and extend its control over dependent capitalism. These spiraling mechanisms arise from the way in which imperialist enterprises operate: part of the profits obtained is reinvested and the remainder is sent abroad; this is compounded by payments for patents, brand names, technical services, etc., whose results

are reflected by negative payment balances. In order to compensate for the deficit recourse is made to loans from abroad. Those loans translate into the growth of debt servicing payments, thus _ increasing the deficit and the need for more external funding. Foreign capital provokes a de-capitalization that demands new foreign capital. “Foreign capital has turned into a need for the functioning of dependent capitalism and, at the same time, into its capitalizing and de-capitalizing component. It is like drug abuse: drugs kill, but

are necessary to stay alive.”°4 Given the magnitude reached, the tendency to grow and the impossibility of paying off debts, a vicious circle of indebtedness is created that leads to recurrent payment crises and thus to renego- tiation processes. One simple fact illustrates the process: in 1950 Latin America’s external debt stood at $2311 billion and, by the year 2000, it had grown to more than $706 billion. In fifty years it has increased more than three-hundred times, despite the fact that a figure superior to the total of the current debt has left Latin America in the form ofinterest payments. 35

The process of renegotiation is more than just an economic pro-

cess; it is the privileged mechanism for creating better conditions for the transnationalized domination ofcapital due to the conditions in which the renegotiation is effected. These conditions include letters of intent through which indebted states commit themselves to undertaking certain policies and measures so as to be granted new credits. These are the well-known adjustment programs. These policies and measures—liberalization of trade, privatization of public enterprises, elimination of subsidies, reduction of the fiscal deficit, etc.—are

aimed at creating better conditions for the domination and exploitation of foreign capital. In fact, the IMF adjustment programs are government programs that impact on the direction of production, trade, services and policies affecting the living standard of most of the population. They are the product of negotiations in which the party with greater power imposes its conditions on the less powerful. In this dynamic the IMF has become an apparatus ofthe large creditor states, whose loans serve not only to increase their wealth, but

also their domination.*> The combination of measures taken by the debtor countries to satisfy the demands oftheir creditors appear as sovereign decisions of those states, whereas in reality they are not, but rather respond to more sophisticated mechanisms of domination that through conditionality and renegotiation institute the policy of underdevelopment of the dominated and dependent countries. Gonzalez Casanova (1996) has made an analogy between the debt process and the formal and real subordination of workers to capital; the reproduction of domination of the former to the latter is not based on immediate violence: with their wages workers are going to produce and reproduce capital; with the external debt indebted governments are going to produce and reproduce capitalism as a global phenomenon. Even if it is redundant, it is worth mentioning that this is not only a process that arrives from abroad; there are transnationalized 36

factions within national bourgeoisies which are the beneficiaries of these processes and thus promote them from a position of power.

“Studies undertaken in Argentina, for example, reveal that 21 national economic groups and transnational companies—in total 40 economic groupings—controlled 604 enterprises in 1973, 1020

in 1983, and 1091 in 1987.”°° These 40 groups that constitute the

cupola of economic power in Argentina continued increasing their power in the 1990s. The concentration of power and wealth occurs among a few industrialized countries, but transnationalized factions of the national

bourgeoisie participate as associates and promote it from positions of power. We may confidently speak of the gradual formation ofa transnational oligarchy benefiting from the processes ofcapitalist accumulation at global level, made up ofthe finance oligarchy ofthe hegemonic centers and the transnationalized factions of the benefited national bourgeoisies. That confluence ofinterests is in the matrix of the surprising generalization and universalization of neoliberal politics in the underdeveloped world and in the application of so-called structural adjustments. By way of structural adjustments the underdeveloped countries have become inserted |in a specific way into the globalizing capitalism. That way of insertion also affects the states of underdeveloped countries; what generally seems like a redesigning process but actually is a complex phenomenon related to the transnationalization of specific spheres where the national society does not have a saying, such as economical policy and development. Within this process of transnationalization of the state,” with distinct features in the center and the periphery, it is the states of the periphery which are redesigned and which privatize a large part of their national economic and social heritage to the benefit of the financial oligarchies owning transnational companies. The central states continue being strong states and although they might privatize, they are capable of imposing on the rest of the world the policies that suit the dominant groups: the transnational or transnationalized 37

financial oligarchies. In summary, with globalization, a result of the intensification and expansion ofthe laws ofcapitalism, the concentration and centralization of capital and power reach their maximum expression as transnational concentration and centralization, and a greater polarization between wealth and povertyiscreated. As Lenin noted, “.. . the typical ruler of the world became finance capital . . . a power that has already made peculiarly large strides on the road of concentration, so that literally several hundred billionaires and millionaires hold in their

hands the fate of the whole world.”°8 With globalization the class nature of underdevelopment is more neatlyestablishedintermsofexploitationofthemajorityofthe population ofthe underdeveloped countries bythetransnational bourgeoisie —of the North and the South—thus, likewise in class terms, the develop-

ment ofthe periphery begins with the liberation from that exploitation. Development and underdevelopment continue being the two sides of the expansion ofcapital and thus, the possibility for underdeveloped countries to attain their development is essentially associated with the rupture from and the restructuring of their relations of dependence. This rupture demands a combination of requisites or premises derived from the current evolution conditions of the world system ofcapital. In other words, not just any strategy or policy can lead to development, and no country can undertake it without having specific means to deal with the concrete situation that has to be faced. What are the requisites and conditions that a country must bring together to develop a policy that would actually allow it to lay the grounds for a process of development within the conditions of neoliberal globalization? In order to come up with a possible response to that question we have to start with the principal tendencies and factors of globalization and the possibility of neutralizing them or utilizing them to the benefit of a revolutionary social project. In first place, given that globalization is a polarizing factor both within social formations and among them, the revolutionary power has to develop the means oflimiting these tendencies. 38

In second place, given that the principal actors of globalization are the large monopolies constituted in transnational companies, the revolutionary power must have the capacity to negotiate with them by taking advantage of the real breaches opened up by the contradictions ofthe system. In third place, given that the dependence created by globalizing trends is beneficial to the group of states and large monopolies holding power in the established world order, the revolutionary power must be capable of constructing a social order capable of withstanding the pressure from the hegemonic centers of the system while undertaking its project. In fourth place, given that the development ofscience and technology is playing a central role in the new advances of capitalism and that it is monopolized by the hegemonic centers, it is necessary to create the conditions to access it. In fifth place, given that globalization like any social process is not exempt from contradictions and that no political project can win without allies, it is necessary to grasp those contradictions and take advantage of them to the benefit of the project. On the basis of those elements. we can assess the proposals presented for overcoming underdevelopment and, by evaluating them in relation to the reality so far analyzed, visualize the conditions that any country must bring together in order to undertake a project actually conducive to development. NOTES 1.

Samir Amin, E/ desafio de la mundializacion.

2.

Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1. 3rd German edition translated by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling. London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowery & Co., 1992. Accessed at http//www. turksheadreview.com/library/texts/marx-capital1.html.

3.

Ibid. 39

Ibid. Ernest Mandel, Tratado de economia marxista, vol. 1, 122-123.

Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1. 3rd German edition translated by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling. London: Swan Sonnenschein,

Lowery & Co., 1992. Accessed at http//www.

turksheadreview.com/library/texts/marx-capital1.html. Carlos Vilas, “El Estado en la globalizacion,” 8.

Samir Amin, La acumulacién a escala mundial, 32. Karl Marx, “Foreign Trade.” In Capital, vol. 3, chap. 5. 1st German

ed. translated by

Ernest Untermann. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr and Co. Coopoerative, 1909. Accessed at

The Online Library of Liberty at http//oll.libertyfund.org/tittle/967/30886. 10. Héctor Silva Michelena and Armando transnacionalizacién,”

?

Cérdova, “América Latina: el largo ciclo de la

in Samir Amin and Pablo Gonzalez, La nueva organizacion capita-

lista mundial vista desde el sur, vol. 1: 51-88.

1A. Carlos Vilas, “La nacién como atributo del pueblo,” Encuentro, no. 26: 6. Ze Samir Amin, El desafio de la mundializacién. 135 Orlando Caputo, “La economia mundial actual y la ciencia econdémica,” 16.

14. Lucila Finkel, La organizacion social del trabajo, 60. (er UNRISD,

Estado de desorden: los efectos sociales de la globalizacidn, 153.

16. Eugenio Espinosa, Monopolios transnacionales y capital, 38-39. WA Lucila Finkel, Op. cit., 62.

18. Manuel Monereo, Ideas para otro desarrollo, 13. 1k2)5 Alejandro Dabat, “Globalizacién mundial y alternativa de desarrollo,” Nueva Sociedad, no. 130: 146.

20. Wim Dierckxsens, “Globalizaci6on: Ifmites de crecimiento e historicidad de las transnacionales,” Pasos, no. 4: 152. 40

2 Al. Charles Oman, “Globalizacién, la nueva competencia,” 13.

22. UNRISD, Op. cit., 8. 23 Alejandro Dabat, Op. Ge: 148. 24. PNUD, /nforme sobre ¥ desarrollo humano, 25.

2S: Giovanni Arrighi, “La globalizacion, la soberanfa estatal y la interminable acumulacién del capital,” Tareas, no. 109.

26. Osvaldo Martinez, “La globalizacién de la economfa mundial: la realidad y el mito,” Cuba Socialista, no. 2: 14.

27; William Gates, El camino del futuro, 1995 . 28. Charles Oman, Op. cit.

29. Alejandro ees Op. cit.: 147-148. 30. eave Castells, La era de la informacién, vol. 1, 42. . one Xavier Gorostiaga, “América Latina frente a los desafios globales,” Cuadernos de Nuestra América, vol. 3, no. 17. i

-

D2. Ruy Mauro Marini, “La integracién: un proyecto supranacional solidario,” PoliticayCul|

tura, year 1, no. 2.

p3. Silvio Bar6, Globalizacion y desarrollo mundial, 6. 34. German Sanchez, “Reflexiones sobre el neoliberalismo en América Latina y el Caribe,” 22.

55: Silvio Bard, Globalizacién y desarrollo mundial, 8. 36. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Obras Escogidas, vol. 5, 377.

7. PNUD, /nforme sobre el desarrollo humano 1993, 3. 38. PNUD, Informe sobre el desarrolio humano 1999, 3. 9: Ibid. 41

40. Xavier Gorostiaga, Op. cit. 41. Samir Amin, El desafio de la mundializacién.

42. PNUD,

Informe sobre el desarrollo humano, 42-45.

43. Carlos Vilas, E/ Estado en la globalizazion, 2.

44,

Rafael Cervantes et al., Transnacionalizacion y desnacionalizacién. Ensayos sobre el capitalismo contempordneo.

4S. Silvio Bard, Globalizaciony desarrollo mundial, 16.

46. Silvio Baré, “Globalizacién y nueva institucionalidad mundial,” Andlisis de Coyuntura, no. 1:

23-35. 47. Silvio Bard, Globalizaciony desarrollo mundial, 19-20. 48. UNRISD, Op. cit., 75.

49.

Ibid, 65.

50. Juan Antonio Blanco, “Tercer milenio, apuntes para una reflexién,” Acuario, no. 5. at. Thetonio Dos Santos, /mperialismoydependencia, 310-320.

52: Ibid. 53: José Bell Lara and Delia Luisa Lopez, La novisima dependencia en la nueva América Latina,

15-19. 54. Vania Bambirra, Capitalismo dependiente latinoamericano, 96-97.

Sa: Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, “El capitalismo global y la democracia,” in Samir Amin and Pablo Gonzalez, La nueva organizacion capitalista mundial vista desde el Sur, vol. 3, 46-47.

56. José Bell Lara and Delia Luisa Lopez, Op. cit., 18. of Ibid.

42

: Proposals and Conditions

CHAPTER2

: for Development

The theme ofalternatives and ways to attain development has ceased being a EaGHEs in social science, and it would appear that current literature has reduced the problem to the search for competitiveness in order to attain a better insertion in the globalized economy, while there is a dramatic expansion ofstudies on particular aspects ofunderdevelopment: poverty, inequality, social deterioration, environmental problems, etc., and an emphasis on solutions implemented via so-called fs ace projects. A more diligent analysis makes it possible to visualize that, in practice, there are three proposals for the underdeveloped world: the dominant neoliberal model; the one drawn up in.our continent by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC); and the one that Is traversed with the leading thread of the theory of dependence. In this chapter we are going to synthetically present the main aspects of the abovelisted proposals by exploring some oftheir links with theories ofdevelopment, like an Ariadne’s thread leading to what we understand as the conditions for a real development project.

The Neoliberal Project Neoliberal ideas have had a wide and effective diffusion in our con-

tinent and it is not our objective to present this theory in all its 43

magnitude; instead, at the risk of simplifying it we will sate its basic dimensions. These include the proposition that capitalism is the best regime possible; that exploitation does not exist; that the distribution of income between capitalists and wage earners is the agreed recompense for each social group; that the capitalist system left to its own fate is stable and effective; that state intervention generates inefficiency; hence, the advocacy of free trade and the free movement of capital, projecting the image that “. . . the currently industrialized countries have prospered thanks to trade. Every effort should be made to ensure that the developing countries follow the same road that leads to progress.” 'Moreover, neoliberal theoreticians claim that countries have the right to move freely in the international arena, without domination or subordination among them. As one can see there are numerous points of contact with theories of modernization. The practical application of neoliberal policies has been linked to the interests of transnational monopolistic capital. Latin America’s external debt crisis in the 1980s not only resulted in what is known as the lost decade, but also in those countries losing the possibility of negotiating with the hegemonic nations. It was in those conditions that the Washington Consensus, which emerged out of the conference at the Institute for International Economics based in that capital, was imposed. The consensus expresses the position of the U.S. government, the international financial institutions and the right-wing thinktanks that draw up neoliberal arguments.

The conference identified ten aspects that served as a basis for attaining a broad consensus in terms ofthe reforms in political economy that indebted countries needed to have as an objective. Those aspects are fiscal discipline, public spending cuts, tax reforms—including indirect taxes and the extension

of the tax base—, financial liberalization, a type of competitive exchange, freedom of trade, direct foreign investment, priva44

tization of state industries, deregulation and protection of

property rights.

The imposition of the Consensus has translated into the generalization of economic policies postulated by neoliberalism, articulated in four basic axes: 1. State economic deregulation and the privatization processes that accompany it.

2. Strict control—and reduction—of wage levels. 3. An external opening up and liberalization of the flow of foreign merchandise and capital, not of the workforce. 4. A preference for the interests of moneyed—or finance capital.? The argument for that policy is based on the assumption that the regulation of economic relations generates inefficiencies in resource allocation and thus affects well-being. “Neoliberals look forward to a minimalist state that places the market first because

they consider it the most effective force; the fewer the restrictions imposed on the free play of the market, the better for the national economy, society and governments.”* In fact the neoliberal state does intervene, although to a great-

er degree at the macro level, by creating better conditions for the functioning of capital, either by dictating aperture measures, or by privatizing public assets, regulating the labor market with the famous work flexibility, establishing types of exchange, imposing policies, etc. Hence, what the state v. market opposition in the neoliberal context actually seeks to promote is another kind of state: a neoliberal one in which state apparatuses are utilized for a realignment of forces and 45

social groups, of enterprises and workers, with a redefinition of tremendous magnitude in terms oftheir access to resources, to well-being and future prospects.° Since the problematic of development was put on the table after World War II and the first formulations appeared in the North, grouped under the heading of modernization theories, the market has been at the heart of those proposals. Throughout nearly sixty years the arguments have varied, but the message has been the same. “There is only one way of industrializing: by adopting the fundamental institutions of the contemporary period: the market above all and, with the market, the autonomy of the civil society, political pluralism and secularization . . . that is, to accept as a positive and inescapable fact what Trubeskoi in the 1920s did not hesitate to call the ‘nightmare of universal Euro-

peanization.””® We are not demonizing the market since there is no absolute contraposition between state and market in development; then, the real problem is: what state and what market do we need and for what? For the social actors the state and the market are instances of mediation that facilitate specific economic, political and cultural objectives among others.’ There are a number ofstudies that demonstrate the decisive role of the state in the promotion ofdevelopment, including those referring to the experience of the Asian Tigers in which the role of the state has been significant for those models ofexport capitalism. Historical experience indicates that the invisible hand of the market has not been capable of promoting development in any underdeveloped country. “In the current conditions, the goods and services markets and also those of capital—the latter with autonomous growth—are internationalized and highly monopolistic, dominated by a reduced group of transnational companies that operate under the protection of the governments oftheir country oforigin.”§ 46

One analysis of the behavior of Latin American economy and society in the last twenty years—the era of neoliberalism—demonstrates that neoliberal policies have been the instrument ofa greater subordination of Third World countries to transnational monopolistic capital. This is compounded by the extraordinary social cost that its application has signified. A study by Pablo Gonzdlez Casanova reveals that neoliberal policies have contributed to increasing the transference of surpluses from the periphery to the center due to interest charges and debt payments, deterioration of the terms of exchange and high remittances of profits from foreign investments in a magnitude superior to all of the prior stage of imperialim’s globalization. “Among the countries included, the number of those that transfer net assets to the developed countries has risen to 41 from Africa, 23 from Asia, 9 from Central and Eastern Eu-

rope, 10 from the Middle East, and 32 from Latin America and the

Caribbean.”?

Despite the current flood of criticism from the majority of the population, who is not in agreement with neoliberal postulates and despite the disastrous social consequences that these have had on the continent, neoliberalism is the dominant paradigm and the symbol ofglobalization underway. Independently of Hayek’s or Friedman’s arguments, if their theories had not coincided with the strategic interests of the transnational monopolistic bourgeoisie at the moment ofcapitalist development, neoliberalism would not have had the success that it has enjoyed, and that is the reason why it is the ideological force behind the formulators of the system’s politics. It is necessary to highlight this because the illusion is still alive in our continent that -a simple change of cabinet, minister or that pressure on presidents can force a change of economic policy, ignoring the fact ‘that behind it there are specific class forces and their interests. “Moreover, ifa change of president threatens the interests of the ‘transnational monopolistic bourgeoisie, this faction resorts to its 47

Cerberus, the IMF, to impose conditions and commitments on the new government. All of the above is complemented by the effective support ofthe media and the national formulators of policies, who present them as the only possible way of modernizing the economy by attracting foreign investment, making it competitive and taking better advan-

tage of the trends of globalization.'® This means that behind this proposal is the power, and the power of power, on account of which, in conjunction with criticism, other factors are needed in order to convert it into a material force by raising viable alternatives in the mobilization and strengthening of the popular forces. The ECLAC Proposal The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) was constituted in 1948 on the initiative of the Chilean diplomat Hernan Santoa Cruz. Its objective was and is “. . . to offer an up-to-date panorama ofthe evolution of development of the countries and the subcontinent with a global perspective which, while highlighting differences and disparities among nations, also points out coincidences and tendencies ofthe region as a whole.”"! Raul Prebisch’s incorporation into this commission expanded its remit from the purely diagnostic appraisal to the formulation of ideas aimed at promoting development in the region, which was undertaken via the historical study of the international division oflabor. The study highlighted two groups of countries: those of the center and those of the periphery. This analysis constituted the cornerstone of the ECLAC theory to explain the unequal nature of the global capitalist system: the center-periphery paradigm. This is the basis of its concepts and ofits vision of the dynamics ruling the relations between the two poles of the system that articulates its development proposal. For the ECLAC, the center and the periphery make up a single system with specific functions based on the productive structures 48

of each one of them. These structures have their particularities. In the center they are homogenous and diversified, which means that there are no great imbalances of productivity among its distinct sectors and that the center is capable of producing a range of manufactured items both to meet internal demands and to export, while the structure of the periphery is heterogeneous and specialized: it has high and low productivity sectors and the export activity is concentrated in a few primary products. These structural differences determine the function of each part of the system within the , international division oflabor. The center exports a wide gamut of goods, especially manufactured items, which are exchanged for food and raw materials from the periphery. Hence, the starting point of its analysis was the criticism of the classical theory of international trade, given that the real behavior of the latter contradicted the theory of comparative advantage and its two principal postulates: it did not procure the mechanisms for maintaining a balance between the prices of primary goods and manufactured items. This produced a deterioration affecting the former and the fruits of technical progress were not equitably shared. The deterioration of the terms of exchange affects the growth pattern ofthe countries that depend on their income from primary products exports. Thus was born the idea of a state policy aimed at eliminating the effects of that interchange and promoting a more balanced development. This demanded tariff protection and a pollicy ofindustrialization as the axis of development, initially conceived of as economic growth. In order to attain that it was necessary to create a strong state capable of implementing measures to advance the change sought. The role of the state as an agent of development ~ translated into:

> Creating an infrastructure that would lead to industrial development. 49

> Assuming investments in strategic sectors to induce the development

of other sectors—electricity,

oil, etc.—which

implied the creation ofa public sector to promote economic dynamism.

> Economic programming expressed in coordinated policies of import substitution, promoting industry—subsidies, protectionist tariffs, etc. Due to the prejudices of the era, in the midst of the Cold War and anti-communism the ECLAC initially used the term programming, later replacing it for planning. It assigned a place to foreign capital, given the lack of that productive factor in the national sphere and, finally, proposed Latin American integration as a vehicle for expanding national markets and promoting industrial development. Analyzing the ideas of ECLAC in its initial stage we can conclude that its vision of development was ruled by the image/objective offered by the industrialized countries of the system and that, in consequence, the development policy that it promoted was strongly industrialist.

Through approaches sometimes successive and other times overlapping, the ECLAC dealt with different aspects of the Latin American development problematic from strictly economic points of view such as the critique of the traditional theory of international trade and the nature ofcenter-periphery relations; proposals ofindustrialization as the basis of inward development—as opposed to outward development—in the stage preceding the replacement of imports; the need for planning, financing, foreign investment and regional integration. As the real processes of development in Latin America failed to respond to the comission’s expectations and certain conflicts became apparent in its dynamics, at the end of the 1960s the ECLAC

extended its focus to the social dimension of development and other phenomena, what came to be called its integral vision of development. 50

The ECLAC has approached new facets of the problematic of development, but its internal coherence is based on the concept of center-periphery relations and the deliberate incorporation of technical progress. In the new world circumstances, those of globalization, the ECLAC has drawn up a proposal that, under the general heading of Productive Transformation with Equity (PTE) constitutes, according to Gert Rosenthal, its former general secre-

tary, “. ..a combination of orientations on how governments and civil societies should approach development in the 1990s and in

times ahead.” The central idea of the ECLAC proposal is that productive transformation should be based on the deliberate incorporation oftechnical progress, and based on this premise other propositions are articulated, among which it is worth noting the following: > Productive transformation must be systematic in nature; it should not cover only industry but all the productive

systems in their conjunction in order to lead to the progressive homogeneity of production levels. > The PTE is not confined solely to the enterprise; it must take into account the whole social conjunction.

>The PTE must be compatible with protection of the en-

vironment. >The PTE is not sustainable in time without social cohesion, which in its turn requires greater equity; but greater equity cannot be aspired to without economic growth, which poses a symbiotic relation between growth and equity. > Neither economic nor social policies are neutral in relation to distribution and both influence the capacity for growth; there has to be an integrated focus. 51

> Regional integration and intra-regional cooperation contribute to affirming the PTE. > The style of state intervention in market economies has

to be renewed." In summary, for the ECLAC, “The 1950s proposal responded to the asymmetric center-periphery relations with industrialization; the proposal of the 1990s responded to the globalization of the econo-

my with international competitiveness.”'*Thus, while the PTE proposal is a renovation of the ECLAC thinking, it also gives continuity to the master lines of its first twenty years of existence, adapted to new times. The thinking of the ECLAC in its original formulation, related to the center-periphery paradigm and the promotion ofindustrialization via coordinated policies of import substitution, responded to the interests of the industrial factions of the Latin America bourgeoisie and, in a certain sense, to the strategic interests of the system ina given moment ofits development, post-World War Il, which Theotonio Dos Santos conceptualized as the New Depen-

dency.'° A symbiosis was thus originated between the beneficiaries of capitalist modernization—the industrial bourgeoisie, the middle classes and factions of the working class linked to the industrial sector—and the ECLAC’s theories, which allowed it to monopolize for a time developmental thinking on the continent. But the practical experiences and the real processes that were developed did not respond to the expectations of the ECLAC proposals; simply put, they led to the crisis of the 1980s. For these reasons and given the political moment experienced by the continent, the ECLAC theories had an enormous impact and its recommendations became the bases of political practice in many countries. But the ECLAC is an agency of the UN System and while in the time of Raul Prebisch its initial formulations could, in certain as52

pects, manifest themselves as counter to the system—although always with a certain technocratic slant claiming the neutrality of social sciences—at present that autonomy is more restricted and the old/new ECLAC proposal is an adaptation to the new international environment in line with the neoliberal paradigm. A Rosenthal’s dissertation starts by posing that the ECLAC proposal is an adaptation to changes in current socioeconomic circumstances and within this it highlights two coincidences with the dominant paradigm. The first is “ . . the recognition that macroeconomic balances are important; the institution fills a vacuum in its original proposals,” and the second is that, “. . . just like the para-

digm in vogue—neoliberalism—we are postulating a policy of commercial liberalization, a more rational assignation of resources, the

elimination of the anti-export bias of economic policy, the need for fiscal adjustments and internal coherence between monetary exchange and fiscal measures.”'© The foregoing means opening up, eliminating subsidies and damaging the national enterprise by affording space to the transnationals. The new ECLAC proposal is characterized by the following: 1. It starts with a certain adjustment to the context and to the functioning of the economy and society as resulting from ofthe application of neoliberal policies.

2. It assigns the state a lesser role as compared to the one accorded to it in the 1950s. “The greatest successes would appear to be associated with a style of intervention in line with market functioning and trends that avoid significant distortions in relative prices.”'” The ECLAC limitations stem from its unclear definition of de~ velopment; to a large extent it continues to regard it in terms of economic growth in one way or another advocating modernization; and its pronouncements remain somewhat technocratic. 53

Possibly, this technocratic quality is what has prevented it from seeing the relation between the state and the dominant class and what has led it to consider the state as an apparatus independent ofthe interests ofthe latter, capable of promoting development independently ofits interests. The exploitation concept is absent from the ECLAC language when it refers to center-periphery and capital-labor relations; hence, with a certain naiveté it perceives the centers as being interested in the development of the peripheral countries. Moreover, from that perspective it has always claimed the possibility of different sectors, groups and classes to subsume their interests to those ofthe nation. The analyses made along this line, based on the PTE, do not take into account the real policies implemented in Latin America by the majority of governments. In the processes ofindustrialization under capitalism the industrial factions of the bourgeoisie tend to play a leading role. In the societies of early industrialization, what the ECLAC called a spontaneous process of import substitution, that very process had promoted the creation of an industrial bourgeoisie and its differentiation from the traditional oligarchy and the commercial bourgeoisie, therefore, to this bourgeoisie “. . . the theorization of the ECLAC must have seemed like the exteriorization ofwhat it really thought and felt.”'® The ECLAC proposal is interventionist in type: it conceives of the state as the fundamental agent in the policy of development. In this direction the ECLAC’s points of view of that period coincide with those of the strata directly or indirectly linked to the state apparatus. In this respect we should bear in mind historical experience, which demonstrates that in the Latin American countries, where

the industrialization process began later, the middle-class sectors played an important role in the push for the industrialization of these societies. Rodriguez (1980) has demonstrated that there is a convergence

between the ECLAC’s sociopolitical project and populist ideologies. 54

It might be more appropriate to note that both concepts in Latin America are related to industrialization processes as they occurred in history and for that reason have similar characteristics. In the case of the ECLAC that is more analytical and abstract, but there

are coincidences.'? We note in passing that historical populisms in

Latin America impelled the interests of the industrial factions of the bourgeoisie. In the 1990s the situation was different. The world system found itselfin the stage of globalization. One ofthe characteristics of the present junction is the transnationalization of the national bourgeoisie factions and of sectors of the Latin American states that have to do with the design of economic policies, which has contributed to the success of neoliberal policies. Just as in the years in which the ECLAC theory emerged there were social groups for which that ECLAC theory was the explanation of what they thought and felt, today there are social groups in the North and the South that are the beneficiaries of neoliberal policies, which express their interests in theoretical terms. For that reason the following question could be posed: is the application of Productive Transformation with Equity viable and possible within an underdeveloped bourgeois society? What social forces will sustain it if the national bourgeoisie and technocracy are affiliated to neoliberalism? Can this policy revive a downsized state, whose public sector has been reduced, if not eliminated,

and thus has little space available for implementing compensatory policies? And, above all, a key question: what can be done by a state that is a hostage of debt payment and conditionality, that in “sovereign” fashion adopts in its negotiations with the IMF and the World Bank the recommendations ofthese agencies and implements them? And another essential question: what is the _ profile of equity and how can it be achieved? Because sometimes the same term has distinct meanings according to who interprets it. For the World Bank equity is equality of opportunities, and 55

we are not going to argue the falsity of this concept when that equality of opportunities is measured by the market. Moreover, the implementation of that policy implies a reduction of social spending; that is, on education, health, social security, etc.; and

not only the reduction, but the privatization of those services, which means transforming them, from a right to which one had access as a citizen, to a merchandise access to which depends on purchasing power. Let us return to the initial question on the possibility and viability of the PTE in the current conditions of Latin America, because according to the ECLAC those are the conditions of the 44% of the population living in poverty, with a workforce the 80% of which has an education up to sixth grade in countries in which the expenditure on research and development is minimal. Can a country with a poorly qualified, poorly nourished work-

force in precarious health conditions propose to develop circles of quality, of production, of knowledge for competitiveness, the information society, etc.? In addition to these arguments are the practical results of the last twelve years; the last five of which the ECLAC has already labeled the lost half decade. The application of the PTE by Latin American governments is glaring in its absence; thus, practice demonstrates that such policy is neither viable nor possible; and moreover, does

not respond to the interests of the present dominant groups in Latin America. In summary, while it might have an attractive language, might reveal actual problems or point to real aspects to bear in mind, the ECLAC’s PTE has not moved beyond a technocratic proposal given that its projection is based on the assumption that it is possible to implement autonomous and competitive capitalist development within the current correlation of forces on the continent. At the same time, some of its indications should be borne in mind

when it comes to implementing a real policy of development on the part of a revolutionary power. 56

The Disconnection Proposal This proposal is linked to the theory of dependency and to the perspec-

tive of the world-systems,*° a theory put forward by the works of Immanuel Wallerstein, posing the rupture with the system and thus, the possibility of revolution, which, though in our view is the most positive, is also the most difficult in terms ofviability, because the norm, constructed by history and reality, is connection, insertion

in the parameters of the system, even if it constantly generates the development of underdevelopment and the development of development. This has come to be thought of as the natural order of things, an ideological premise that operates in favor of the system. For these reasons it is necessary to go back to the antecedents of this proposal, to the conditions in which the theory backing it and its fundamental bases emerged. _

The decade of the 1960s in Latin America was marked by three

facts: the victory of the Cuban Revolution and its socialist definition, the wave of popular struggles with a strong insurrectional imprint in Latin America, and the failure of the predominant model based on Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) in line with the ECLAC proposals. It is against this background that a group ofsocial scientists, seeking for the essential determinants of Latin American society, began to question predominant concepts on this issue both those emanating from the ECLAC and those of modernization. The proposals that would later become known as the theory of dependency are to be found in the early works of André Gunder Frank, Fernando Henrique Cardozo and Enzo Faletto. Although there are profound differences in the political focuses of these authors, common elements can be found:

> A structural focus on the international system, of which Latin American societies form part, in positions of subordination and fulfilling determined functions. 57

> Conceiving ofthis system as the product ofthe genesis and expansion ofcapitalism. > Reference to the general laws of the capitalist system as indispensable to comprehend the phenomena ocurring in the underdeveloped societies of Latin America. For Frank, “. . . contemporary underdevelopment is, to a large extent, the historical product of the past and current economy and of other relations between the underdeveloped satellites and the present developed metropolitan countries . . . these relations are an essential part of the structure and development ofthe capitalist system at world scale in their conjunction.”?' The system functions on the basis of three contradictions, which are: “The expropriation of the surplus of many and its appropriation by a few; the polarization of the capitalist system in a metropolitan center and peripheral satellites; and the continuity of the fundamental structure of the capitalist system all throughout the history ofits expansion and transformation due to the persistence or recreation of these contradictions in all parts and at all times.”22 Grounded on these aspects Frank elaborates his idea of the metropolis-satellite chain of exploitation, which forms a continuum from the metropolitan center to the relation between rural and urban areas in the underdeveloped countries. But Frank has a defined political position and his work is directed as much against those who believe that autonomous capitalist development on the continent is possible as against those who claim the possibility of a bourgeois revolution promoting development. His analyses conclude in his thesis of the development of underdevelopment to characterize capitalist growth in the region. In his early works Frank insists on the determining nature of metropolis-satellite relations and they have a slant that could be described as economy-centered. However, in his later works he refers to social classes and politics, but they form part of the controversy over dependence. $8

Cardozo and Faletto (1969) acknowledge that underdevelopment is the product of the insertion of these countries in the capitalist system, but for them it is necessary to move beyond the structural characteristics of the underdeveloped economies and go deeper into their historical links with the world market and on how social groups, the classes that defined the foreign relations of these countries were constituted, “. . . because the situation of under-

development socially implies a form of domination.” For these authors, “. . . the dependence concept is utilized as a specific type of ‘significant-causal’ concept—the specific implications ofhistorically given relations—and not as a merely ‘mechanical-causal’ concept that underlines former external determination in order to then pro-

duce ‘internal consequences.””*° In summary, for them the notion of dependence directly refers to the conditions of the existence and functioning of the economic and political system, thus demonstrating the link between the two in terms of both the internal and external ambits of the countries, although emphasis is placed on the internal plane, given that in the underdeveloped countries the external is expressed in the relations among internal classes and social groups. Based on those premises they undertook an analysis ofthe _ behavior of Latin American economies and societies and put forward a typology of those societies. The book Dependence and Development in Latin America (1969) has become a classic on the region. At the same time, during the 1960s and into the early 1970s,

a group of Latin American social scientists in the Socioeconomic Studies Center (CESO) of the University of Chile and other institutions, who had associations with revolutionary movements on the continent, made their analyses from Marxist positions. They include Theotonio Dos Santos, Vania Bambirra, Ruy Mauro Marini, Tomas Vasconi, Anibal Quijano, Orlando Caputto and Octavio lanni.

For these authors, dependence is understood not only as an external factor limiting economic development, but as an internal phenomenon that constitutes 2 kind of socioeconomic formation 59

whose essence is given by its condition as dependent, and that condition is the fundamental explanation of underdevelopment. While there are subtle differences among the various authors and a strong economic imprint, the foregoing is their essential line. Thus, for Theotonio Dos Santos,

Dependence is a situation in which the economy ofa group of countries is conditioned by the development and expansion of another economy to which theirs is subjected. The relation of interdependence between two or more economies and between these and world trade, take on forms of de-

pendence when the dominant countries can expand and selfpropel, while the dependent ones can only be a reflection of that expansion, which can act positively or negatively on

their immediate development.”4 Mauro Marini and Octavio lanni are more specific in their Marxist focus. Both insist on the functioning of the system as a whole,

of which the relation of dependence is an essential component. For Marini dependence “. . . is a relation of subordination among formally independent nations in the famework of which the production relations of the subordinated nations are modified or recreated to ensure the amplified reproduction of dependence.”° “Structural dependence is the necessary product of the expanded reproduction of capital at world scale . . . structural dependence is neither restricted nor confined to one single sphere ofactivity, whether economic or political, nor is it solely explained in the context of one of those activities.”*° In other words, dependence tends to permeate on a variable scale all spheres of society, hence the studies on how that dependence is manifested in distinct spheres of our societies. Also, for Octavio lanni, the concepts of imperialism and dependence are complementary (paired) twins, reciprocally necessary and determined: “They correspond to two complimentary, interdependent, diverse, antagonistic and dialectical poles ofthe capitalist 60

system considered as a whole.” It should be noted that the dependentists refer their theoretical antecedents to the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Hilferdin, Rosa Luxemburg and other Marxist theore-

ticians, to the point of posing that the theory of dependency was a

complement of the theory of imperialism.?° In the words of one of

its exponents: “The theory of dependency must be understood as the creative application of Marxism-Leninism to the comprehension of the specifics ofthe laws ofthe capitalist production mode movement in countries like those of Latin America.”*? The focus of the dependency theory prompted a fierce controversy that still continues, given that its principal advocates linked their theoretical activity to militant commitments in various political organizations. In addition, the convulsive realities of the 1960s confirmed the assimilation of Latin American industrial development by foreign capital, basically by that of the United States, with the consequent non-viability of autonomous capitalist development. The Cuban Revolution’s transition to socialism demonstrated that another option for development was possible. Nowadays one cannot refer to an interpretation of Latin American development without alluding to the contributions and limitations of this current; for that reason it could be appropriate to make an initial balance ofthis theorizing. What was the contribution of the dependency approach to _ knowledge in Latin America?

1.The capitalist nature of our underdevelopment. It should not be overlooked that the terms underdevelopment and Third World arose after World War II to designate colonized and neocolonized countries. The very term underdevelopment etymologically expresses the idea of development underneath, thus implicitly referring to the current industrialized capitalist countries as a model to attain. Karl Marx’s De te fabula narratur! (The tale is told of you!) has here 61

a new option ofclasses, not to denounce the horrors of capitalism, but to situate in the perspective ofthe future an ideal model in relation to which there was a lagging behind. The situation of the countries dominated by imperialism was seen as an earlier stage already overcome by the dominant countries. In summary, underdevelopment is not the absence of development; it is the specific form of capitalist development of our

countries,~° it is the historical result of the incorporation ofthese regions into the world capitalist dynamic. This notion provided solid arguments against the stagist approach of underdevelopment predominant in the 1960s, which considered Latin America as a feudal economy; as well as against the dualistic approach

of Latin American societies prevailing in part of academia and held by most ofthe traditional left. On the political plane, these concepts were reflected by proposals for a bourgeois-democratic revolution. Imperialism appeared as an externa! force that was preventing the development of national capitalism. What is interesting about these concepts is that they informed both rightwing nationalism and a wide range of the left, particularly the communist parties. 2. There is a relationship of exploitation between the developed capitalist countries and the underdeveloped capitalist countries. 3. The relationship of dependence is not static. With the expansion ofcapitalism the articulation of the dependent countries to the hegemonic centers ofcapitalism changes, but the situation of dependence is maintained.*! 4. The adoption of policies contrary to the national interests of the underdeveloped nations by the dominant national classes is due to the fact that their interests as a social class coincide with imperialist interests.>? 62

5. The accumulative mechanisms of dependence are at the root of the external debt of Latin American countries.>* The greater the degree of dependent capitalist development, the greater the

degree of indebtedness.*4 6. The possibility of development for underdeveloped countries is linked to the rupture of the chains of dependence and to the overcoming ofthe capitalist system. 7. The political conclusion of the above points, is that only a socialist revolution is capable ofliquidating the ties of dependence. In the early 1970s the theory of dependency entered a kind of impasse; partly because new phenomena arising in the develop_ ment of capitalism were taken as refutations of it, as was the case of the New Industrialized Countries (NICs), which seemed to challenge the thesis of dependence by achieving what was considered _ development; partly on account ofthe dissolution ofthe intellectual center in Santiago de Chile after Pinochet’s fascist coup, leading to the diaspora ofthe principal theorists of this current; and partly due to the revolutionary ebb in Latin America. In addition, to con_ front the dependency theory, a single theoretical-ideological front was formed that covered a wide gamut ranging from the tradition_al right, reformists and right-wing interpreters of dependency who _ saw it merely as an external phenomenon, to most ofthe intellectu_als linked to the Communist Parties, who identified Trotskyist if not _ultra-leftist slants in it. Precisely in that year, The Modern World-System, by Immanuel Wallerstein appeared. Grounded on the concepts related to the _long duration notion expounded by historian Ferdinand Braudel and _ in line with dependency theory premises, it initiated a new school in the interpretation ofthe capitalist system: the theory of the worldsystem, whose main thesis is the existence of a combination 63

of

articulations and relations that constitute an identifiable historical

system that extends beyond nations and states. | have posed the tentative hypothesis that three known forms or varieties of historic systems have existed; varieties that | have called “mini-systems,” “world empires” and “world economies.” At the same time, | maintain that one should not discount the

possibility of identifying other forms or varieties. . . . World economies are vast and unequal chains of production structures dissected by multiple political structures. Their basic logic is that the accumulated surplus is distributed unequally in favor of those that can attain diverse types of temporal monopolies in the market networks. It is a capitalist logic. . . . Given its internal

logic, this capitalist world economy has expanded to the point of

covering the entire world.*> That is the modern world system that emerged from 1450 to 1650, and the most significant aspect ofits development has been the change from political and military domination to economic domination. According to Immanuel Wallerstein the system is composed ofthree elements: the center, the periphery and the semi-periphery. The center occupies the dominant position and is made up of the most economically and politically powerful countries. They concentrate the most complex economic activities, which are capital-intensive and require a more qualified workforce; have a relative economic homogeneity, a higher level of capital accumulation; are generally specialized in the production ofthe system’s advanced goods, and even when they produce traditional goods they do so with complex

technological means.*° In contrast, the periphery, although demographically and territorially larger than the center, is composed of the economically and politically weakest countries; produces goods of a primary nature and depends on the more advanced goods of the center. The relation between the center and the periphery is a 64

relation ofexploitation; hence, the economic relations between the center and the periphery benefit the center. There is a group ofcountries between the center and the periphery in an intermediate position within which certain complex economic activities can be developed. Currently some of these countries have both industrial development and primary production, but lack the power and dominion ofthe central countries. There is also the external arena of aworld-economy composed of those other systems with which it maintains some kind of commercial relations, but which are not an integral part ofit; this is what differentiates the periphery from the external arena. There are, moreover, non-integrated areas, but at the end of the 20th century it can be said that, except from a few remote indigenous communities, these have ceased to exist.

Positions within this system are not static; usually one state dominates the center but this changes with the development of the system. States can change their position within the system; hence, some states can move from the semi-periphery to the center—the case of Germany and Japan—or be displaced from the center to the semi-periphery—the case of Spain—, or from the periphery to the semi-periphery —the case ofBrazil and the socalled Asian Tigers. With the consolication of monopolistic capitalism during the 20th century, the capitalist system became veritably universal and its structure more rigid, demonstrated by the fact that none ofthe peripheral or semi-peripheral states moved to the center; moreover, some authors demonstrate that the states

that moved to the center were never made peripheral.*” According to Chase-Dunn, the center-periphery dimension is a continual variable among constellations of economic activities _that vary in their average relative levels of capital utilization inten_ sity, depending on the intensity ofthe utilization of the workforce, although in its conjunction it is a socially structured system of economic and political-military inequality. Throughout capitalist 65

history the form adopted by this hierarchy has changed but the

hierarchy itselfispreserved.*8 From the perspective of the theory

of development it can be said that Wallerstein incorporated components and concepts of the theory of dependency, but adopted a more global perspective of history; the so-called holistic perspective of analysis. For Wallerstein the unit of analysis must be the

world-system, not one particular state, country or society.*? Most dependentist authors theorize today from the perspective of the world-system. One of the most outstanding is Samir Amin, who explicitly poses a hypothesis on the feasibility of development

based on his concept ofdisconnection, a term that he uses to refer to “.,, the organization ofa system ofcriteria of the rationality of economic alternatives founded on a law ofvalue with a national base and popular content, independent of the criteria of economic rationality, such as those that emerge from the law ofcapitalist value that operates on a world scale.”4°Amin does not advocate autarky, but the submission ofexternal relations to the logic of independent internal development. In his argument Amin qualifies this alternative as that of national and popular development that can lead to socialism, although the way remains open and a new class power might crystallize. His proposal is based on the assumption that economic pressures are not absolute, except for those who accept the mercantile

alignment that is part of capitalism.*' He sees disconnection as a necessary condition for any socialist advance both in the North and in the South, and much more so in the case ofthe periphery, given that the advances of capitalism are intensifying social contradictions in an exceptional way. He informs this idea with a historical analysis according to which the centers are characterized by having a bourgeoisie and a state that controls the process of accumulation at national level within a framework of real external pressures, whereas that does not apply in the periphery since its countries and regions do not control the process of accumulation at national lev66

_.

el. A national bourgeoisie, a national capital and a formally independent state can exist, but the dynamic of accumulation is principally sustained from outside. The states that constitute the center have a self-centered economy; that is, “. . . relations with the ex-

terior are subjected to the logic of internal accumulation and not

inversely.”4

For Amin, the conditions for disconnection are not identical, nor

do they come together everywhere in the different phases ofcapitalist expansion; that is exceptional: “In the response to situations of exceptional crises . . . the rule is adjustment, an attempt to remain

within the system.” #9 According to his analyses, for disconnection to be effective three conditions are required:

1. The submission of foreign relations in all contexts to the logic of internal choices made without considering the criteria of world capitalist rationality. 2. A political capacity to undertake profound social reforms in an egalitarian sense.

3. A capacity for absorption and technological research.*4 If the bourgeoisie is incapable of disconnecting and this can only be effected by a popular alliance, it is only logical to describe the perspective ofthat disconnection as socialist.4° That disconnection will not occur for the whole ofthe periphery, but in parts. These will be chapters in a long process that will be characterized by conflicts between capitalist and socialist tendencies. The thesis of disconnection, although its author does not refer to it as such, has points

of contact with Lenin’s thesis of the weakest link and with the experience at certain points ofthe history of the USSR. Amin has drawn up theoretical models to support his formulations, among them one analyzing the results of his proposal in an underdeveloped country with an 80 % campesino population. It could be objected that in the context of a globalized world that is but a 67

mere intellectual! exercise, but the former does not detract from the

validity of these analyses. No theory is an exact and detailed anticipation of reality and, in our judgment, there are aspects of Amin’s projection that should be taken into account to propose an alternative of development in the framework of globalization. One of the finest exponents of the theory of dependency, André Gunder

Frank, makes

an interesting observation,

which

Is

that currently the predominant possibility for a state is that of varying its position within the world-system: “The policy is to find one or more situations from which a temporary position of (comparative) monopolistic advantage can be carved out within the international division of labor. . . . The independent development | ofa national state is not possible in the absolute. . . . This goes against my own former criteria and against those still sustained by Samir Amin.”*° In this debate on alternatives, the existence of the Cuban Rev-

olution and its endeavor to maintain an alternative project of society adds valuable aspects. In explaining the Cuban decision to keep advancing, Martinez presents some considerations on the factors that have allowed Cuba to resist which must be taken inte account, while clarifying that Cuba has a situation that makes it unique: “There may be a national capacity to take a

different road to that dictated by globalization given certain conditions or certain requirements . . . if there is internal cohesion in the defense of a project, if there is authoritative leader

ship . . . if there is organization for that resistance in the economic, political and military fields, and if there are organizations to structure that capacity for resistance.” *” His other considerations revolve around the fact that anti-imperialist contradictions create certain spaces which can be taken advantage of, and finally, that in a strategic sense this global system is profoundly unstable, leading one to think that the reality of today is the

transition toward something else.*®

Conditions for Development Bearing in mind our evaluations of the factors and tendencies of globalization and the aspects contributed by the analyzed proposals, we can be more precise as to the conditions for undertaking a real project of development based on the following formulations: 1. The existence ofa revolutionary and popular political power; in other words, socialist, with economic, political and mili-

tary capacity to confront and neutralize the pressure and confrontations of the system’s power centers. 2. A capacity to place the process of accumulation in function of national interests, which implies national control of accumulation.

3. The political will and capacity to develop organizational structures that will facilitate popular participation, an important component of national hegemonic consensus to take the project forward. 4. The constant materialization, within the limits allowed by the accumulation level and the results of economic activity, - of a policy offacing and solving social problems generated by underdevelopment; as well as the distribution and the redistribution of the income to the benefit of the people. 5. A capacity to absorb and create technologies in order to be able to compete internationally.

The following should be highlighted: the combination of conditions for development does not necessarily guarantee success; this _ will be a difficult process full of difficulties and hopes in which the struggle between capitalist and socialist tendencies will fill a whole _ stage until one of them prevails. Thus, based on these conditions a development policy must be designed; in other words, a combination 69

of long-term political strategies to give the country the competitive conditions that will allow it to set about changing its position in the world economy while at the same time materializing components of the socialist project. Within the material conditions of neoliberal globalization, such a development policy has to contain a combination of essential elements that should be promoted more or less simultaneously; elements without which the policy cannot be effective; otherwise it will be unable to meet the goal of breaking the chains of dependence. We have operatively called that conjunction of elements the central nucleus of the politics of development and we shall approach it in the next chapter, with a direct reference to the case of Cuba. Finally, we cannot overlook the fact that we are talking of the periphery, in which the following dilemma presents itself: to what point should the productive forces of capital be developed in order to survive within the capitalist system by attaining a given level of competitiveness, and to what point should they be different in order to construct the bases of socialist civilization and surpass that system? In summary, in order to attain development, underdeveloped countries have to do so in an opposite direction to that ofthe capitalist system. They have to exit the system. That is their only way ofachieving development. This leads to an interesting point: given the characteristics of the world capitalist system, even to attain the advances provided by the productive forces of capital, social relations that surpass those of capitalism have to be established, and these are none others than the socialist ones. Hence, the only possibility of achieving development is conditioned to the socialist perspective that would result from an intense and lengthy process of internal and external class struggle. Based on the above, it can be understood that the disappearance of underdevelopment has to be associated with the disappearance of development as we have so far understood it: as capitalist development. It is necessary to suppress the relations of domination, exploi70

tation and subjection established by the dominant countries of the capitalist system over the dependent countries. That poses the need to envision development in terms different from those embodied in the highest results attained to date in the industrialized countries as a result of the expansion and consolidation of capitalist productive forces; it calls for a different understanding of what development is. Our Concept of Development Although the term development has its history within the social sciences, its use in the sense currently assigned to it was circulated after World War Il. It was initially utilized by the Austrian economic school*, but it was U.S. President Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) who gave it an emblematic meaning in his speech on taking office in 1949. The speech announced that the era of development was opening up for the world. Initially it was identified as economic growth insomuch as the indicators referred to were product and Gross Domestic Product per capita; thus, developing consisted in achieving an increase in the per person income in underdeveloped regions. Even now the World Bank classifies countries in groups than range from developed to less developed in line with their per capita GDP. Experiences, frustrations and analyses led to the perception that the advancement of economic activity was not, on its own, enough

to solve the problems of development and it was posed that social aspects could not be separated from economic aspects and that there was a link between the two. Practical problems and, above all,

the search for explanations as to why the economic policies aimed at promoting development were not working, gave a new content to the concept. In recent years certain concepts of development that privilege aspects related to the well-being of peoples have come into the foreground. They include the concept of human development, which is defined within the framework of the United Nations Development 71

Program (UNDP) as “. . . a process in which the opportunities of being a human being are extended. In principle these opportunities can be infinite and change with time. However, at all levels of development, the three most essential are: enjoying a long and healthy life, acquiring knowledge and having access to the necessary re-

sources for attaining a decent life standard.”°° The concept of sustainable development, very widely used at present, is about satisfying the needs of the present generation without compromising the capacity of future generations for satisfying their own needs. The expression sustainable development is an ambiguous one, but it has made its mark on the international dis-

course. While the aim behind this definition is to protect and preserve natural resources, its terms are being progressively fine-tuned and re-contextualized. One of its most important dimensions re-

fers to the fact that needs are those of the poor and is directed at promoting values that encourage patterns of consumption within ecologically possible limits. The central problem is located in the contradiction

between the exhaustion

of natural resources, con-

tamination and other negative effects on the environment and cap-

italist accumulation.*' In the recent past a theory was located to the left or to the right according to the difference that it made fer the social forces that may be the propelling agents of development: the bourgeoisie, the proletariat, the popular masses, etc., and the role

that such a theory assigned to the market forces or to the state in the management of the economy. At present, its location is perhaps related to the greater or lesser weight given to social and environmental aspects. However, that divide is becoming diffuse as everyone from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, passing through various UN agencies to academia and the forces of the left, are talking of social problems and sustainable development in a language which, although often similar, has distinct meanings. 72

As can be appreciated, it is a very wide and complex concept with many subtle implications, which would be naive and dangerous to try to fit into the straightjacket ofa precise and rigorous definition, because that would be unavoidably equivalent to highlighting certain of its multiple definitions in detriment to others. The notions of development and underdevelopment and their equivalents are complex concepts which reflect real situations that are likewise com-

plex.°? These situations are the result of social historical processes; therefore, in order to approach a comprehension ofwhat development is and must be, we have to start from the concrete historical

situation humanity is experiencing, the tendencies that determine possible courses, and propose a vision of what development can really be outside ofa capitalist wrapping, as well as ofthe real possibilities of achieving it because, in real terms:

... It is about trying to decide on the kind ofsociety that one wants to develop in the short-term future and what kind of person is to be socially “developed.” Development cannot be conceived of in any other way than the development of society; in other words, as a combination of changes that affect the total structure of any society and thus, each one of its basic structural economic, social, political, cultural and ecological orders, etc.°?

The objective of attaining a given type of society places us in the terrain of politics, given that this is not possible—whatever its formation—without a class struggle. In this context the problem of _development cannot be separated from the issue of power “. . . as this is what orders the totality of society and gives meaning to its movement.”°* We have reached the conclusion that development is a political problem, although techno-economic instruments are 73

utilized in attaining it, and can reach the point of overshadowing

this dimension.°° It is on the basis of the conjunction of the previous considerations that we pose our concept. Development is not only an eco-

nomic process, although economy is in the foreground; it is a real social process, political in the first place, in which, starting with the power relationship, a reordering of society is pursued in the interest and to the benefit of the majority social classes: the people. In this context, development is a concept by means of which we are trying to signify a process of quantitative and qualitative changes produced in all the structures of any society in the interest of the popular.classes. From the point ofview of the class struggle one has to visualize development as a process set in motion by a group with power which responds to the interests of one class or an alliance of classes possessing the means and the instruments to implement technical measures with a high political content that have repercussions on the rates of accumulation and consumption, on the distribution of social wealth and on the strengthening, weakening and/or transformation of classes and social groups in function of a specific societal project which, not being capitalistic, has to be necessarily defined as socialist. in the current historical-concrete conditions a process of development is only such if it provides a national society with a greater degree of autonomy in relation to the capitalist system; that is to say, if the polarizing effects of the current neoliberal globalization are limited. In other words, the first step on the road to development is the assumption of power by forces that propose to overcome capitalism and establish social relations inclined toward socialism: “For the underdeveloped world socialism is already a

condition of development.”°° The fact of building socialism from underdevelopment, insofar as this is the only way ofattaining development requires: 74

1. The correlation between the kind of society that we want

and the instruments utilized for attaining it, taking into account the current historical-social conditions and the conditionings of underdevelopment. 2. The necessity ofa vision of what socialism and development are; in our case both objectives presuppose each other, given that for our countries a developed society is a post-capitalist society.

Capitalism has managed to expand the productive forces in the industrialized countries of the system to a point that allows certain standards of living for the entirety of their populations, which has become generalized as the image of development. In these countries even poverty is different from the poverty of underdevelopment. Underdeveloped countries have to reach the level that was historically provided by the takeoff of the productive forces of capitalism, but under another type of dominant production relations, which poses a question: to what point should they be the same in order to reach that level, and to what point different so as not to be subsumed by capital and to be able to plant the bases of anew type of society? This contradiction between the (capitalist) material base to be attained, and the (socialist) way to do it has lasted throughout a whole historical period of struggle between capitalist tendencies: to what point be the same, and socialist tendencies: to what point be different. And in order to be different the socialist revolutionary power ought to exercise itself more directly on production, distribution, consumption, education and the reproduction ofsocial life and ideas. Politics invades ail spheres of social life more directly. Revolu~ tionary power has to project and execute the progressive liquidation of the forces of capital while, in production, the material base of any society, the prevailing productive forces have to be those 75

of capital, which tend to reproduce it. In order to achieve certain levels of economic security in the current concrete-historical conditions, methods of direction, management and technologies traditionally achieved by capital have to be utilized, all of which has class content. This is the point to which we should go the same way. Being historically constrained to use the above referred methods, it is necessary from the outset to implement strategies to move beyond the ideological horizon ofcapital; in other words, methods that tend toward anti-capitalist subjective accumulation: anti-capitalist and anti-mercantile conscience both in terms of values and practice must be created. This demands that politics are always in the foreground. At the end ofthe day, the socialism that emerges from underdevelopment cannot be understood as a homogenizing modernization process whose objective is to attain the current levels of the productive forces of capital on the basis of state ownership of the means of production. That is a point to be attained, as well as a starting point, without which the revolution will not succeed, but the other essential factor is the promotion ofthe spiritual dimension: the creation ofa socialist awareness that corresponds with the objective of the revolutionary project of creating a new way oflife; and this cannot be a process by stages. Simultaneously with the creation of the material conditions, new values and attitudes have to be created.

These do not automatically stem from the growth ofthe productive forces; actually, in certain conditions this growth can create tenden-

cies contrary to the creation ofthose values.

This is not a passive process but a process ofclass struggle which, to a great extent, takes the form ofan ideological struggle; hence, the participation of the masses in the entire process is necessary. Only in this way can people transforming society transform themselves. This two tasks are essentially linked because economic relations are not isolated and every change in them is reflected in the social ensemble. That is why one of the functions of revolutionary power is 76

to strengthen the economy, logically within certain limits, so that it has a distinct function, this time directed at people appropriating their own social movement. That lengthy and complex process ofappropriation constitutes the fundamental law ofsocialism, the thread that traverses the socialist project. In other words, although its realization involves numerous tech-

no-economic components, development is a political operation and it is from the political perspective that we have to approach it, for it is about surpassing capitalism from certain concrete historical conditions with the aim of attaining a form and manner of utilizing social wealth that leads to a different way oflife. Hence, we conceive ofsocialism as a new civilization and a new culture whose focus is the human being as the object and subject of development, so that technological and productive advances are not an objective in themselves, but a means to the full realization of human be-

ings. Without ideological-political work in this direction along the long road to surpassing capitalism, that is, without the creation ofa collective subjectivity made objective in values and conducts compatible with a new way oflife, there will be no socialism, only

another form of exploitation. NOTES 1.

Banco Mundial, Informe sobre el desarrollo mundial, 27.

2.

Consuelo Ahumada, “La encrucijada latinoamericana y el modelo neoliberal,” 26.

3. José Valenzuela, “Cinco dimensiones del modelo neoliberal,” PoliticayCultura, no. 8.

4.

Cristébal Kay, “Estructuralismo y teorfa de la dependencia en el periodo neoliberal, una perspectiva latinoamericana,” Tareas, no. 108: 81.

_ 5. 6.

Carlos Vilas, “La nacién como atributo del pueblo,” Encuentro, no. 26: 9. Luciano

Pelicani,

“La guerra

cultural

entre

no: 119: 113: 77

Oriente

y Occidente,”

Nueva Sociedad,

Carlos Vilas, “El Estado en la globalizaci6n,” 11.

Heinz R. Sonntag, “Las vicisitudes del desarrollo,” Revista Internacional de Ciencias Sociales, no. 140: 280.

Pablo Gonzalez Casanova, “Sobre la explotacién,” Tareas: 102.

10. Cristébal Kay, Op. cit.: 78.

. Ricardo Zapata Marti, “Evolucién del pensamiento de la CEPAL. Su aporte al desarrollo,” _Comercio Exterior: 127.

La Gert Rosenthal, “Reflexiones sobre el pensamiento econdémico actualizado de la CEPAL,”

Panorama Econdmico Latinoamericano: 5-8. Ls Ibid. 14. Ibid.

US! Theotonio Dos Santos, /mperialismo y dependencia.

16. Gert Rosenthal, Op. cit., 7. Tf: Emilio Lahera, “Aspectos politicos e institucionales de la propuesta de la CEPAL,” Comercio Exterior, vol. 46, no. 7: 13.

18. Heinz R. Sonntag, Deuda/certeza/crisis. ‘esevolucién de las ciencias sociales en América Latina, 32. : 19. Octavio Rodriguez, La teoria del subdesarrollo de la CEPAL. 20. Inmanuel Wallerstein, “Anilisis de los sistemas mundiales,” La teoria social de hoy.

Zi André Gunder Frank, “El desarrollo del subdesarrollo,” Pensamiento Critico, no. 7. 22. André Gunder Frank, Capitalismo y subdesarrollo en América Latina, 27.

23. Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependencia y desarrollo, 20.

24. Theotonio Dos Santos, Op. cit., 305. 2a: Ruy Mauro Marini, Dialéctica de la dependencia, 18. 78

26. Octavio lanni, “La dependencia estructural,” América Latina, dependenciay subdesarrollo,

68-72. 27. Ibid, 68-91.

28. Theotonio Dos Santos, Op. cit., 355-369. 29. Vania Bambirra, Capitalismo dependiente latinoamericano, 26. 30. This idea was developed by André Gunder Frank, “El desarrollo del subdesarrollo,” Pensamiento Critico, no. 7, and by Theotonio Dos Santos, in Op. cit.

Sl. See André Gunder Frank, Capitalismo y subdesarrollo en América Latina; Theotonio Dos Santos, Op. cit.; and Vania Bambirra, Op. cit.

a. See André Gunder Frank, Capitalismo y subdesarrollo en América Latina; and Ruy Mauro Marini, Op. cit.. 33. Vania Bambirra, Op. cit.

34. José Bell Lara and Delia Luisa Lopez, La nov/sima dependencia en la nueva América Latina. 5, Inmanuel Wallerstein, Op. cit., 408. 36. Christopher Chasse-Dunn, “Centro y periferia.”

B/. Samir Amin, E/ desaffo de la mundializaci6n. «38. Christopher Gralblbini, Op. cit. aoe: Lucila Finkel, La organizacién social del trabajo, 56.

40. Samir Amin, “Apuntes sobre el concepto de desconexién,” Homines, vol. 14, no. 1: 205-206. . Samir Amin, La desconexion, 14.

. Ibid, 36. . Ibid, 63. . Ibid, 114. 79

4S. Ibid, 107.

46. André Gunder Frank, E/ subdesarrollo del desarrollo, 80-81. 47. Osvaldo Martinez, “Cuba y la globalizacién de la economia mundial,”

434.

48. Ibid, 434-435. 49. Ezequiel Ander-Egg, Diccionario de trabajo social, 137. 50. PNUD, Informe sobre el desarrollo humano, 34. 31 . Beatriz Dfaz, “El desarrollo agricola y rural sustentable en Cuba,” Tareas, no. 9: 33-34.

52: Osvaldo Sunkel and Pedro Paz, E/ subdesarrollo latinoamericano y la teorfa del desarrollo, 22. 65)5Anibal Quijano, “Politica y desarrollo en América Latina,” América Latina: dependenciay subdesarrollo, 227. 54. Heinz. R. Sonntag, gNuevos temas, nuevos contenidos? Las ciencias sociales en América Latina y el Caribe ante el nuevo siglo, 18.

5S. Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, referring to planning, an all-purpose technological instru-

ment of development, noted, “. . . this is not a mere technical operation in spite of its essentially economic content; above all, it is a political operation. Behind every act of planning there is a social philosophy, a socioeconomic projection ofa historical nature.” See Carlos Rodriguez, “La planificacién,” Letra con filo, vol. 2: 422.

56. Fidel Castro Ruz, “Hoy para e! mundo subdesarrollado el socialismo es condicién de desarrollo,” Pensamiento Critico, no. 36: 165.

80

CHaPTeR3

: Cuba’s Perspectives : for Development within Globalization

Conditions in Cuba In earlier chapters we have analyzed the globalization process and its tendencies; the various proposals around the possibility of development and their viability; as well as the conditions that in our view must be involved in a development project in today’s world. We must now explore to what degree Cuba meets the conditions for development and what are its real possibilities for advancing along that road.

The case of Cuba is a particular one; it is a country in which a popular revolution triumphed more than forty years ago. The Revolution triggered a profound process of changes that in the short term shaped it as a Socialist Revolution characterized in its development by making a series of political, economic and social transformations with widespread participation by the people. In the political order the Revolution democratized the nation “_. . because it democratized the power structure that is behind all political systems and which is what really defines the interests pri_ oritized by the functioning of the political system itself.”' The fundamental transformations in the country had strong popular participation; moreover, this participation guaranteed the profound structural, educational and health changes, as well as the defense 81

of the Revolution in the early years: “The masses participated in the agrarian reform and in the difficult task of administering state enterprises; went through the heroic experience of Bay of Pigs; were forged in the struggle against various bandit groups armed by the CIA; experienced one of the most important contemporary definitions in the October missile crisis and are still working today in the construction of socialism.”? From that dynamic emerged a new political culture that impregnated and still impregnates the life of Cubans, and which is mani-

fested in diverse forms of conduct and modes ofsocial action. Their components

include, among

others, equality, solidarity, interna-

tionalism, defense of the Revolution and participation.° During its first thirty years, the Revolution institutionalized a popular participative structure that extended from workplaces to the community via mass organizations: the Cuban Workers Union, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the Federation of Cuban Women;

and the agencies of People’s Power. In the social order in the early 1990s, despite being an underdeveloped country, Cuba exhibited rates similar to those of the most industrialized countries of the planet in the principal life standard and quality oflife indicators. Cuban indicators for life expectancy and the number of births attended by health personnel were similar to those of the industrialized nations; infant mortality, slightly higher; since that time Cuba had more doctors per inhabitant, and elementary and secondary education levels were similar. Above all, it should be noted that social development was profoundly egalitarian.4 The economic change that took place between 1959 and 1989 can be summed up by the following data: The economic growth rate was 4.3% for that period, representing a per capita growth 2.8%. For its part, industrial production grew at an accelerated annual per capita rate of 2.9% between 1962 and 1989, construction by 6% and agri82

cultural production by 0.9%. In order to reach those growth tables the country invested 63.25 billion pesos from 19591989, with an average annual growth of 2% in labor produc-

tivity.> During the revolutionary stage Cuba has notably increased its industrial capacity, developed qualitatively new technologies, and has accumulated a productive and human capital base that has facilitated its incorporation into the contemporary technological revolution. It has carved out a place for itself and sought niches for its insertion in the world economy from a competitive position. In the years of revolutionary power steel production capacity has grown fourteen times; cement, six times; nickel fourfold; fertilizers tenfold;

oil refining fourfold—not counting the new Cienfuegos refinery— and textile production sevenfold. From 1959 to 1983 1100 new in-

dustries were created.° Like any socio-political process, along the road to a new society mistakes were made, new institutions and values were created, for-

mer non-revolutionary practices persisted and new ones emerged, in “some cases contrary to the objectives of the Cuban social project. It-is worth highlighting that the effects of the profound revolutionary changes constituted a social accumulation, a concept that combines economic accumulation and the processes directed toward the transformation of human beings: education, health, social security, the creation of values and different forms of participation in daily political tasks. Social accumulation is not the simple sum of material change and changes in the living conditions of the people. It is that and far more; it is a complex process in which those two factors are interrelated with a subjective accumulation and the beginning of a new ~ form ofliving; a new way oflife. Social accumulation is at the root of reasons why Cuba did not replicate the Euro-Soviet cycle: the crisis and defeat ofthe real socialism model and a peaceful transition 83

to capitalism.’ It also explains why socialism continues to be a majority option in the country.

As a matter of fact, the Cuban people defied a very profound economic crisis known as the Special Period; yet, the socialist paradigm did not go into a crisis. The policy applied from the 1990s was that of resisting and of maintaining the revolutionary power that was the bearer ofthe socialist project, even in those adverse circumstances, which implied confronting objective pressures arising from the functioning of the capitalist world economy that was entering its full stage of globalization, as well as those from the system’s hegemonic powers. Around this fundamental guideline two major phases unfolded; the first, which we have qualified as the policy of shared shortages, manifested in the rationing of all consumer items while maintaining wages and employment despite the abrupt fall of the economy—a little more than one-third of the GDP—; and the second, which began in 1994, was one of active measures to con-

front the crisis. The measures included, without order of priority: > The de-penalization ofthe use and possession of hard currency. > Extension abroad.

of the facilities for sending

remittances

from

» Extension of the cooperatives system in agriculture with the creation ofthe Basic Units of Cooperative Production.

> The end ofthe state monopoly on foreign trade. > The application of a policy of financial reordering and the elimination of some gratuities. > The creation ofa tax system.

> The extension ofself-employment.

>A controlled opening to foreign capital. 84

> The restructuring of the state’s central administration agencies. The state assumed the major cost of the crisis in order to preserve the Revolution’s essential gains in the social terrain: health, education and social security; a policy to limit inequalities and protect vulnerable groups was undertaken. These anti-crisis measures also covered the political level of Cuban society, and among them we note the following: > Changes in forms of ownership, with an extension of the private sector. > Moving from a state-owned agricultural sector to a largely cooperative one. > An expansion of market spaces. > Greater utilization of monetary-financial mechanisms in the directing and functioning of the economy. > Extension of democratic spaces with the reform of the Constitution, the generalization of People’s Councils to the coun. try as a whole and a new Electoral Law. A widespread discussion process in which millions of Cubans took part accompanied the program of measures, initiated with the debate on the convening of the 4th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba in 1990. In the Workers Parliaments, which opened in the first six months of 1994, the most significant measures ofthe Special Period were profoundly discussed. That debate continued _ during open discussions in the Cuban Workers Union (CTC) congresses and throughout the entire decade. The results ofthe policy applied in the face of the crisis, which embodied the principle of _ defending the interests of the majority, have contributed, indepen_dently of the tensions and contradictions generated, to maintaining social accumulation in favor of socialism for the following reasons:

|

85

1. It detained the fall of the economy and initiated a slow process of economic recovery with a modest but sustained GDP growth—maintained despite the events of September 11, 2001 and the impact of that attack on tourism—; it reduced surplus money in circulation and the budget deficit to manageable magnitudes; and it brought about a relative revalorization of

the national currency.

2. It detained the deterioration of the population’s living standard, which has shown a slight improvement albeit with tensions and inequalities. In this a decisive factor was the sul

generis policy of adjustment applied, in which the state has assumed the greatest cost ofthe crisis.

3. Economic growth, although moderate, has covered all sectors of the economy and advances in parallel with a process of technological reinvestment and business management modernization, and, no less importantly, has achieved reinsertion in the international economy, despite the U.S. economic war on Cuba.

4. All of the foregoing was achieved without having applied neoliberal policies, or perhaps on account of having found formulas to avoid their application. In my judgment, this Is an achievement of supreme significance for the future of the Revolution, bearing in mind that for the apologists ofthe capitalist system all countries are condemned to globalize themselves in the terms advocated by neoliberalism. In summary, Cuba has found a space for its survival in the current world, although the situation is complex because the necessary measures taken include some which by their nature constitute challenges to the revolutionary project, as well as because some components of social accumulation have been eroded. However,

the fundamental issue is that the socialist paradigm is still in force in Cuba. 86

ve

This chapter does not intend to analyze in detail the policy ofcrisis overcoming nor the dynamics and contradictions generated during that decade.® The objective ofthis brief account is to place Cuba in its current context and identify the challenges that lie ahead: to continue existing as a nation and a revolution in a globalized world under a neoliberal rule, for which it has to advance along its road to development. Cuba has that possibility because it possesses the basic conditions, summarized as follows:

1. Cuba is in prime condition to undertake a development project within the current world circumstances: the existence ofa revolutionary and socialist power that with wide popular participation managed to undertake a socialist transition with an impressive advance of social accumulation. More than ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which

symbolized the collapse of the socialist model installed in East Europe and the USSR and, above all, the system ofeconomic relations in which it was inserted, the Cuban Revolu-

tion has demonstrated resistance to political and economic pressure from the central powers of the capitalist system, - including the political and economic aggression of the hegemonic power of the United States. The country has overcome the most difficult stage of the economic crisis and has

initiated a slow process of recovery via a sul generis economic adjustment,’ maintaining fundamental components of the project in the midst of acomplex and contradictory reality.

2. Cuba has the capacity to place the accumulation process in function of national interests. The role of political power embodied in the actions and rules established by the revolutionary state is decisive when it comes to submitting the process _of accumulation to national interests. This signifies having national control over that accumulation; in other words, control 87

over the reproduction ofthe labor force, the centralization of surplus, the market, natural resources and technologies. In the Cuban case, the state has ownership of the principal means ofproduction, which allows it to form associations with foreign capital without losing control of them; on the basis of that control it can direct investment policy prioritizing sectors that it considers important for the country’s development, all of which translates into the state having the resources that it can use in a centralized way on behalf of national interests. The foregoing is supported by a redesigning of the national financial system that has been updated to function in the new conditions. The state has majority control over the labor force, because even its hiring by foreign companies is done via Cuban state-run employment agencies, and it is the state that fixes wages to be paid in this sector of the economy. The area that can be considered private: campesinos and self-employed workers, is a minority within employment as a whole, although it has an important monetary accumulation. In their majority, domestic trade circuits are controlled by the state by means of state-owned retail chains and enterprises. Control is likewise maintained over natural resources which are exploited according to a codified policy. The state command of the economy gives the Revolution the equivalent ofthe directive power of a transnational conglomerate to negotiate with other actors in the globalized economy, thus maintaining a degree of autonomy.

3. Despite the crisis and the difficulties, the Revolution has maintained the post-capitalist social accumulation, which is the principal component of the socialist project and continues constituting the principal reserve of Cuban socialism. 88

This reserve is maintained by political-ideological work, a constant expression ofone ofthe forms that the class struggle is acquiring today in Cuba. The institutional network of the Revolution articulated in the agencies of People’s Power and a series of social and mass organizations designed to channel the organized participation of the people form part of this

accumulation.'? They have not been exempt from certain vices of formalism, but the participative framework exists, and

through it a hegemonic consensus is maintained in favor of the Revolution, expressed in diverse forms and ways in the functioning of the political system. 4. In thirty years, from 1959 to 1989, Cuba achieved rates su-

perior to those tries as a whole indicators. The value of were similar to

of Latin American and underdeveloped counin the principal life standard and life quality indicators that measure results in this terrain those of the most industrialized countries of

the capitalist system."' The crisis of the 1990s has not funda; mentally reversed that situation thanks to the policy applied in the face ofthe crisis to try and preserve the achievements attained in the social sphere. An investigation based on the social policy of the 1990s concluded that the Cuban social model had been preserved in its essential traits: >The right to health, education and social security has been maintained. > The right to employment has been maintained as far as possible.

> Ongoing efforts continued to be made to ensure families a comfortable home. 89

> Many ofthe indicators that reflect social well-being have been preserved, independently of the fact that some

have stagnated and others have retrogressed. > Measures have been taken to protect vulnerable groups, though shortages persist. > There are no extremes of social inequality or marginality.

>Social and political consensus nate.

continues to predomi-

> There is energetic action against the emergence of mani-

festations such as prostitution or corruption." These traits are part of the masses’ representation of socialism and, without idealizing the situation in that respect, their preservation—albeit with the current limits and difficulties—constitute an integral aspect of the national security of the Revolution and a source ofits legitimacy. 5. A capacity for absorbing and creating technologies supported by a material base. From its beginnings, the Cuban Revolution mounted an extraordinary effort to raise people’s cultural and educational levels. That educational effort has to be seen as part of the accumulation-investment process for development, given that it has not been just a process of instruction in general, but also one to dominate contemporary

science and technology.'? As a result of this, the country has raised its average ninth grade educational level; there are 46 higher education centers in which 21,600 professors are working, and has 1.8 scientists for every 1000 inhabitants. The country has 221 research centers and invests $25 per capita in research and development, the highest figure in Latin America. 90

The principal axis of the Cuban scientific-productive complex is constituted by centers in which prioritized investigations are developed. At first sight they are similar to industrial parks, but in Cuba they have their own particularities. Cuban scientific complexes are agencies that ensure cooperation between research and production centers that take advantage oftheir spatial distribution to create specific synergies among themselves."4 Currently there are 15 scientific complexes: 12 territorial ones and 3 specialized ones that bring together 465 agencies, institutions and working groups belonging to 24 organizations; more than 23,000 people work in them, of whom 43 % are university graduates.

The Policy of Development Based on the considerations of the previous chapters on the processes underway within current capitalism and on the necessary conditions for implementing a development project, we have identified problems to which an underdeveloped country should pay attention in order to draw up a strategy for development. The most important is that the classical comparative advantages are tending to turn into comparative disadvantages, for two reasons: primary export products are subjected to the constant, structural deterioration of exchange terms due to the boom in synthetic products and new materials, compounded by the dematerialization of production,'> all of which determines that their prices have a regressive nature in the world market. Secondly, the availability of acheap labor force, one ofthe factors ofindustrial transnationalization and the

emergence of the Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs), is losing importance.'® What is needed today is a qualified workforce, human capital, which thus makes education part of the investment process for development. There are other problems, but at this point it is necessary to raise two key questions:

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1. What could the development strategy be for a small underdeveloped country with a socialist revolution in power that has achieved a certain social accumulation in a non-capitalist sense?

2. How can it insert itselfinthe world economy and maintain the organic project of the Revolution? The question is not only about insertion in the world economy, the incessant search for niches in it, but above all about how to organize the social body that is going to relate with it so that capital, through its laws, does not covertly devour it. That constitutes a political problem ofthe first order. It is known that dependent reproduction goes through the exte-

rior;'’ dependence “. . . configures an internal situation to which it is structurally tied and it is not possible to break it by isolating the country from exterior influences, as this would simply provoke chaos in an internal structure that is essentially deficient.”'®Hence, the question has to be posed in terms of a change ofstructure. The fact that a country’s economy depends on income from exports with regressive prices in the world economy does not afford a solid base to any revolutionary project and, given the impossibility of breaking the dependence by isolating the country, the only solution is to transform its internal structures, which poses a new kind of relationship with the international structure of capital. This is only possible if a political power exists to promote internal transformations and establish an external relationship that is in the best interests of the revolutionary social project; this, of course, within the limits allowed by objective conditions. In this external relationship a country’s exports are decisive; in other words, its exports have to be structurally transformed so that they prioritize products with greater added value: items with a tendency to greater price stability. Put another way, the social and economic project can only be successful in terms of economic security 92

for the country—guaranteeing a decorous level of well-being for the population, achieving a certain accumulation—if acompetitive position can be attained within the world economy. If that is not the case, the revolutionary project will remain a dream. We have changed the terms and we are not proposing insertion or reinsertion in the world economy; ultimately, in one way or another, all countries are inserted in it. The point is not to be inserted in it like Haiti, Indonesia or any other Third World country, given that such an insertion reproduces underdevelopment. Insertion in the market based on Cuba’s traditional exports, such as sugar,

nickel, citrus fruits or cigars is an under-developing insertion, even though there might be certain comparative advantages in their production. It is essential to seek a competitive position in the world economy, by which we mean an insertion that allows a specific type ‘of accumulation and a strategy to emerge from underdevelopment. That kind of development has to be related to the technological dynamic of the contemporary scientific revolution, whose technical floor is extremely movable and is based on intensity of knowledge. Today, the challenge of development involves the acquisition of a __ capacity for technological and social creation, for socially incorporating a potential for innovation and for realizing it. In this sense one of the basic components of dedopmose strategies iis the construction ofa national system ofinnovation’? that would open the way _ for a competitive position in the global economy through the accumulation of knowledge and production in cutting-edge sectors like biotechnology or informatics. Having a monopoly ofcertain products in those sectors can generate monopolistic profits until other competitors develop the same product. According to information available this advantage could exist for periods of three to five years. It is a kind of dynamic comparative advantage as it fluctuates in line with technological devel_ opment achieved and maintained, and it depends on the country’s

endogenous capacity.*° Of course, competing on this terrain does 93

not only depend on being capable of creating specific products or making certain scientific breakthroughs, but also on attaining the conditions that would lead to new discoveries so that a comparative advantage can be consolidated. Put another way, a critical mass of knowledge has to be attained through a pool of highly qualified technical personnel who, together with the appropriate infrastructure, would facilitate a kind of chain reaction of innovations. Hence,

the decisive importance of training human resources for development; to create what has been labeled human capital. According to these considerations the elements of the central nucleus ofa policy for development would be: > A policy of selective connection-disconnection. > The selection of the cutting-edge sector or sectors in which the country has the conditions to compete. >» The creation of a societal culture of innovation.

> A policy of taking advantage of contradictions within the system, gaining space for maneuver and facilitating the advance ofthe revolutionary project.

> A political strategy whose aim is that the search for competitiveness does not annul the search for a new way oflife. The above order does not imply priority as the points are all interrelated. Policy of Selective Connection-Disconnection

Cuba is a small country with an open economy whose degree ofselfsufficiency has limiting particularities. The world market functions under criteria of capitalist profitability and efficiency on the basis of the law of value. It is an asymmetric market for the underdeveloped countries whose export structures heavily rely on primary products. Given the phenomenon of unequal exchange, these are 94

affected by price instability and the constant and structural deterioration of the terms of exchange, for which reason a total connec-

tion today would reproduce within Cuban society capitalist relations of the underdeveloped type. So let-us go back to the initial proposition: the need for a new form of relationship with the world system of capital. In the ideas set Out, part of the national economy has a greater relationship with it based on the system’s role as a source of accumulation and another part does not; it operates in function of national needs.

Taking the above-mentioned elements, the strategy would have to be understood in terms ofselective connection-disconnection, which

would permit operating with the law of value on a national scale, limiting its action in certain sectors with criteria of socialist rationality —health, education, basic foodstuffs, etc.—for strategic convenience,

either in the interest of national security or beacuse it is convenient

that those sectors reach a certain level before being submitted to international competition, while allowing it to function as it does in the world market in sectors such as tourism, agricultural and cut_ ting-edge technologies. The problem lies in creating the mechanisms that would facilitate this, and which should not just be administrative

but also economic. The sectors grouped in the first area—socialist rationality—respond to the concept of national security of the revolutionary project. The Revolution triumphed to solve problems in those sectors and in that lies one of its strengths. It is in these sectors where socialism materializes for the masses; they constitute gains the loss of which would affect the security of the Revolution. They constitute part of the protected sectors since protected sectors can also be found in the other area.

In all of this process the directive and regulatory roles ofthe socialist state are essential for defining the rules governing the functioning of the economy, for concentrating resources, defining priorities and negotiating with other actors in the international economy. State area Rw wie Sey

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command of the economy constitutes an equivalent to the power of the executive of atransnational conglomerate; its loss would lead to the end ofthe revolutionary project. Hence, the testing of forms of organization and management that are superior to the scheme of centralized planning inherited from the model ofreal socialism; and a first step in this direction is is the Managerial Improvement System, which is in its initial phase. A socialist economy management model has to integrate efficient information and forecast systems, adequate balances between centralization and decentralization, flexibility and agility in decision making and resource allocation; as well as the creation of mechanisms that really promote cost reduction, risk assumption and the introduction of innovations. And that model has to make operational a socialist economy that can be qualified as of a new type; in other words, an economy whose reproduction tends toward socialism, but which operates with the presence offoreign capital and

private property.?' It must be a model that combines a state that is at the same time proprietor, entrepreneur and regulator, and a society with initiative, without losing the component ofsocial justice. Such a management model will not emerge overnight but along the long road oftrial and error, because the leadership capacity of an economy that aspires to be cutting-edge does not translate only as economic action, but also as the result ofa given level of the so-

cial efficiency of the system as a whole.”? Selection of Cutting-Edge Sectors and Competitiveness

This definition implies designing a policy aimed at creating an infrastructure able to materialize in products the scientific and technological capacity created; this is, properly speaking, the generation of an endogenous capacity to create competitive advantages.

In Cuba, in addition to the general policy of raising the educational level of the population, there is a policy of affording the country a high scientific level. At the end of the 1970s and in the early 96

1980s, the foundation of the National Center for Scientific Research

(CNIC) initiated the creation of a series of research centers whose aim was to create products in the health sphere. That was a strategic political decision by the country’s leadership. A study of Cuban economy’s development demonstrates that its principal direction is moving in what we can call “the productive-scientific constellation

of health,”?° formed by a strong accumulation of biotechnological, chemical-pharmaceutical knowledge, the design and manufacture of short-series medical equipment with a computational base and the loan of health services in specialized installations at the highest international level, as well as the export of these services. This constellation has had and continues to have a notable development on the basis ofits productive scientific results. In recent years, more than 200 biotechnical products-have been manufactured, including interferon, representing an export potential for the country. The Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Center alone has 150 patents registered in Cuba, 66 in other countries and more than 500 applications throughout the world. Moreover, it has technology transfer agreements with 14 countries, including Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United

1

Kingdom, the United States and Venezuela. Currently Cuba exports biotechnological products to more than 35 countries. Vaccines with a high level of effectiveness or unique in the world, such as the anti-meningococcus vaccine, the vaccine against hepatitis B74 and against leptospirosis have been developed. In June 2002, a Cuban publication affirmed that 10 vaccines were produced in Cuba, 8 were being developed and 13 were in the research stage, including cholera, dengue, AIDS and tuberculosis. Work is ongoing on 8 preventive and therapeutic anti-cancer vaccines, 4 of them in the trial phase. There are national patents for medicines such as melagenina, the only known treatment against vitiligo; policonasol (PPG), a cholesterol reducer, whose known secondary effect is the enhancement of 97

sexual potency, and other highly sophisticated ones are being produced such as monoclonal antibodies, interferon, the recombinant

streptokinase and the epidermal growth factor. A number ofsophisticated medical machinery has been designed and is being constructed like the SUMA (Ultra-micronanalytic System), a kit for the detection of AIDS and for another twelve diseases; the Neurénica, which measures visual and auditive perception; and the Diramic, which provides

rapid microbiological diagnosis, among others. The Immune Testing Center is producing 24 kits for diagnosing 15 diseases. Also, thou-

sands of people have been treated in Cuban health institutions for psoriasis, retinitis pigmentosa, vitiligo, neurological restoration, and

complex orthopedic problems. The research-production centers are of particular interest. These agencies are not confined to research but also have the necessary infrastructure to manufacture the products resulting from their research at industrial level. From my point of view, the concept of selective connection-disconnection is operating at micro level in these centers given that they have an apparently contradictory function: on the one hand they respond to the requirements of the health system in which the law of value and market mechanisms do not reign, but at the same time they are functioning as enterprises competing in international terms. Moreover, these centers are directed to the creation and operation of their own

technologies rather than being the consumers of imported technologies.*° In 1998 the Cuban scientific production complex developed 200 new products, 112 advanced technologies and 17 prototypes, while 28 invention patents are being applied for, 5 of them abroad. Specifically the biotechnological sector and the pharmaceutical medical industry have presented for registration 20 new pharmaceutical products and 2 new formulas for human vaccines. All of that points toward Cuba having generated and maintained an endogenous capacity for creating a competitive advantage in

these spheres. One example ratifying this is the agreement with the 98

SmithKline transnational for the international distribution of the anti-meningococcal vaccine. The development process is slow and complex and one cannot project the future by making just one part of society competitive and abandoning the other to underdevelopment. However promising certain sectors may be, all efforts cannot be solely concentrated in them. The battle against underdevelopment is an integral process, especially in a social project like the Cuban one. Principal directions as well as hierarchies in development efforts have to be maintained in accordance with the possibilities of obtaining results in different sectors, economic urgencies and strategic possibilities.

This implies that alongside the core strategy, core tactical actions should be planned and that efforts throughout the economy should be maintained and developed in line with the prospects of distinct sectors. This requires the deployment of energies to work simultaneously in emerging and traditional sectors, which is why, alongside

the sectors ofstrategic importance, work is also ongoing in the economic recovery of traditional sectors: sugar, tobacco, citrus fruits and nickel, plus particular efforts in the development oftourism. In the traditional

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sectors

there

are accumulated

productive

experiences, historical articulations with the national economy and a knowledge of markets; therefore, by no means should they be neglected. Within these areas of production ways and means of extending the chain of aggregate value and the diversifica tion of their final productions have to be found. The case of sugar merits particular treatment given that it has a decisive weight in the formation of the gross domestic product and can determine more or less 3 % ofits growth. Up until 2001 the sugar production complex occupied around 40% of the country’s agricultural land and employed close to 400,000 people among workers, cooperative groups and campesinos, with a multi-sectorial nature manifested in the participation of the Ministry of Sugar in other sectors. Thus, according to 99

information from the 1990s, it occupied 12 % of machine construction, 22% of electronic production, 5 % ofall construction and installation, 17% of the drafting of national projects, 18 % ofthe rail transportation sector and 45 % oftruck transportation.*° In Cuba’s conditions, sugar production and the potential of its derivatives have to be borne in mind when making any future projection; thus, the Cuban state has undertaken a program for compacting and reconverting the sugar industry to bring it into line with the world sugar context. The program has two objectives: to raise productivity and efficiency and to integrally diversify it in order to make it more independent ofthe physical sugar market. The former implies the closure of 70 mills and the conversion of 62% of cultivated areas to other agricultural crops without affecting the income of sugar workers, for whom study and re-qualification programs have been implemented while maintaining their wages during this process. The aim is to eliminate mono-production by exploiting sugar cane to its maximum potential; hence the manufacture of different types and qualities of sugar and the push to derivatives. Cuba has facilities to manufacture 35 by-products of

the sugar agribusiness.”” In order to achieve the above-mentioned objectives, the production ofdifferent kinds of sugar has been concentrated in 71 mills, the production of molasses in 14, and 38% of current sugarcane areas have been selected to maintain cultivation with the use ofthe best land for this end, with the target of harvesting some four million metric tons of sugar. There is scientific potential in the sphere: more than a thousand university graduates, two-hundred with Phd’s, working in four strategic areas: harvest mechanization, electromechanical production, production of derivatives and sugar-industry energetics.7® The Sugar Agribusiness Integral Restructuring Program is a complex

but viable one and, objectively, it is a way out ofthe impasse that the sector has suffered and the means of converting it into one of the scientific constellations on which the country’s development can be based. 100

Traditional products such as cigars, citrus fruits and nickel have

recovered and are showing signs ofsuccess, although food production is insufficient, for which reason the country continues to have a high dependence on imports to meet the population’s needs which, it is fair to say, are still insufficiently satisfied. Tourism has become one ofthe leading sectors of the economy, given that its characteristics have the capacity of stimulating other sectors, such as the food industry—garden and root vegetables, meat and drinks, etc.—, the light and construction industries, trade

development and certain lines within the informal sector such as crafts—by demanding goods and services to satisfy tourists’ needs. It is also a source of short-term liquid currency, an important resource for a blockaded country like Cuba. Taken as a whole, tourism is a generator of employment and contributes to the exterior articulation of the economy; it particularly enhances relations with the Caribbean as a tourist destination region. There are negative aspects of tourism in relation to certain social phenomena that accompany it in the current conditions, such as prostitution, the illegal market and others; but these are some of

the challenges of the sphere. Between 1989 and 1999 the Cuban archipelago maintained an annual growth rate ofjust over 17% in its total of visitors, and in 2000 it received 1.175 million tourists.

Today, tourism is the country’s principal source of hard currency. The events of September 11, 2001 have affected it, but given the low incidence of U.S. tourism only its rate of growth has lessened and tourist numbers remained the same as the previous year. Figures for 2002 predicted two million visitors for 2003. Broadly speaking, the principal locomotive of Cuban development can be visualized in these three constellations. As part of development efforts, an aggressive policy is needed for the export of goods and services that have particular qualities in terms offinding niches in the world market, such as: 101

> The export of highly qualified intellectual services: doctors, professors, etc. hired on a temporary basis to work in other countries. >The export of cultural goods and services: art, music and others.

> The development ofspecialized forms oftourism for specific demands: ecological, scientific, event-hosting, etc.

> The export of agricultural products with a superior aggregate value directed at specific segments of the world market, like organically cultivated produce. Efforts are being made in those and other sectors with different results, some of them having emerged as interim solutions to lack of resources. A steadily increasing integrality in the conception and development ofthis process can be noticed. The recovery is taking

place in parallel to a gradual process of technological upgrading for two reasons: one, available resources, and two, the problem of un-

employment. The entire process of industrial re-conversion highlights the problem of employment given that new technologies are labor-saving. In this field, the policy applied had been a gradual one. A legal framework of protection provided for unemployed workers contemplates a period of subsidized pay, re-qualification projects and the offer of alternative work, in parallel with particular attention to specific social groups. In workplaces, management and trade unions arejoint-

ly participating in this whole process. Thus, economic and political logics have to be carefully combined, given that the economic dynamic could induce to speeding up the process, but the political focus calls for gradual action. For example, labor rationalization generating a high unemployment rate in the short term could be a factor ofinstability and negatively affect consensus. 102

Part of that effort involves a modernization of services and thus,

the banking system and insurance services have been reorganized. The issue is to diversify the country’s competitive capacity by ensuring that the major part of the productive apparatus and national services participate in the process. The problem is that the economy cannot be competitive if society as a whole does not attain certain standards. In our case that comprehensive competitive thrust

has to be attained by placing limits on the rationality ruling world economy, which is a capitalist one; in other words, the challenge is

to attain a competitive society and simultaneously safeguard the project. One can deduce from an analysis of the above elements that Cuba does have competitive potential in cutting-edge sectors of the world economy and that it is immersed in a process ofcreating the platform _ that will allow to pave the way to development. From the theoretical point of view, Cuba has a capacity for insertion and competitiveness in all these fields given its availability of human capital. Its capacity to organize in the best way the process of generation, transfer, mobilization and utilization of knowledge

gives it the greatest capacity for competition, but in practice, the real contexts introduce other aspects such as the monopoly of marketing circuits by transnational corporations, extra-economic barriers and in our case, moreover, the blockade, all of which makes the

way difficult and complex, compounded by the lack of resources for development and the need for social learning in this terrain. Hence, the advances are modest ones despite the efforts deployed. Creation of a Societal Culture of Innovation

In order to achieve a competitive economy it is necessary to create

the socio-organizational conditions that will most effectively integrate the generation ofscientific and technological knowledge with its economic and social utilization, which is the central function of

the National Innovation System (SNI). 103

The objective is to create a mechanism that promotes scientific and technological creativity within the leadership and society as a whole; in other words, a societal culture of innovation and competitiveness as part of acompetitive society, which involves its computerization given the place that informatics occupies in contemporary society. That system was established in Cuba in its modern and current concept during the 1990s, based on the creation ofScientific Complexes; the conversion of the Spare Parts Forum into the National Science and Technology Forum; the institution of the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment (CITMA); the definition of concepts in that respect and the consolidation of a scientific policy better adjusted to our realities and international demands. The infrastructure was completed by a forceful incursion into certain advanced technologies.?? The Cuban SNI, “. .. constitutes a network ofrelations that involve

state, joint and private agencies both national and foreign, whose activities and interactions generate import, modify and disseminate new technologies.”°° It is a ubiquitous system that goes beyond sectorial confines and the attributes of CITMA as a leading body. It is of interest to the whole society and is inserted as an essential component of the development strategy being promoted by the Cuban state.?! From the above it can be deduced that this system not only involves the institution and creation of products and processes, but also organizational aspects and various forms of relations, within itself and with the market. In Cuba this system is in its initial phase and is demonstrating both strengths and weaknesses. A CITMA document evaluates human resources as its main strength and, among its weaknesses, low productivity in terms of publications and the registering of industrial trademarks, an insufficient connection between technical and social research, and the lack of amarketing policy.*4

In summary, it can be said that the country is taking effective steps toward creating a societal culture of innovation. 104

While innovations have to be projected within society as a whole in what we have called a societal culture of innovation, the same is

the case in terms of the command ofinformation technology. This has to impregnate the entire social ensemble in order to construct a “cutting-edge” economy in the stage ofglobalization; in other words, to advance toward the computerization of society. The recognition that the use of information has a direct relation to economic growth has led many countries to establish government programs, in particular for the creation ofinformation infrastructures, and in general

for the development ofan information industry.°? Studies on the issue qualify contemporary society as increasingly immersed in the use ofinformation goods and services. Rather than dependence, one could say that computerization is progressively impregnating all spheres of social activity, beginning with the dom-

_inants reaching down to the objects and habits of everyday life.°4 Hence, there is talk of the information society, or the information age, al-

though Castells prefers the term informational society, given that information and its utilization has existed in all societies and here we are

_ dealing with a new situation: “The term informational indicates the attribute of a specific form of social organization in which the generation, processing and transmission ofinformation are turning into basic sources of productivity and power, due to the new technological conditions emerging in this historical period.”*°Ofcourse, these developments are unequal and segmented, as much among countries as among social classes and groups, and under capitalism are serving to reinforce the positions of the dominant countries. Given the magnitude of the phenomenon at global level, its political context and our development needs, the Cuban government has concentrated on one initiative: the Strategy for the Computer__ ization of Cuban Society, the general platform for achieving that a objective. Among its objectives, the strategy contemplates the creation ofan informatics and informational culture in society, the uti1% lization of information technologies in all spheres ofsocial life and S ‘3

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the promotion in Cuba ofan information industry.°° It likewise contemplates the formulation and implementation of a national information policy, with a view to developing information resources and services as part of a national development policy. In this terrain Cuba has strengths and weaknesses; its strengths include human resources and the organization ofindustries dedicated to providing information technology—in particular computer science. Its weaknesses include technological backwardness in the industries providing information technology, insufficient application of the latest information technologies to the production, distribution and use of specialized computer goods and services, and lack of experience in marketing mechanisms. In that direction we should highlight, given its significant perspective for promoting the export of tangible goods, Cuba’s incorporation into the electronic trade via virtual stores on the Internet and the installing of a rapid cash system for remittances sent from abroad. Obviously, the use ofthese electronic aids Is still in its initial phase and advances still have to be made to achieve efficient use, although it

is a reality that those sales have not been blockaded to date, not

even within the United States.°” Taking Advantage of the System’s Contradictions and Gaining Maneuvering Space

Every development strategy has a sense of class. Who does it benefit? Who does it prejudice? Logically, a country that seeks to break the chains of dependence finds opposition from the beneficiaries of that dependence. That opposition manifests itself in measures that affect the living conditions of the people. In the case of Cuba its most visible expression is the blockade, but there are other pressures that under the pretext of the need for “democratization” are really proposing capitalist restoration and translate into economic difficulties for the population, while their agenda might not be as aggressive as that of the United States. 106

This obliges us to maintain a high profile for the international projection of the Cuban Revolution, combining the continuity ofits

principles with a dose of political realism.?8

Cuba has relations with 181 countries and maintains a systematic

policy of consensus—sometimes complicated—with Latin American States and governments and the Third World in defense of the interests of underdeveloped countries. It has active participation in the Non-Aligned Movement, the Group of 77 and is seeking better interaction with various integration schemes and forums in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is also developing relations of cooperation and solidarity with the world revolutionary and popular movement. Its participation in internationa! agencies has a strong Third World focus. Despite the attempts of U.S. imperialism to damage it, Cuba’s international prestige is evidenced by the high number of _ positions to which the country has been elected in international forums; it has held the presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement and was a member ofthe UN Security Council, to mention just two examples. That prestige is also demonstrated by Cuba’s hosting ofin- ternational events, such as the 9th Ibero-American Summit in 1999

andthe South Summit. In general terms, independently of the fact _ that the decisive factors for maintaining the socialist project are internal ones, the Revolution’s external projection is an integral part of

the struggle to defend and advance the socialist project. In the economic ordera strategic political-economic and politicalmilitary issue stands out: one cannot win without allies. In a world in which wealth rules power, one has to ally with wealth in order to overcome it. Based on the above we believe that the formulation of a strategy on this terrain lies in making allies with certain sectors or factions of the international bourgeoisie in order to resist and over— come imperialist aggression and pave roads to development. This is _ the course of the economic-political opening of a socialist revolution in power, whose essential component is the establishment ofdiverse 4 forms ofassociation with foreign capital. f

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This policy seeks to integrate foreign capital into development efforts, naturally, without expecting it to renounce its central objective: the pursuit of the search for profit. Moreover, it is centrally about taking advantage of its capacity and motivation to obtain profits, in order to promote the country’s development on the basis of conditions laid down by the Cuban side, which is not composed of capitalists of national origin, but of the representation ofthe socialist state, which fixes the terms—conditions and time—within which

the association is developed. The Cuban government has proposed associations in areas and spheres that are most suited to the country’s development in relation to capital, technology, markets, management, etc. The foreign counterpart receives certain incentives: it can freely repatriate profits without being obliged to reinvest them and does not have to pay taxes on gross or private income. The principal objectives of the Helms-Burton Act, which came into effect in 1996, are to block and hinder foreign investment in Cuba; however, before and after its promulgation foreign investment has continued to develop, as can be confirmed by an analysis of the behavior of foreign investment in Cuba during the last ten years. To give an initial idea, in 1990 there were 50 Economic Associations

with Foreign Capital (AECE) and by early 1998, there were 340. In Cuba, these associations are basically established as joint ventures in which the Cuban state keeps a percentage of the shares of companies thus created. A legal regulatory framework has been established with the Foreign Investment Act, passed in 1995, and a careful, case-by-case policy has been followed to extend the field of action of Direct Foreign Investment (DFl), which has moved from being fundamentally active in the tourist industry to locate itself in all sectors of the economy, with basic industry and tourism as the sectors with the largest presence of DFI: 93 ventures and 54 associations respectively. 108

In ‘certain activities the presence of joint ventures is significant: 100% in oil exploration, the production of lubricants, the telecommunications service, soap and perfume production, rum exports, and more than 50% in the citrus fruit agribusiness, nickel and cement. In summary, there is a growth trend ofthe DFI in Cuba in spite of Opposition and actions on the part of the hegemonic power ofthe system which, with the Helms-Burton Act and other measures, has

attempted to obstruct, paralyze or reverse that trend. Theresis another little known dimension of the DFI which is related to the need for Cuban revolutionaries to become familiar with the world ofcapital, to master the rules of the market and to operate efficiently in this world so as to provide resources for our country. In concrete terms this means Cuban investment in capitalist countries. Cuba operates in other countries in over one-hundred entities either as partner in joint ventures or through branches of Cuban companies. These range from a bank in London, nickel refining in Canada, to health clinics in Latin America and a number of enterprises in Africa and Asia. This is not only about profits but about the training of managerial human resources, operative experiences in the capitalist world, marketing know-how and political influence. This process has been affected by the hostility of the U.S. government, which Is putting pressure on companies that decide to invest in Cuba or open up operational possibilities to Cuban companies. Profits on the Cuban side in joint ventures belong to the state, which uses them in the country’s interest and in line with the outlined development strategy. Foreign investment is an important aspect of development that we must foment, but it is complementary. The country is undertaking the central effort with its own resources and is going to continue doing so. . . . Today the banking system can provide working capital and even capital directed to backing company investment, and that means that the foreign investment policy 109

is much clearer in terms ofthe fields in which we need to promote the search for capital, technology and markets that we

cannot resolve ourselves and are in the country’s interest.°? Capital is a social relationship whose characteristics have the tendency to destroy and/or regenerate other relations of production in function ofthe interests of capitalism; thus, the danger always exists

that capital will expand its interests beyond the anticipated ones, via styles of consumption, social relations, etc. However, it has to be assumed that, as Cuban revolutionaries, we have to coexist and work

with the most advanced forms ofcapitalism if that means finding a way that would lead to a society that can overcome the economy of scarcity. The importance ofthis challenge is to understand the world of capital, dominate the rules of the market, work effectively with them and try not to be absorbed by the world ofcapital. Although tensions exist and will exist, the policy in relation to foreign capital has a limit: the possibility that the latter might chart the path to the country’s development. In order to prevent the domination ofcapital the socialist political power—by resorting to economic and extra-economic mechanisms—has to draft the course and find the strength and operational capacity to follow it through, so as to bring the results closer to the profile of the revolutionary project and not to that ofatotal market society. The real possibility of achieving that lies in the fact that the globalization process is not uniform, nor is it exempt from contradictions; on the contrary, the

old contradictions are still there and new ones are arising. Today, perhaps like never before, one can clearly see the contradiction between the North and the South and the widening gap between the two groups of countries; contradictions and competition among the economic blocs of the system and within each one of them; contradictions and competition among the principal actors of the globalized economy, the transnationals, and also the battle for profits among the transnationalized factions of the bourgeoisie given 110

their need for expansion both in the countries of the North and of the South. Hence the importance for a revolutionary state to take advantage of contradictions generated in the globalization process in order to win spaces for maneuver in economic and political relations. Cuba is demonstrating that it is possible to take advantage ofsuch contra-

dictions in order to exist in the globalized world oftoday. Accompanying the globalization process are a number of integration schemes both in the North and in the South. Given the nature and trend ofthese processes Cuba has the capacity to maintain growing economic relations with them and with the components of these groupings. This is demonstrated by the economic relations Cuba has established with European nations, with MERCOSUR and with CARICOM; by its entry into the Latin American Integration Association (ALADI); and even by its relations with the NAFTA bloc, headed by the United States, particularly with the other two members, Mexico and Canada. A Political Strategy to Safeguard the Project while Achieving Competitiveness

Although we have placed it last, this condition is decisive because without it the politics of development loses meaning and could reach the point of being no different from any other capitalist economic policy. This issue is an exceptionally contradictory one, because in the particular situation of crisis and scarcity being experienced by Cuba today, the impact of mercantilism and the influence of values accompanying the presence offoreign capital and elements ofcapitalism can become greater than their objective significance in the economy. Alongside this there is the fact that some of the measures taken to overcome the crisis operate to a certain extent against the Cuban socialist project. The legalization of the possession and use of hard currency, the extension of private activity and the presence of a black market, as well as the income obtained through remittances sent from abroad 111

and through links with the emerging sectors of the economy in the current conditions, are sources of marked economic differentiation

in Cuban society, all of which has been at the base ofa heterogenalization of the social structure in recent years. As a result of the above, there are certain social groups—above all those who concentrate a monetary accumulation—that can link their projection to the non-existence ofsocialism, with the objective of converting that accumulation into capital. On the other side there is a conjunctural contradiction between the historical paradigms of the Revolution and the material living conditions that can actually be provided to the entirety of the population in the short term. These and other factors, including imperialist aggression and its attempts to create a base of internal subversion, mean that the search for economic efficiency has to be accompanied by incentives for those cohesive factors playing a role in securing the validity and integrity of the project, above all those related to the participative structure and the creation of socialist values. Thus, politics invades all spheres of social life and remains in the foreground, expressed in the strengthening of values related to the unity of the people as an important factor for the continued existence of the Revolution, the nation, independence and sovereign-

ty; a policy of national unity defying imperialist aggression and its re-colonizing objectives. A political-ideological endeavor, known as the Battle of Ideas, directed at fortifying the ideology and values ofsocialism in the midst of adverse economic circumstances is likewise underway. There are emblematic examples: 1. Cuban medical aid to Third World nations. The Revolution can undertake tasks such as this because it has been able to

train men and women whose guiding values are solidarity and social justice. 112

2. The broad mass movement against the kidnapping ofa six year-old boy—the Elid4n case—which served to reaffirm cohesion around the Revolution, with the leadership of the youth in a special participative dimension. In summary, maintaining the correlation in favor ofsocialism is a fundamental political task of top priority. Based on the analysis presented in this chapter the traits of the Cuban paradigm of development can be elaborated; and an approximation of it follows:

> A strategy ofselective connection-disconnection in relation to the international functioning of the law of value in accordance with the country’s interests. > The articulation of acombination of political strategies for the construction of competitive advantages, based on the development of certain knowledge-intensive production and service sectors.

>A policy of agreements (alliances?) with specific factions of the transnational bourgeoisie for access to capital, technology and markets, while maintaining the command ofsocialist power over the economy. > A policy of safeguarding the social gains of the Revolution and its participative structure, which allows socialist trends to be maintained, backed by a hegemonic consensus that implies the permanence ofthe system’s political and social reproduction. > Eventual achievement ofan autonomous and sustained development that can promote the kind of accumulation capable of breaking the chains of dependence.

Without going into details, it is worth noting that the development strategy visualized supersedes the dichotomous argument of inward development-outward development. It is not about testing a 113

socialist version of import substitution or of an export platform for the world market, although aspects of both are present. It is about programming the productive structure based on the country’s endogenous capacities, so as to find combinations and complementarities between production for the domestic market and production for the world market, between capital-intensive production and/or knowledge and labor force intensive production, between traditional exports for the world market and non-traditional exports of anew kind with high components of added value for the world market. Undoubtedly, the new global conditions will have their influence on the profile of tomorrow’s Cuban society but, in order to achieve success, our policy of development will continue being an alternative to capitalism; a viable socialism. Only within that framework can the country maintain its independence and national projection. NOTES

1. Juan Antonio Blanco, “Cuba: utopia y realidad treinta afhlios después,” Cuadernos de Nuestra América, vol. 7, no. 15: 26.

2.

Ernesto Guevara, Obras (1957-1967), 368-369.

3.

Rafael Hernandez and Haroldo Dilla, “Cultura politica y participacién popular en Cuba,” Cuadernos de Nuestra América, vol. 7, no. 15: 113.

4.

Beatriz Diaz, “Cuba, modelo de desarrollo equitativo,” LASA-CEA. Sistemas politicos, poder y sociedad (Estudio de casos en América Latina), 345.

5. José Luis Rodriguez, “Una coyuntura adversa,” Cuba Econémica, no. 3: 97.

6.

Miguel Alejandro Figueras, Andlisis de las politicas de industrializacién en Cuba en el periodo revolucionario y proyecciones futuras.

7. José Bell Lara, Cambios mundialesyperspectivas de la Revolucién Cubana, 13-31.

8. For a view of the ofthe overall process of confronting the crisis of the 1990s see: José Bell Lara, Op. cit. 114

9%

Delia Luisa Lépez, “Crisis econdmica, ajuste y democracia.”

10. The CDRs bring together 84% of the population aged fourteen and above; the FMC,

80% of adult women; and the CTC, 99% of paid workers. The local agencies of the People’s Power have municipal delegates and thousands ofcitizens are involved in 1900

working commissions.

More than 98% of the registered electorate regularly participates in elections to these bodies. On the other hand, approximately 16% ofthese belong to what can be considered the most active segment of the population, the Com-

munist Party of Cuba and the Young Communist League. tal; Beatriz Diaz, Op. cit. tz. Angela Ferriol, “Politica social cubana, situacién y transformaciones,” Temas, no. 11:

97-98. Lie One example of this in Cuba is that in the 1980s expenditure on education represented 6.1% of the GDP and 13.2% ofthe national budget.

14. The complexes are the superior organizational level of science in Cuba; interface units

that group together multiple institutions with the objective of participating in the country’s economic and social development. They represent an ideal environment for bring-

ing together the undertakings ofpoliticians, scientists, producers and marketing agents to convert a scientific idea into a productive reality. tS: From a strictly Marxist point of view, the term dematerialization is debatable, given that

it does not refer to a production that has ceased being material, but to a lower con-

sumption ofmaterial by each productive unit matching or surpassing the quality of the former product. 16. It should not be overlooked that, in its time, the process that gave rise to the NICs was

presented by certain social scientists as a demonstration of the possibility of under-

developed countries achieving development under this system, in a simple identifica-

tion ofindustrialization with development. Due to the geopolitical situation of these countries and in function oftheir utilization in the confrontation with the USSR, their

economies had special U.S. support, benefiting from their entry into this market. During the 1940s and 1950s they undertook agrarian reform and practiced a strong state 115

intervention in the economy. They also benefited from Japanese capital and from its policy of exporting technology in the process of obsolescence to neighboring countries. Facts have demonstrated that this type of industrialization does not constitute a real development process, but a new manifestation of dependency. The Asian crisis of 1998 clarified the panorama. WAS Vania Bambirra, Capitalismo dependiente latinoamericano, 35-64. 18. Theotonio Dos Santos, Imperialismoydependencia, 308. 1: Rodrigo Arocena, Ciencia, tecnologiaysociedad, 100-114.

20. Various authors refer to the relation between knowledge, competitive advantages and

competitive position. Aldo Ferrer notes that the generation of competitive advantages in the world market has

acommon nucleus, knowledge and qualified human resources.

See: Aldo Ferrer, “Nuevos paradigmas tecnoldégicos y desarrollo sostenible, perspectiva latinoamericana,” Comercio Exterior, vol. 43, no. 9. Carmen Garcia states that the posi-

tion of countries in globalization depends on competitiveness and this depends more

and more on knowledge. See: Carmen Garcia, “Integracién académicay nuevo valor del conocimiento,” Nueva Sociedad, no. 126. Zu. In our view, during part of the stage ofsocialist transition, socialism is not reproduced

spontaneously from the economy, but from the political instance that governs the economy. Des In an economy in which innovation is the rule and not the exception, the social-or-

ganizational factor has a decisive weight. See “Innovating on a strictly technological plane is of no value unless there is a similar innovation at the level of social policies, at the level of social organization, at the level of know-how,” see: Carmen Garcia, Op. cit. 23, We use the concept of productive scientific constellation rather than the productive scientific complex, because, in Cuba, the latter term is used to refer to the entirety of the

country’s productive scientific apparatus, and we want to specify that we are referring to part ofit; that related to health. 116

24. This vaccine obtained the WHO

certificate and thus can be supplied to UN agencies

like UNICEF and the PAHO. 7 aes. Marina Majoli, “Ciencia, tecnologfa y desarrollo social,” 9. 26. Miguel Alejandro Figueras, Aspectos estructurales de la economia cubana, 81.

Aa Oscar Almazan, “Agroindustria azucarera, viabilidad y alternativa econdémica.” Bohemia, no. 23: 18-19.

28. Ibid: 18. 29. Jesus Pérez Garcia, Gobernabilidad y democracia: los 6rganos del Poder Popular en Cuba, 16. 30. Ibid: 19 31; At first sight, the SIN does not appear to be different from those existing in other coun-

tries; however, it has the political mark of the Revolution: participation. The National

Science and Technology Forum is the culmination ofa process that begins at the grassroots level with the participation of thousands ofpeople, starting from which the state,

and political, social and mass organizations become involved in it. 32. CITMA, “Balance de trabajo.” 33. Mario Luis Chao, “Los servicios informaticos en Cuba,” Andlisis de Coyuntura, year 2, no.

Nee

62 20:

34. Manuel Castells, La era de la informacién, vol. 1, 47. ee| eh

35. Ibid, 48. . Aleida Olivé, “La informacion en el desarrollo nacional, desafios y alternativas para las economias emergentes,” Andlisis de Coyuntura, year 2, no. 3: 17.

. Melchor Gil and J. Fernandez, “Evolucién internacional del comercio electrénico y la situaci6n actual de Cuba,” Andlisis de Coyuntura, year 2, no. 6: 17.

. Carlos Rafael Rodriguez has identified three central aspects in the projection of the Cuban Revolution’s foreign policy, internationalism, the subordination of Cuban interests to the widest interests of the world revolutionary movement, and the capacity 117

to utilize inter-imperialist contradictions to the benefit of those interests. See: Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, Letra con filo.

39. Carlos Lage, in “Balance anual del Ministerio de Relaciones Extranjeras de Cuba,” 3.

: Conclusions . . .

Cuba’s prospects for development within the conditions of neoliberal globalization are controversial in nature, given that their ma-terialization will depend on uncontrollable external circumstances and courses ofinternal action, subject to the interpretation of the main players and those responsible for decision making. Hence, we have deliberately utilized the category of possibility in referring to _ those prospects. | have tried to demonstrate that Cuba has real possibilities of finding a road to development and with that, of setting the bases for breaking the chains of dependence. It is important to highlight that what has to be taken into account is not the present juncture— __ in terms of its immediate perception through the prism of the exceptional difficulties of daily life and the unprecedented insertion of mercantile trends—but those links that would bring us closer toa different future. In other words, what has to be borne in mind is not

the scenario ofa given moment, but the components of a scenario implicit in the current social context. Nor should the measures underway be seen in isolation, but integrated into a conjoint vision; it is this articulation that has allowed us a reading of the Cuban perspective, based on which we have drawn up the results so far pre~ sented. o a

119

When we expound the elements of the Cuban paradigm we are aware that Cuba is inserted within the one and only existing world system, the capitalist one; yet, moving toward a better position within it by internally maintaining its own alternative project; hence, the central nucleus of our theorizing is the concept of selective connection-disconnection. It is not possible to isolate it from globalization, but economic trends are not absolute and the revolutionary state can limit them and take advantage of them to move away from that system. The Cuban practical experience confirms this. To finish, we should like to note that if today capitalism is stron-

ger on a global level, that strength is founded on an extraordinary base of inequality and international polarization. The kingdom of capital cannot

be otherwise;

hence, the contradictions that it is

generating within a constantly more exclusive system are a source ofinstability. Looking to the future, the need for change will be constantly greater; in what direction...? That will depend to a major extent on the forces that participate in the undertaking. One cycle for the popular forces closed at the end ofthe 20th century, but there are signs that indicate the end of lethargy. History is unending and in the magma ofthe present there are elements enclosing the possibility of a different future.

120

APPENDIX

: The Harvest of Neoliberalism : in Latin America! (Excerpts)

The debt crisis began with the situation of non-payment in Mexico in 1982, and throughout recent years has constituted the axis of new forms of dependence; ” thus, twenty years after this totally new dependence—the main instrument for promoting neoliberalism— one can take stock of the results of having implemented neoliberal policies on the continent; for that reason this paper has been called

“The Harvest of Neoliberalism.” The aim is to prompt a reflection based on the analysis of data

and ofthe reality of our continent in the search for trends marking this period in Latin America and, while it is a fact that some ofthe

phenomena that we shall be analyzing were already present in Latin American societies, it is also undeniable that neoliberal policies have contributed to giving them a strong boost. In this paper we have grouped what we consider to be the main trends in the social _ order that reflect the impact of neoliberalism.

Constantly Increasing Inequality - The application of neoliberal policies is also a process of redistributing income both among social classes—from workers to the _ business sector—and among sectors within the dominant class— from those who produce for the domestic market to exporters. An 121

initial analysis of the debt crisis and the application of IMF policies revealed that during the 1980s workers’ wages diminished by 25%, while those of the business sector increased by more than 15%. In its 1999 report on world development the World Bank recorded that, despite a per capita income 5 to 6 times higher than that of Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America had an

income distribution that contrasted unfavorably with that of those regions; for example, while in the Asian countries above mentioned the relation between the 20% richest and the 20% poorest was 7 to 1, in Latin America the difference between the two fifths was almost

19 to 1. This situation did not improve in that decade; rather it tended to worsen. The ECLAC confirmed in one ofits studies that the income ofthe richest 5% of the population increased not only in relative terms but in absolute ones and, in 2001, demonstrated that

the high degree of inequality was expressed in other aspects: “In the elevated proportion ofthe total income received by 10% of homes with the greatest resources, 19 times higher than that received by 40% of the poorest homes.”* The difference now is not between two fifths, but between one tenth and the sum of two-fifths; in oth-

er words, double the people in the prior comparison. The great majority of the Latin American population (83.6%) lives in countries where inequality accentuated between 1975 and 1995.° In this context, a study published in the magazine Pensamiento Iberoamericano demonstrated variations of the average income, mea-

sured in dollars, between the richest 1% and the poorest 1% over 15 years. The figures confirmed that in 1980 the difference between the two groups was 237 to 1; in 1990 the difference was already 360 to 1; and in 1995 it had risen to a difference of 417 to 1.

That trend toward social polarization is confirmed by the International Development Bank (IDB). A recent IDB report confirms that in Latin America a quarter ofthe national income is perceived by only 5% of the population, and 40% by the richest 10%, and contrasts this with the distribution in the most industrialized capitalist coun122

tries in which the richest 5% only receives an average of 13% of the national income.® That same report notes that the concentration indices of those Latin-American countries with the best distribution of income exceed the world average; thus, the worst income distribu-

tion in the world is found in this continent. In the countries with the highest levels of inequality, which include Bolivia, Brazil and Nicaragua, the difference between the fifth richest and poorest is 30 times

or more. In Bolivia that difference is almost 50 times.’ The retrogressive nature of the distribution of income in Latin America translates into the contrast between wealth and poverty being the most marked in the world. A graphic example is offered by Mexico, a country in which the number ofbillionaires rose from 2 in 1988 to 24 at the present time, and one ofthose billionaires has an annual income equal to the total income of the 17 million poorest

Mexicans, equivalent to $6.6 billion. The problem of inequality reaches its most extreme manifestation in the field of health, given that it embodies an unjust distribution to the right to life; for example, an extremely high infant mortality rate is concentrated in the poorest sectors and occurs due to perfectly avoidable causes. For example, in Argentina it is estimated that some 15,000 children die every year from curable diseases that cannot be controlled due to cuts in the health budget. With all reason the eminent sociologist Atilio Borén noted that in two years neoliberal policies resulted

in the same number of disappeared victims that state terrorism exterminated in seven. And this is likewise valid in relation to life expectancy, which is differentiated by social strata and could reach a twelve-year gap between the high-income strata and those of low income. Latin America is currently the most inequitable region ofthe world. Constantly Increasing Unemployment, Underemployment and Precarious Employment The final years of the 20th century were characterized by the escalation of unemployment and underemployment at world level. 123

In 1993 the UNDP noted a phenomenon that it labeled growth without employment, referring to the fact that productive growth neither implies the growth of employment, nor is reflected by it. The predictions of that time established a growing gap between the available workforce and the availability of employment. In the case of Latin America, taking 1990 as 100 for both factors, the workforce would grow by 27%, while employment would only do so by 14%. Reality has shown that those forecasts were moderate. In the early 1990s the region’s workforce was estimated at 180 million people; during that decade it grew by 44 million, but the demand did not coincide with this important growth; thus,there was a considerable increase in the number of unemployed at the rate of 10.1 % per year. In consequence, the unemployment rate rose by at least 6% to reach nearly 9% at the end of the decade.® This trend has continued in the 21st century and thus, the International Labor Organization (ILO) reported that in 2002 the unemployment rate was the highest in the last twenty years. Argentina won with official estimates, moderate as always, of an employment rate of 25%.? One aspect of neoliberal policies is to be found in the opening to the external sector, which in Latin America has provoked the closure of many national industries that have been unable to compete with their counterparts in the metropolitan countries, thus leading to the de-industrialization of the labor force with a marked drop in the capacity for absorbing employment in the sectors that offered the most stable, best paid occupations with the largest social cover. One consequence of these processes is that, alongside increased unemployment, the quality of jobs created has deteriorated; 7 of every 10 jobs created in the cities were in the informal sector. In fact, at the present time, more than half the labor force is employed in the informal sector. At the same time, labor flexibility has reduced employment security, with a substantive growth in 124

employment instability and insecurity reflected in an increase of the proportion of workers with precarious employment, on parttime or short-term contracts.'° Moreover, the number of compa-

nies using sub-contraction has increased. In general, unemployment is affecting all workforce groups and categories, although with particular effect in two age groups: young people entering the employment market and older workers, who possibly will never work again. For example, the unemployment rate

among those under 25 tends to be from 2 to 4 times greater than among those aged over 25. It is not only a problem of money. Employment and employment prospects are elements of quality of life; failing to obtain it is a source of frustration, economic insecurity and psychological damage, alienation and desperation which, to a certain extent, translates into higher levels of crime and/or antisocial behavior in young people as well as in psychological stress, physical stress and apathy in older workers with the consequences ofalcoholism, ill-treatment of women and children and other violent conduct. The adjustment measures applied since the debt crisis comprise reduced government spending, mainly in the social spheres: education and health, food subsidies, collective transport and public investment; as well as the downsizing of the government apparatus and the public sector, all of which has an impact on income and employment levels, also affecting middle-class sectors. Finally, it should be noted that close to five million people are incorporated into the workforce every year in Latin America, most of whom have no prospect offinding a permanent and well-paid job; thus, the possibility of obtaining an acceptable standard ofliving via employment is only open to a minority. In general, the age of neoliberalism is one of extremely precarious labor growth, which translates not only into greater inequalities, but also into an increase of poverty, social vulnerability and into a factor of social destabilization. 125

Constantly Increasing Poverty

During the 1970s it was calculated that the number of people living in poverty dropped to 40% of the region’s total population. The 1980s brought an increase in this proportion; in 1989 it was calculated that 44% of the population was living in poverty. At the end of the 20th century the ECLAC reported that 43.8%

of people were living in poverty, while 18.5% were destitute.'' It can virtually be affirmed that after thirty years of fighting for development, poverty has remained at the 1970 level in Latin America, or even worse. Translated into figures, the above means that in 1999,

more than 211 million Latin Americans were submerged in poverty and 89 million were destitute. From 1990 to 1999 poverty grew by 11 million people but, what is significant, is that while from 1990 to 1997 that increase was 4 million, just between 1997 and 1999, it

increased by 7.6 million, according to ECLAC reports.'? Poverty has technical definitions in relation to income level or to meeting basic needs, but in real terms it is a qualitative state characterized by poor diet, ill health, precarious employment or unemployment and, generally, by extremely poor living conditions. Actually, studies undertaken show that the average income ofthe poor is only 55% ofthe figure indicating the poverty line, and barely above the line of destitution. The majority of poor homes are characterized by their lack of access to potable water, an often precarious

construction, more than three people per bedroom and a high demographic dependence. The head of the home has less that three years of education and in many cases she/he is unemployed. In general there is a low occupational density, which means that few or no members of the nucleus have a permanent job. Halformore homes are headed by women; hence, there is talk of the feminization of poverty. However, poverty in Latin America also bears the name

of childhood, given that under-18s are disproportionately poor: more than half of this age group is poor, although it only consti-

tutes 40% of the population." 126

In the last twenty years poverty has become a predominantly urban phenomenon although the intensity of poverty in rural areas is greater. Hence in 1999 54 % of rural homes were poo r, as opposed to 30% in cities but the total of urban poor grew to nearly 134 million, while the rural poor amounted to 77 million. This is due to 2

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migration from rural areas to the cities; in real terms what has occurred is that many people have transferred their poverty in that direction, from the countryside to the city. There is a goal to reduce poverty indices to half by 2015, but forecasts on the behavior of the economy in the short and medium terms predict that it is an impossible prospect.

Increasingly Informalized but Under-Informatized Societies Poverty is articulated with the informal sector, a heterogeneous group comprising the thousand and one activities of the poor, from self-employed workers, artisans, impromptu house stores, small reparation businesses; people who make and sell anything, whose activities are marked by the logic of survival and whose fundamental asset is themselves. The first impact of the debt crisis in the 1980s was the significant growth ofthis sector with the declining rate of job creation and the consequent expansion of unemployment and underemployment. In the first half of the 1980s the Urban Informal Sector (UIS) grew at an annual rate of 8.5%, while in that same period industrial employment contracted at a rate of 2% per year, implying a substantial rise in the UIS. From 1980 to 1990 those enrolled in the informal sector increased by 75 %. By the early 1990s, 80% of new

employment was in the informal sector. The extraordinary expansion of this sector responds to a great extent to the “sponge” role that it plays in absorbing unemployment, given the survival needs of the unemployed. The most exploited sectors of our societies are to be found in it: more women than men, more minors than

adults, more immigrants than those born in the big cities, more people of color than whites. This is the structural expression of poverty. The growth of the informal sector is not only a quantitative phenomenon, but also has qualitative aspects that have an influence on the continent’s structures and social dynamics. It is that invasion 128

of society by informality that we have called the informalization of Latin America.'* In conjunction with informalization, the workforce is increasingly comprised by people in the tertiary sector. As a trend,

the services sector has a higher growth dynamics than that ofother sectors of the economy, which has determined a progressive accu-

mulation of the workforce in it, over and above the labor force oc-

cupied in the industrial and agricultural sectors. In 1960 close to one third of the employed labor force worked in the services sector, while half worked in agriculture; today, more

than half the employed workforce is in the former. This situation, while expressing in a certain sense contemporary trends, in our case it is to a greater degree the expression of the incapacity of Latin American economies to absorb the growing labor force; hence, this highly significant growth constitutes a form of hiding unemployment, above all via the increase ofservice activities classified within the informal sector.

_

_

~ _

Deterioration of Living Standards and Descending Social Mobility Starting from the beginning of the debt crisis, austerity measures and restrictions on demand brought with them, alongside increased unemployment, a fall in workers’ real wages, which experienced a substantial drop during the 1980s as a consequence of accumulated inflation and adjustment policies directed at reducing the living standard ofthe people. Average inflation rates on the continent reached indices of over 1000% in 1989 and 1990. In the 1990s inflation rates slowed, but wage increases did not compensate for the earlier brutal drop. As a consequence, workers’ real wages were reduced by up to 50% in some countries in relation to 1980 and, in a large part ofthe region, fell to the level of the 1960s. In general, the development of real wages was negative, given that there was a reduction in all sectors. In some countries, the relative participation of wages in the GDP has fallen by 10%. 129

Most affected by the fall in wages were paid agricultural workers, public sector employees and workers in the manufacturing industry. The phenomenon likewise affected the middle strata, which saw their income reduced as did workers’ sectors both those with an income placing them above the poverty line and groups below that line. In the case of the middle sectors, for the countries on which information is available, this shows that urban middle-income homes

experienced a decline in their relative participation in the total income, accompanied by an absolute drop in income. This process has provoked the phenomenon ofthe so-called “new poor,” people whose income is below the poverty line, but who do not have a significant lack of education, homes and health. A large section of the new poor are or were public employees, those the remodeling of the state threw out into the street; and among those who still retain their jobs, a portion have suffered cutbacks in their wages of up to 50% since the early 1980s. New poor have also appeared in the rural areas where small land holders, landless workers and the destitute have been joined by broad contingents of seasonal agricultural workers, women heads of family and young people forced to migrate for lack of employment. The new poor are the clearest expression of descending social mobility. One indirect measure of this is the deterioration of Latin America’s position in respect ofits per capita income in relation to other regions of the world. In the 1950s Latin America’s per capita income exceeded that of all the other underdeveloped regions of the world and reached 50% of that of the industrialized capitalist countries; in 1989 its per capita income was less than 30% of that of the industrialized countries and was below the levels attained by the countries of South East Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Eu-

rope. In summary, Latin America is now poorer and more unequal than before and there are no prospects for change. Thus, when Latin Americans are consulted, close to half the population believe that 130

the economic situation is bad and 60% believe that their standard ofliving has declined in comparison to that oftheir parents.'9 Constantly Increasing Violence and Criminality The phenomena of social deterioration accompanying the imposition of neoliberal policies on the continent include the exceptional growth of crime and violence. This is not an exclusively Latin

American phenomenon. An average growth rate of 5% has been calculated throughout the world, higher than the population growth rate and that of the economy in the majority of countries. According to the secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS), increasing violence is related to social inequality, unordered

urbanization, tolerance of the use of alcohol and

the carrying of arms, corruption, impunity and police abuse. Latin America has an annual rate of 30.7 murders for every 100,000 in-

habitants, 6 times higher than the world average.'® There are a number ofcountries on the continent in which, de-

spite deteriorating health conditions, murder is the second cause _of death. El Salvador had the highest crime rate in the world in the last decade, with

152 homicides

per 100,000

inhabitants,

meaning that the average Salvadorian confronts 60 times more risk than the inhabitants of awestern European country. Homicides are leading to more deaths than the civil war that scourged that country. In some Caribbean nations the homicide rate reaches 40 for every 100,000 inhabitants, 4 times the crime rate of the

United States. A murder is committed in Brazil every 3 minutes. In Colombia, violence is the country’s main sociopolitical problem both in terms of the total number ofdeaths, and in intensity and variety. There is one homicide every 15 minutes and it holds the world record for kidnappings with an average of 3 to 4 daily. The above is linked to the problem ofdrug trafficking. To the extent that the United States is the major drug market, its high demand has generated an expansion of drug trafficking in the region, with 131

new routes opened via Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Associated to drug trafficking is money laundering and the closelywoven network that involves banks, the business sector, public offi cials and state agents in the north and south ofthe continent. There are cities on the continent that have high danger rates. For example, Sao Paulo is considered the most dangerous with an average of 20 homicides per day, and Medellin concentrates 40% of murders committed in Colombia. One notable feature is the rise in juvenile crime. The average age ofcriminals has gone down significantly; before the current period it was concentrated in the 20 to 35 year age group, but now it is between 15 and 25. But children and adolescents are also the victims ofviolence. In the region, 27% of deaths by homicide are of children and young adults aged 10 to 19; moreover, 6 million under-18s are the victims of severe aggres-

sion and some 75,000 die as a result of family violence.'7 Violence also has a destructive effect on the economy. According to S. J. Burki, vice president of the World Bank, Latin America

nations have lost $200 billion due to violence in the last 15 years. In Brazil, violence has caused economic losses of $7 billion,

1% of

its GDP; in Latin America its effects reach an average of 2% of the GDP. A quote by Eduardo Galeano sums up the situation: “Walking through the large Latin American cities is becoming a high-risk activity.”

Expropriation of Political and Social Rights by the Market Debt was converted into the central axis of a new form of dependence that has introduced changes in the Latin American state and

society that we have designated as novel dependence.'® The mechanism of conditionality has been utilized by the international financial agencies to prompt or rather impose neoliberal policies. The processes of debt renegotiation constitute political-economic interventions via which decision-making in the area of economic policies comes to be defined by these agencies. In 132

this way power is transferred to those institutions in the terrain of finances, investment and public property, in addition to impositional policies and government spending. This affects monetary, impositional and subsidiary policies, as well as educational, health and social security policies and the hierarchy of government spending in general. In this way the kingdom of citizens ends in the lobby of the economy. They can decide with their vote who will govern, but the center of decisions on policy and economic measures to be implemented lies outside the country. Democracy is converted into a mechanism to elect whoever is going to execute the decisions of a transnational

organization. National policy has no power. The case of Argentina is an illustrative one; IMF pressures even obliged it to change the country’s legislation in the interest of transnational capital. On the other hand, neoliberal policies in conjunction with the restructuring of social spending have led to the privatization of public enterprises and social services in the interest of supposed efficiency. Thus, social services to which citizens used to have rights as such have been converted into goods whose access goes through the market. What was a social right is now private merchandise with owners and the purchasing power of potential consumers regulates its enjoyment. In other words, to have access to them one has to have the money to buy them. It is a process in which citizens lose rights that are gained by capital. Now there are private companies that are making a lucrative income from offering these services at prices that assure them a profit: private schools, insurance companies, individual retirement policies, etc.

The laws of the market do not guarantee rights, justice; they merely pursue profits. When they invade the social ambit, the rights ofcitizens are restricted. In this way the neoliberal advance restricts political rights by nullifying the power of voting on economic policies or social rights, by turning social services into merchandise. 133

Societies without a Future Prospect The future ofall societies is their children and young adults; they will be the protagonists ofthe future. In 2000, the UNICEF published the results ofa regional survey: The voice of boys, girls and young adolescents of Latin America and the Caribbean, and it is worth reflecting on some ofits comments.

Children and adolescents express a low degree of confidence in governments and do not feel of importance to them. A conclusion reached by the fact that 62% ofthose interviewed only feel themselves of moderate importance or no importance to their rulers.

If we extrapolate these data to the existing population ofchildren and young adults aged 9 to 18, we are talking of 63 million or more young people who have no confidence in their governments. .. . This situation reflects a lack of confidence ofa significant part ofcitizens, as well as the perception that economic and social policies do not grant to children and young adults the priority to which they have a right considering their condition as developing persons, vulnerable to all kinds of personal and social risks.'? This report goes on to note that children-do not admire politicians; only 2% of them mention them, and adds that the most untrusting are the inhabitants of Brazil and the Southern Cone.

In relation to the future of their countries, the survey concludes that there is great pessimism among children and young adults, as the 67%, representing 70 million children and young adults in the region believe that their country is going to be the same or worse in the future.?° “It is the inhabitants of the Southern Cone, Mexico and Brazil, who present the most pessimistic vision ofthe future in

relation to their countries.”2' Finally, one third of those interviewed say that they rarely feel happiness. 134

NOTES

1.

Paper presented in collaboration with Delia Luisa Lépez in the international roundtable, “Twenty Years after the Explosion of the Debt Crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean,” organized by the Association for the Unity of Our America (AUNA). Havana (June-t0-11, 2002).

i) .

José Bell Lara and Delia Luisa Lopez, La novisima dependencia en la nueva América Latina.

3.

Banco Mundial, “Informe sobre el desarrollo mundial,” 1990.

4.

CEPAL, Notas de la CEPAL, March 2001, 67.

5.

Ibid, 4.

6.

Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, Informe 2000. Progreso econémicoy social de América Latina, 5.

7.

CEPAL, Notas de la CEPAL, Sentember 2001, 3.

8.

Ibid, 2.

9. This information was taken from a Reuters cable published in the daily Por Eso, Section 4: 6.

10. CEPAL, Notas de la CEPAL, 2001, 332-333. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid.

13. Ximena de la Barra, “Metas internacionales del desarrollo social y la cooperacién al desarrollo:” 9. 14. José Bell Lara and Delia Luisa Lopez,Op. cit.

15. Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, Op. cit. 16. Most of the data and figures in this section have been taken from those presented in the Conference on Criminality in Rio de Janeiro, February, 2007. 17. Ximena de la Barra, Op. cit.: 11. 135

18. José Bell Lara and Delia Luisa Lopez, Op. cit., 15. 19. Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, Op. cit., 26. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid.

136

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Cuba

Socialism within

:

Globalization

Cuba: Socialism within Globalization examines the phenomenon of globalization as well as the conditions and proposals for development posed by neoliberal theoreticians, disconnection and the ECLAC. The author assesses the strategy implemented by Cuba to carve out a space in the midst of the adverse conditions imposed on Third World countries by the world economy, without jeopardizing national sovereignty, ethical values and the achievements ofsocialism. José BeLL LARA (Guantanamo, 1939). Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology, Master’s Degree in Caribbean Social Development and a PhD in Philosophical Science. He is currently a professor at the University of Havana and a research professor at FLACSO-Cuba. His numerous publications include Globalization and the Cuban Revolution and he was coordinator of Cuba in the 1990s and Cuba in the 21st Century: Realities and Perspectives.

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EDITORIAL

EDITORIAL JOSE MARTI

Publicaciones en Lenguas Extranjeras

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