Despite obstacles in their path, 15 friends refuse to be self-employed and propose a cultural cooperative in the context of the adoption of this type of management and property beyond agricultural sector.
Psychologists, Licensed on Social Communication, Laws, a public relations practitioner and academics as Hiram Hernandez Castro, and troubadour Inti Santana, make up this group that also seeks, in addition to profitability of a new business, offering a new kind of cultural space in several respects: its cooperativist management and the services they will provide.
The idea is a ¨cafe -concert¨, where we would have a live trova programming, alternative music …, we would offer diverse food service-that will be guaranteed by ourselves, in addition to workshops, conferences, and a space for exhibitions, events, etc.. , Inti Santana says.
Hiram Hernandez Castro, Professor of Philosophy at Havana University, clarified that with the cooperative they want not just living from what they know how to do, but to live as we think.
Since July 1st this year, 124 non-agricultural cooperatives began operating in the country in the production and service sectors, specifically in agricultural markets, transportation, waste recovery, construction and transport services. So far, the selection or creation policy has been the profitability of these new experiences and as result of “case by case” declared assessment.
Given the c onstitutional impossibility to create non-agricultural cooperatives, as the Cuban constitution recognizes only the ones of agricultural type -articles 19 and 20 – a legal peculiarity of this form of ownership is its “experimental” nature marked in Article 1 of Decree -Law 305 of November 15, 2012, which gives it constitution. Hence the “experiment” answers to targeted and non-massive policies.
Since 2010 we began to shape the project. We realized then, while still not talking about new type cooperatives, that a space like this was relevant, Inti tells .
He continues: Beyond current situations, we believe that the cooperative itself is a worthy and cute way to organize ourselves, where everyone has power of decision, and we give tremendous importance to that.
Hiram Hernandez Castro adds: When we think of a cultural cooperative, we did it in a broad sense, not just artistic. It also includes us, who are related in some way to social sciences.
This group of friends, which was supported initially by cooperative specialist Camila Piñeiro, has taken the necessary steps to make their idea to “move “. In 2012 they were summoned to find tentative premises, and they presented the project to the competent institutions, but their efforts have not yielded results.
Regarding the initial capital-an important point for the project’s feasibility-Hiram explains: We thought to have support because most of us are state employees. What capital may have a professor of Havana University? Although our work was going to progressively provide everything necessary to meet tax regulated obligations.
While the cash contribution that could be provided by the future members of this cooperative is not so limited, they have sought the cooperation of artistic sectors and have achieved it.
Similarly, many of the non-agricultural approved cooperatives so far have the means of production that were previously managed by the State, and that today they have them on lease. In addition, the Decree-Law 306 in the third of its final provisions empowers the Minister of Finance and Prices to create the Public Trust Fund, administered by banks in order to finance the initial working capital and other assets that are determined to sell to non-agricultural cooperatives, in cases that are not subject to bank loans.
So far, 70% of the selected cooperatives from the first group had a need for this type of financing, according to information provided by members of the Committee for the Implementation of the Guidelines on Mesa Redonda TV program.
Inti Santa considers that the greatest obstacle has been the lack of a space, and that they can do nothing without the place. Related to this, Marihue Fong notes: t o develop the project we have to be supported by an institution, even if we find the premises.
For this, the cooperative in formation, according to Article 11 of Decree-Law, must submit its application to the respective local bodies of People’s Power, national agencies or organizations governing the activities they intend to develop, in addition to requesting the property to the same entities or budgeted units that manage it.
But if at any point they received “positive signals” from the Ministry of Culture-institution that should protect them- , Hiram said they began receiving negative signals, and the group has responded to that with the dismantling and individual searches, which is really what is being promoted.
And they are not wrong about the “signs”, because in recent statements to OnCuba, Deputy Culture Minister Fernando Rojas talked about the possibility of non-agricultural cooperatives in the cultural sector:
It is a matter still in a very early stage of discussion. The cultural sector has a business model that has proven successful by increasingly contributing to our expenditures in hard currency to be financed through management of the own system.
I tend towards corporate management to become more efficient and flexible in its relationship with the artist. It would be like applying the logic of cooperative to the development of the company, complementing it, not creating unnecessary competition to something that has worked well.
In any case, it could be reasoned if it would be logic that remote locations from urban centers to undertake cooperative experiments between neighbors for the promotion of cultural goods and services originated in those places.
Before this “competitive” assessment of possible cooperative, Hiram Hernandez Castro believes that Cuban cultural institutions have done what no other in the world for socializing culture. But we would not be competition, but an alternative that would fill a gap in our society.
Inti, Hiram and Marihue argue that there private places providing live music, gastronomic offers, which are not bad, but are unique and exclusive, especially for their prices. So, what the group aims is to unite the needed creation of cultural values to a basic concept of cooperatives, which is the socialization of property and power.
A cooperative, according to specialist Camila Piñeiro, “is an association of individuals and a company at a time. But it is a company where association and social factor is what guides the operation of the business. “
While proceeding with cooperative experiments in Cuba, sometimes too eager of economic functionality, Hiram Hernandez Castro knows that socialism can not be reached exclusively through economically designed efficiency, because that’s the capitalist thought of market society and socialism is, above all, a cultural project.
