{"id":210054,"date":"2019-12-02T08:28:56","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T13:28:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=210054"},"modified":"2019-12-02T08:28:56","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T13:28:56","slug":"cuba-1959-2019-an-economic-model-still-to-be-built","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/cuba\/cuba-1959-2019-an-economic-model-still-to-be-built\/","title":{"rendered":"Cuba, 1959-2019: an economic model still to be built"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A former minister of economy who speaks of an excess of control over management; a professor who describes the almost broken down state socialist enterprise that works based on a financial lie; a journalist who disagrees with such absolutisms; a self-employed person who complains about limitations; an official who defends central planning without crushing the market; and an economist who asks for courage and humility to accept that the model has had defects from the start.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The most recent <em>\u00daltimo jueves<\/em> of the year of the magazine <em>Temas<\/em> was great.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Under the Jules Verne title of \u201cVoyage to the center of the model,\u201d the current Cuban economic system underwent a dissection, finding many pathologies: structural paradoxes, old mentality, over-bureaucracy, disarticulation of productive actors, countersteps, uncertain perspectives of the course, exacerbated regulations, institutional inconsistencies and handbook dogmas.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And if that were not enough, all this syndrome is aggravated by external diseases.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A scattered, wounded and harassed regional left and a Washington trying to implode the walls of the Cuban system with the pistons of the machinery of the full-scale blockade, have managed to further unbalance the model and disrupt its desired lines of coherence and action.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Already in September of this year U.S. pressures managed to put the island\u2019s energy in tenterhooks and not a week goes by without new sanctions from a perfidious punitive imagination that damages third countries.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-210054 gallery-columns-1 gallery-size-full'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/cuba\/cuba-1959-2019-an-economic-model-still-to-be-built\/attachment\/uj-willy-pedroso2-2\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"466\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-willy-pedroso2-1.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-210056\" srcset=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-willy-pedroso2-1.jpg 960w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-willy-pedroso2-1-300x146.jpg 300w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-willy-pedroso2-1-768x373.jpg 768w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-willy-pedroso2-1-750x364.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-210056'>\n\t\t\t\tPhoto: Willy Pedroso \/ \u00daltimo Jueves.\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/cuba\/cuba-1959-2019-an-economic-model-still-to-be-built\/attachment\/uj-willy-pedroso-2\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"466\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-willy-pedroso-1.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-210057\" srcset=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-willy-pedroso-1.jpg 960w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-willy-pedroso-1-300x146.jpg 300w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-willy-pedroso-1-768x373.jpg 768w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-willy-pedroso-1-750x364.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-210057'>\n\t\t\t\tPhoto: Willy Pedroso \/ \u00daltimo Jueves.\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p><strong>Call to action tactics<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe are in a really critical situation,\u201d said Jos\u00e9 Luis Rodr\u00edguez, one of the six panelists invited to the debate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Minister of economy during the most serious years of the Special Period, Rodr\u00edguez weighed up a picture of financial and energy deficits, \u201cin terms of many things.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That scenario, which the government described as temporary for it to be assimilated as surmountable in the short term, made it necessary \u201cto make decisions to survive this stage just as was done in the Special Period,\u201d was the comparison made by the current advisor to the World Economy Research Center.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt\u2019s necessary to look for foreign currencies by virtually any means, with the costs it has, but there are no other alternatives,\u201d justified the academic alluding to the assessments of economist Tania Garc\u00eda, who said she could not \u201cshare\u201d a process of redollarization in the monetary circulation<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe already lived that soap opera,\u201d said the expert of the Juan Marinello Cuban Institute of Cultural Research.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To stop a capital bleed, valued at about one billion dollars, the Cuban State implemented in October a system of selling medium and high-range items, at competitive prices and in freely convertible currency through a bank deposit in foreign currencies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Such goods were acquired massively by travelers-merchants in foreign markets to alleviate shortages and high prices in CUC in the domestic market. Taking advantage of that opening, that parallel market grew in reselling through the social media. These Cubans\u2019 dollars stayed abroad.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/cuba\/el-disparo-de-arranque-de-las-tiendas-en-dolares-de-la-habana\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">opening of the new stores<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which are intended to be a bypass to reduce street trade and retain foreign exchange, the sustainability and expanded reproduction of the new dollarized market and how this will be consistently inserted in the economic policies of the island, leads to other questions on the agenda of the experts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Urban cooperatives: traffic light is never green<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Economist Ra\u00fal Cruz represents the model as a fishing net.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cUntil we are able to join and sew the holes, the model\u2019s efficiency will escape through them,\u201d said in \u00daltimo jueves this professor and director of the School of Management of the Ministry of Industries.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although for Cruz the backbone of the model must be centralized planning, such a design must be correlated with a market\u2015\u201cwhether or not the State, which often has complexes, is there acting\u201d\u2015, resolving the exchange rate distortion of state enterprises\u2015\u201cthe Cuban peso is equal to the dollar\u201d\u2015and the relaunching of non-agricultural cooperatives, \u201cwhich are a bit feared,\u201d but that many emerge from \u201cbankrupt state-owned enterprises,\u201d which \u201csuddenly are unhampered and start being productive and credible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For sociologist Ricardo Machado, these entities exhibit a low mortality rate, 12 percent, but the coming into force of new regulations, according to the academic, are \u201ca blow to the cooperatives. A great deal of them will collapse,\u201d he predicted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These cooperatives, approved bit by bit and totaling about 400 throughout the country, will have a growth ceiling in their employment, territorial limitations in some cases and none will have direct import licenses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIn general, the main incidents that have been detected include the misappropriation of resources and income and corruption,\u201d an official source said in September, announcing that \u201cno new cooperatives will be created at this stage, since the priority is to concentrate efforts on the consolidation of existing ones.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"2xQ7TEJMyp\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/opinion\/the-currency-collection-stores-in-cuba-and-their-goals\/\">The currency collection stores in Cuba and their goals<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;The currency collection stores in Cuba and their goals&#8221; &#8212; OnCubaNews English\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/opinion\/the-currency-collection-stores-in-cuba-and-their-goals\/embed\/#?secret=B2rbZxJdjf#?secret=2xQ7TEJMyp\" data-secret=\"2xQ7TEJMyp\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The private and state sectors in straitjackets<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/cuba-ee-uu\/mas-incertidumbres-para-el-sector-privado-en-cuba\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Marta Deus<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a young Cuban entrepreneur repatriated from Spain, decided to try her luck in the Cuba of the 21st century. She heads Deus Accounting Experts, a business consultancy that advises private or collective initiatives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIn the case of cooperatives, I have thousands of persons who submitted projects and didn&#8217;t get anywhere because they were shelved in the Ministry of Labor. We ask for greater communication with the government because we don&#8217;t have it,\u201d said Deus, a Master in Business Administration and Management and one of the panelists.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The expert suggests that in the event of a SME law \u201cit should have many social requirements, for benefits to the worker, the community and the environment\u201d and asks that the private sector not be labeled as \u201cnouveau riche, but that we are persons who want to do things for the community and that we have legal limitations to do it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But straitjackets don&#8217;t seem to be only in fashion among private entrepreneurs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The biologist, with postgraduate studies in business administration, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/author\/oniel_diaz\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oniel D\u00edaz<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/cuba\/economia\/auge-moldear-los-suenos-de-otros\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Auge<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Consultancy, founded in 2014, said that both private and state-owned enterprises share common problems: inefficient legal framework full of gaps, foreign trade restriction, access to wholesale markets and bureaucracy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThere is a mismatch between reality and what you want to do with the model, and that leads to something even worse and it is the mismatch between laws and reality which causes chaos,\u201d D\u00edaz warned.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A veteran of economic journalism, Ariel Terrero, accepted that there are \u201cmultiple obstacles\u201d to the management of state entrepreneurship, but refused to declare it absolutely inept.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThere are no current conditions to judge state efficiency. We would make a very big mistake if we do it. There are examples of efficiency with excellent results,\u201d said the also director of Havana\u2019s Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed International Institute of Journalism.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The young economist <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/author\/ricardot\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ricardo Torres<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> demanded evidence instead of rhetoric. \u201cThe efficiency of the socialist state enterprise has to be demonstrated in practice\u201d and wondered why at the institutional level it is considered \u201cthe dominant element in the economy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"YpgRGDzDgs\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/echoes\/the-multiple-bottlenecks-of-cuban-economic-policy\/\">The multiple \u201cbottlenecks\u201d of Cuban economic policy<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;The multiple \u201cbottlenecks\u201d of Cuban economic policy&#8221; &#8212; OnCubaNews English\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/echoes\/the-multiple-bottlenecks-of-cuban-economic-policy\/embed\/#?secret=EejGiTAV36#?secret=YpgRGDzDgs\" data-secret=\"YpgRGDzDgs\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>A voyage to the unknown<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Terrero joined the voices asking to \u201cstep on the accelerator\u201d of the economic reform. \u201cDelay will not avoid the risks we are running\u201d and predicted that \u201cthere will be probable shocks of the model\u201d once the monetary unification is implemented.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cTo begin to straighten the present situation, we must look for a monetary and exchange rate organization. It is the fundamental actor, but not enough,\u201d said L\u00e1zaro Toirac, an advisor to the Ministry of Economy and Planning and another panelist on <em>\u00daltimo jueves<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Speaking in a personal capacity, Toirac said that the process, which involves a salary reform, a security and social assistance reform, a reorganization of prices and a complete rearrangement of subsidies, \u201cis a voyage to the unknown.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"I9Da6Fx2zY\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/opinion\/i-like-to-pay-taxes\/\">I like to pay taxes<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;I like to pay taxes&#8221; &#8212; OnCubaNews English\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/opinion\/i-like-to-pay-taxes\/embed\/#?secret=mf95o9tQQX#?secret=I9Da6Fx2zY\" data-secret=\"I9Da6Fx2zY\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Planning and market, close enemies?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cCentral planning failed and will continue to fail. There is an excess of bureaucracy in our management system and it will continue until we change it,\u201d said <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/author\/juan-triana-cordovi\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">economist Juan Triana<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His conceptual radicalness, however, did not overrule planning per se. \u201cDevelopment is not achieved on unplanned bases, but we have to change the concept. Either we respect the laws of the market or the laws overrun us,\u201d warned the professor and researcher of the Faculty of Economics and an <strong>OnCuba<\/strong> columnist.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Toirac, for his part, reconciled: \u201cCentral planning as an instrument has not responded&#8230;because as an instrument it came to the aid\u201d of a non-existent market and replaced the function of money, \u201cbut as a concept we can\u2019t renounce\u201d its strategic value.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For Jos\u00e9 Luis Rodr\u00edguez, the model suffers from visions filtered by political apprehensions. \u201cThe market is recognized, but we don&#8217;t want to accept that the market has its laws and we want to regulate it administratively.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cOur management system is full of control measures, not management measures. It is an absurd control,\u201d said the expert.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In line with Rodr\u00edguez, researcher Ricardo Torres criticized an \u201coverwhelming normative and legislative hypertrophy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt seems there is blind faith in the administrative instruments in solving the problems,\u201d said Torres, who asked for the same regimen of opportunities for all economic actors. \u201cLevel the playing field and we&#8217;ll see what each is capable of doing,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cUntil when can we sustain a huge bureaucracy with a country that has depressed levels of productivity?\u201d he asked and demanded to accept that the model suffers from \u201caccumulated distortions that are part of the problem and not the solution.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"H6OE4RkjMT\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/opinion\/columnas\/contrapesos\/las-trabas-que-traban-a-las-empresas-estatales-en-cuba\/\">Las trabas que traban a las empresas estatales en Cuba<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"\u00abLas trabas que traban a las empresas estatales en Cuba\u00bb \u2014 OnCubaNews\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/opinion\/columnas\/contrapesos\/las-trabas-que-traban-a-las-empresas-estatales-en-cuba\/embed\/#?secret=Y1NeO4BDS8#?secret=H6OE4RkjMT\" data-secret=\"H6OE4RkjMT\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>A toast to the debate<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nearly 200 persons filled the auditorium of the Fresa y Chocolate cultural center last Thursday. It was a multigenerational and dissenting audience that <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/author\/rafael_hernandez\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rafael Hern\u00e1ndez<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a sociologist and founder of the magazine Temas, appreciated 18 years after starting the experience of \u00daltimo jueves, in which he has tried to prevent, with a lot of professional tact, its becoming \u201ca wailing wall.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe don&#8217;t do <em>\u00daltimo jueves<\/em> to recommend to the government what it should do. We do it as an exercise of knowledge and collective reflection,\u201d said Hern\u00e1ndez before inviting everyone present to celebrate, as good Cubans, the almost two decades of the space with a drink of rum.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_210062\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-210062\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-vista-del-sal\u00f3n-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-210062\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-vista-del-sal\u00f3n-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-vista-del-sal\u00f3n-1.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-vista-del-sal\u00f3n-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-vista-del-sal\u00f3n-1-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-vista-del-sal\u00f3n-1-750x563.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-210062\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Angel Marques Dolz.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_210063\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-210063\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-ponentes-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-210063\" src=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-ponentes-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-ponentes-1.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-ponentes-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-ponentes-1-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/uj-ponentes-1-750x563.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-210063\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Angel Marques Dolz.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A former minister of economy who speaks of an excess of control over management; a professor who describes the almost broken down state socialist enterprise that works based on a financial lie; a journalist who disagrees with such absolutisms; a self-employed person who complains about limitations; an official who defends central planning without crushing the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3232,"featured_media":210055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13902],"tags":[14816,8863],"ppma_author":[33956,17524],"class_list":["post-210054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cuba","tag-cuban-economy","tag-cuban-society"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Cuba, 1959-2019: an economic model still to be built | OnCubaNews English<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The old struggle between control and freedom in the economy is slowing Cuba&#039;s modernization.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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