Economical Reforms in Cuba

What do you personally think about the changings in Cuba's economy declared by the 6th Party Congess? A they right? Are they maybe going too far? Is there any alternative?

I won't state my personal opinion yet, because I can't right now. I could not yet decide what I should think about what's happening there right now, so I won't comment it yet.

I've been meaning to make a post about the 6th Party Congress for a while but I've been rather busy.

Some good background info on Cuba can be found here. I believe this helps set the context of the refroms taken up at the Party Congress.

A quick overview of the Party Congress can be found at Wikipedia.

More indepth readings can be found at the PCC's website (translated by Google).

One of the great parts of democratic centralism is that the party can increase/decrease either part. If the decentralization goes to far, the PCC can always restore more authority. Decentralization isn't a bad thing per se. Countries such as Cuba and Venezeula (I'm sure other socialist countries as well) have always been accused as being top heavy; however, they have consistently decentralized the country giving more power to communities.

The second most talk about point that came out of the Congress is the idea of term limits. Cuba has done a great job incorporating youth in the Revolution; however, there has been a "glass ceiling" of sorts with youth being able to reach positions such as the Central Committee or the Council of State. The point is driven even further when Felipe Pérez Roque was dismissed. Something needs to be done to prepare the next generation for power in Cuba, I'm not sure how well term limits will actually work.

Still it is not clear to me what exactly are these reforms
(So far I read things such as hairdressers being able to work for themselves and not the state e.t.c)

There has been huge exploitation of the matter by the bourgeois here in Greece, from the ruling social democrats (in reality more neoliberal than the neoliberals themselves) up to leftists and reviosionists. The first in order to support forthcoming massive public servants firings -and pro-market reforms in general, the second to support their "revolutionary" humanization of capitalism and persecution of non productive capital (only)

Newspapers were circulating that 500,000 civil servants will be fired and that one of the last centrally planned economies are abandoning economic planning.

Inside the parliament there were mocking KKE in the fashion "you see, public sector is not productive, even your beloved Cubans comprehent it", "even the Cubans make concessions to the markets", etc

I understand that Cuban reforms are relatively minor in contrast with what bourgeois propaganda is circulating, but still such news have been a relatively blow for us marxists-leninists who are calling that the only solution to our current state is the socialization of means of production and the central planning of our economy...

Prometheus wrote:

Inside the parliament there were mocking KKE in the fashion "you see, public sector is not productive, even your beloved Cubans comprehent it", "even the Cubans make concessions to the markets", etc

PSL wrote:

Scarcity vs. surplus

The core economic problem facing Cuba today is scarcity. The state sector of the economy is unable to produce or import sufficient quantities of goods and services to meet the needs of society. This is true both for consumer goods—especially food but many other basic consumer products too—and in the realm of industrial materials, including factories, heavy and specialized equipment, raw materials and energy.

The problem of generalized scarcity is a crisis far different from the current crisis of the advanced capitalist economies. The problem of mature or developed capitalism is not that of scarcity, but of surplus.

In the United States, for instance, new home construction took place at a record rate between 2002 and 2006. The effect was the collapse of the housing market and the precipitous and sudden decline of housing prices. Banks, including some of the largest in the world, collapsed overnight. Millions of workers lost their jobs. Whole industries, like auto, were unable to sell cars, causing a surplus of inventory to build up. These core corporate giants then went into bankruptcy and masses of workers lost their jobs. Again, the problem was not that of scarcity of goods, but rather a surplus that could not be dispensed of at a profit.

Socialism has economic problems when there is not enough good and services to meet the needs of society. Capitalism has economic problems there is too many goods and services to sell at a profit.

True.

What Cuba needs (or any other small socialist state within global capitalist economy) is to draw foreign currency in order to cover its key import needs, innovate taking advantage local attributes and move in the direction of as much as self-sufficiency possible. How shall this be achieved in the desired degree? well that is not trivial at all

For sure, a good relentless crackdown on corruption, better economical planning exploiting modern IT technologies, and cultivation of revolutionary conscious among workers, always helps.