{"id":234361,"date":"2021-02-09T09:32:22","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T14:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=234361"},"modified":"2021-02-09T09:41:50","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T14:41:50","slug":"doing-the-math-and-creatively-living-from-update-to-reorganization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/opinion\/columns\/no-filter\/doing-the-math-and-creatively-living-from-update-to-reorganization\/","title":{"rendered":"Doing the math and “creatively living”: from “updating” to the economic reorganization"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt is assumed that there are no big losers,\u201d \u201cthere can\u2019t be unprotected people,\u201d \u201cno one will be left unprotected,\u201d are some of the official statements of January 2021. They are enunciated in relation to \u201cthe <\/span>reorganization task<\/span><\/a>\u201d of the Cuban economy.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the same time, it has been stated that it is necessary to \u201cpromote a greater interest in work,\u201d that \u201cnow people and families have to do the math.\u201d There is also talk of \u201cthe need to work\u201d that is driven by the \u201creorganization task.\u201d It is assured, loud and clear, that \u201cliving without working is over.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In relation to this, the two types of headlines suggest that the reorganization will not only try to resolve \u2014again\u2014 the distortions of the economy, produced by bad designs and inefficient internal implementations and by the U.S. administrations\u2019 asphyxia of Cuba and its people. The reorganization will also promote a kind of correction of the conception citizens have of work, and of the arrangements that until now had to be made in order to live.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo one will be left unprotected\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

The reference to \u201cno one will be left unprotected\u201d is a continuity of previous processes and discourses. In the 1990s, Fidel Castro affirmed in the 5th Congress of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) that whatever there was would be shared \u201camong all.\u201d That crisis transformed the socio-class structure. In 1984, the poverty rate was 6.6%<\/span>1<\/b> and in the early 2000s there was 20% urban poverty.<\/span>2<\/b> The impoverishment was inevitable, although there was no institutional distancing regarding the search for certain buffers. The cost of living and the amount of work (paid and unpaid) that families had to put in to ensure subsistence also drastically increased. Meanwhile, the real value of wages plummeted.<\/span><\/p>\n

More recently, when Cuba initiated another reform through the Guidelines for the Updating of the Economic Model and Social Policy (2011), then-President Ra\u00fal Castro affirmed what has already been said: \u201cno one will be left unprotected.\u201d In mid-2020, when the <\/span>COVID-19<\/span><\/a> pandemic was raging in the world, Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel, current president, announced <\/span>economic reforms<\/span><\/a> that again promised to resolve the <\/span>distortions of the national economy<\/span><\/a>; in his speech he reiterated: no one will be left unprotected.<\/span><\/p>\n

On January 1, 2021, a new stage began: the \u201creorganization task.\u201d In the field of monetary economics, it is probably the most anticipated, manipulated and profound change: monetary, exchange rate and wage reforms. A new program to eliminate the so-called \u201cundue subsidies and gratuities\u201d has also been deployed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Between the \u201cupdating\u201d (2011) and the \u201creorganization\u201d (2021), a decade has passed in which the distortions of the socioeconomic system have ensured an increase in inequality and poverty.<\/span><\/p>\n

No one will be left unprotected? (I)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n