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Resurgence Magazine (London) - Cuba: Strides Towards Sustainability‏

By fauxpas | February 26, 2010

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02/01/10 - Resurgence Magazine (London) -
Cuba: Strides Towards Sustainability

Cuba’s successful models of sustainable development - food, housing and
health - are now being widely replicated throughout Latin America.

by Helen Yaffe

CUBA marked the 50th anniversary of its revolution in 2009. The Cuban people
have withstood five decades of hostility from the United States and its
international allies. However, Cuba’s best form of resistance has been not
just the assertion of national sovereignty, but the creation of an
alternative model of development which places ecology and humanity at its
core.

Applying the yardsticks of conventional economics to assess Cuban society,
for example focusing on disposable income, GDP or levels of consumption,
commentators often conclude that the revolution has failed to pull the Cuban
people out of poverty, but such criticism omits the fact that the Cuban
state guarantees every citizen a basic food supply (’ration’); most incomes
are not taxed; most people own their own homes or pay very little rent;
utility bills, transport and medicine costs are symbolic; the opera, cinema,
ballet are cheap for all. High-quality education and healthcare are free.
These provisions are part of the material wealth of Cuba and cannot be
dismissed - as if individual consumption of DVDs and digital cameras were
the only measure of economic growth.

The challenge is to disentangle our understanding of development from the
notion of economic growth. Against great odds, Cuba has transformed itself
from an underdeveloped ‘neo-colony’ into an independent state, boasting
world-leading human development indicators, internationalist education,
healthcare programmes and sustainable development.

It is no mere coincidence that Cuba is the only country in the world,
according to the WWF’s 2006 Living Planet report, to have achieved
sustainable development: improving the quality of human life while living
within the carrying capacity of its ecosystem.

Domestic solutions

The collapse of the socialist bloc between 1989 and 1991 led to a collapse
in Cuba’s foreign trade. GDP plummeted 35% by 1993 and there were critical
scarcities of hydrocarbon energy resources, fertilisers, food imports,
medicines, cement, equipment and resources in every sector. Cuba was
compelled to search for domestic solutions.

In agriculture, organic fertilisers and pesticides, crop-rotation techniques
and organic urban gardens called organoponicos were developed, while
tractors were replaced with human and animal labour. Bikes were imported
from China and car-pooling was established. As the economy improved, Cuba
extended these measures, introducing ecotourism and solar energy.

While economic reforms were introduced, including concessions to the ‘free
market’, free universal welfare provision, state planning and the
predominance of state property were maintained. Incredibly, given the
severity of the crisis, between 1990 and 2003, the number of Cuban doctors
increased by 76%, dentists by 46% and nurses by 16%. The number of maternity
homes rose by 86%, day-care centres for older people by 107% and homes for
people with disabilities by 47%. Infant mortality fell and life expectancy
rose. Internationalist links also increased, as thousands of Cuban
specialists, including healthcare professionals and educators, volunteered
to work in poor communities around the world. By November 2008, Cuba had
nearly 30,000 doctors and other health professionals working in 75
countries, providing healthcare and training locals. Its literacy programme
has taught over 3,600,000 people from 23 countries to read and write.

2006 dawned as the Year of the Energy Revolution in Cuba, a major state
initiative to save and rationalise the use of energy resources: install
efficient new power generators, experiment with renewable energy and replace
old durable goods (refrigerators, televisions and cookers) with new
energy-saving equipment. Ten million energy-saving light bulbs and over six
million electric rice cookers and pressure cookers were distributed free of
charge. The aim was to raise the island’s capacity for electricity
generation and save the government millions of pesos formerly spent on
subsidised fuel. State subsidies mean that energy consumption is not
rationed through the market, so energy efficiency, not price hikes, is the
principal means of reducing consumption.

Building on the campaign for energy efficiency, in 2008 Cuba launched a
campaign to increase food production. Following the closure of many sugar
mills, in 2007 up to 50% of Cuba’s arable land lay fallow, while over 80% of
the food ration was imported. The international rise in food and fuel prices
saw the cost of Cuba’s imports increase by $1 billion from 2007 to 2008.
Now, idle land is being distributed in usufruct (rent-free loan) to those
who want to produce organic food.

Already organoponicos in Havana supply 100% of the city’s consumption needs
in fruit and vegetables. They are supplemented by urban patios, of which
there are over 60,000 in Havana alone. According to Sinan Koont of the
Department of Latin American Studies at Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, ‘It
is not just about economics.producing food and creating employment. It is
also about community development and preserving and improving the
environment, bringing a healthier way of life to the cities.’

Central to understanding these achievements is the role of the state in
Cuba. State ownership and central planning allow a rational allocation of
resources, balancing environmental concerns and human welfare alongside
economic objectives. Critics who point to the absence of multi-party
elections and ‘civil society’ in Cuba fail to appreciate how the island’s
alternative grassroots system of participative democracy ensures that the
state is representative of its population and acts in their collective
interests. Under capitalism, private businesses regard the Earth’s natural
resources as a ‘free gift’ to capital. Western-style parliamentarianism
dissuades short-term elected governments from calculating the human or
ecological cost of their policies on the future, while economic growth wins
corporate backing and public votes. The need for sustainable development
creates an irreconcilable contradiction under capitalism because it implies
obstruction of the profit motive which drives production.

The ALBA model

In December 2004, Cuba and Venezuela formalised their alliance with the
formation of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA). Between 2006
and 2009, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Honduras (under Zelaya), Ecuador, St
Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda joined ALBA, turning it
into a political and trading bloc of significance. Members are engaged in
projects of humanitarian, economic and social cooperation through
non-market, non-profit-based exchanges. The Bank of ALBA was inaugurated in
December 2008 with $2 billion capital, operating without loan conditions and
functioning on the basis of members’ consensus. It contributes to freeing
countries from the dictates of the World Bank and the IMF. In January 2010,
a new ‘virtual’ currency for exchanges within ALBA will be introduced,
undermining the leverage of the US dollar.

ALBA is the fruit of Cuba’s internationalist welfare-based development
model. It is also the expression of pan-Latin American integrationist
movements and the ascendancy of social movements representing the interests
of the indigenous and poor communities. These sectors demand rational
development strategies which respect their traditions and environment. The
April 2009 ALBA declaration, ‘Capitalism Threatens Life on the Planet’,
reflects this:

‘The global economic crisis, climate change, the food crisis and the energy
crisis are the result of the decay of capitalism, which threatens to end
life and the planet. To avert this outcome, it is necessary to develop and
model an alternative to the capitalist system. A system based on solidarity
not competition; a system in harmony with Mother Earth and not plundering of
human resources.’

The 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution should be celebrated, not as a
historical event, but as a living example, with increasing relevance, that
it is possible to live with dignity, and sustainably, outside of the
capitalist profit motive, with human welfare and the environment at the
centre of development. It is a lesson we must learn urgently because, in the
words of Fidel Castro at his speech at the Earth Summit in 1992, ‘Tomorrow
will be too late…’

Helen Yaffe is the author of Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution,
published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2009, and is a Latin American history
Teaching Fellow at University College London and the London School of
Economics.

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