Hello everyone. It's a welcome to another development studies seminar. It's great to see the room for again. So thank you everyone for coming. Today we have joined us Professor Al Campbell. He will be talking on updating Cuba's economic model socialism in human development. You have here Juan Griguera as a consultant and we also would like to welcome Professor Leo Panetti from York University in Toronto, editor of the socialist register. Thank you very much for being here with us. So yes, he's a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Utah, U.S. He's interested in the functioning of contemporary capitalism and possible alternatives to it. He also spends a lot of his time supporting the work of radical young political economists through the work of EP, that's International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy, and URP, Union for Radical Political Economics in the U.S. The Cuban economy is one of his central research themes and he has a unique perspective having visited the country annually since 1991 to undertake research. He's editor of Cuban Economist on the Cuban economy, a collection of essays by the island's leading economists. All the recent published work include updating Cuba's economic and social model. Where is it going? The impact of Global Post 2007 economic crisis, a subsequent lethargic performance on Cuba's economy, and looking for a new road for building socialism, Cuba. He also leads educational trips to Cuba. So yeah, without any further ado, oh, actually I have something to say about Twitter. If you're active in Twitter, you can tweet so as dev studies or hashtag ESRC. Thank you. Okay. I'm not going to need a mic there or not. Maybe. Yeah, that's good. Is that good enough? People can hear me? The usual question, of course, if you can't, you're not going to respond. So yeah, as usual, I'm sure that I'm going to end up talking longer than I'm supposed to. Cuba is obviously something which has been of great interest to me or I wouldn't have gone back since every year, since 1991. So I'll try to move through the material as quickly as I can. I do prefer questions, but yeah, beginning to get a little older. When I start talking on something I like, you know, I go on and on and on. So we'll see how it goes. Some of it I will actually read because then I can go through it a little bit quicker, but we'll see. Okay, so updating Cuba's economic model. Socialism, human development, markets and capitalism title a little bit different than you had on the flyer, but you know, I rewrote it and got inspired to stick a couple of more words on it. So what the talk's not going to be about is what you might think it'll be about by reading the beginning of that. Updating Cuba's model. We're not going to spend too much time. Actually talking about the details of what the updating is. We can talk about that. Probably doesn't pay off too much anyways because they change it every month anyways, the details of what they're doing. But what it will be about is some important aspects of the relation of Cuba's economic reforms to its project of building socialism. That's the thing which is of most interest to me. Sections going to have four sections to the talk. The first one is just background. We're going to very quickly review some of Cuba's preliminary achievements over the years in building socialism. And in particular try to touch on one of its shortcomings. A shortcoming that's going to be very important to the question of whether it continues with its socialist project or not. We're going to consider four broad central changes. The second part we're going to, after the background, we're going to look at just four of the changes which are going on right now of the updating process. The third part will be directly consider one issue concerning the relation of the economic updating to Cuba's socialist project. And it's the great fear of many supporters of Cuba's socialist orientation. Will the economic reforms lead Cuba back to capitalism? And the last part is logically really part of the third part as well. It's also a question of Cuba going back to capitalism. Will the intended significantly expanded use of markets, which of course everybody comments on, in Cuba take Cuba back to capitalism. So that'll be the four parts to the talk. So we'll start off with the first part. Briefly review some of Cuba's preliminary achievements over the years in building socialism and one very important shortcoming. And as a frame, I want to indicate that when I'm talking about their socialist construction, I'm going to be looking at it through the lens of human development. Which is not necessarily the only way to look at it. And I'm just going to throw up here two slides to give you just an idea of how I'm thinking of socialism. What I'm thinking has something to do with being somewhere near the core of it. From man's ontological and historical vocation to become more fully human, which comes from Ferrari, pedagogy of the oppressed. Humans collectively over time, they're not doing it all the time.  They attempt to eliminate what they perceive as the primary barriers to their fuller human development. Or the development of one's human potential, or the opportunity to develop potential abilities, sounding a bit like Sen and Nussbaum, present in, that are present in the existing social structure. So that's built into the nature of being of humans. And then from that, socialism then is defined as a social organization that negates and transcends capitalism, first negatively by eliminating capitalism's primary barriers to human development, and then positively by promoting those previously blocked aspects of human development. And I want to stress the word that I always talk about, further eliminating barriers. It's not seen as an open process. It's not seen as a process that gets to somewhere and stops. It gets to socialism. It gets to communism. That's the end of the story. It's an open process. It's a non-teleological process. Okay, the associated paper briefly considers the following eight issues. But before giving the list, I want to make two parenthetical statements about the issues. First, such a list, of course, does not constitute a definition of human development. We're going to talk about eight aspects of human development that Cuba did carry out over the past 50 years. Nor are the issues presented as a comprehensive inventory of all the aspects of human development which Cuba engaged in. Collectively, however, they give an indication of the concept of socialism as human development, what I said I'd be using as a frame, that will allow a consideration of the consistency of Cuba's deep economic reforms, the reforms which are going on right now, which are very deep and very profound, with its continued declaration that its central social goal is progressively building socialism. So are the changes consistent with that goal? The second parenthetical statement is going to be a lot less here that I present verbally than there is in the paper. This thing will come out as a paper. It's been accepted in socialism and democracy. So I can plug that journal. You'll be happy that I'm busy plugging it. It will come out in a special issue that they're putting together on Cuba.  And in particular, I want to spend time talking about this issue of if the reforms are basically going to send Cuba back to capitalism. Okay, the eight aspects of Cuban's human development that I will talk about. First, what are usually considered the two most basic physical needs, food and water and shelter. On food, I'll just say a word very quickly. I want to be very brief on these if I can. Well, when they took power at the very beginning of the 1960s, they set up a rationing system. They were able to provide about 2,000 to 2,100 kilocalories per person. Their commitment to raise that rather quickly within three years, they were up a little over 2,500 calories per person. By 1989, when the well-known economic crisis, which is very similar to the Great Depression in the United States, hit Cuba, they were about 3,000 calories per person. When the crisis hit, they dropped to about, according to a group of doctors that went down to the United States, about 1,800 and a few calories, just a little bit more than Haiti has for its average caloric intake. But of course, it was evenly distributed among the people. And then they built themselves back up by 2000, 2002. They were eating food at the same level they were in 1989. And now they're up to about 3,250 or so calories.  The other two things indicate the same. So what I do want to stress, though, was that rationing that took place at the beginning, not necessarily that rationing is the best at all times for all systems, but it did indicate one of their commitments, which was to do things in a very egalitarian way. So it wasn't going to be just for an elite, it wasn't going to be just for the top 20 or 30%. It wasn't going to even let 20% fall through the cracks at the bottom. They were going to make sure that if food was to be provided, everybody got the basic food and so forth. Okay, water I just want to mention in passing because people forget about it now, but like most Latin American countries around 1960, almost everybody in the city had water unless you lived in the shanty towns. The countryside, that wasn't the case. So again, providing potable water to everybody in 1960 was an accomplishment, an accomplishment which they carried out, and again, an accomplishment for everybody. Shelter, Cuba has a general reputation for having lousy housing, and for any of you who've ever visited Havana, you will probably think that's not an unearned reputation. There's a lot of lousy housing in Havana, a lot of beautiful housing that's falling down. There's some very interesting things. I don't want to go too long. When they first took power, again, they immediately banned all evictions of tenants. So landlords couldn't evict people within a year or two. They took everybody who lived in slum housing and took the housing away from the landlords, gave it to the state and said people could live there free. Within another year, they turned all the tenant housing over to the people that lived in it. And then subsequent housing which they built, nobody ever paid more than 10% of their family income for housing in Cuba. So that's probably reasonably impressive if you compare to what you probably pay as a fraction of your income for housing here in London, which I understand is significantly more than that. Shelter. Having said that, again, I'm trying to present a balanced picture. The housing that they have in Cuba is not felt by the Cubans to be satisfactory for them. And they've done a lot of studies in the 2000s. Cuba has about 4 million units of housing. They figured to get housing into, and it's always a question of getting things to a level which is acceptable for a decent human life. They probably have to now build about 600,000 units, 60 or 70,000 a year for 10 years, or maybe a little bit more than that. They could do it. They're not building at that rate. They're building at about half that rate. So housing is a problem. Another thing that they did very early on, and it has to do with egalitarianism, is they made a commitment and in the paper they actually have a quote from Fidel very early on saying, we could build enough houses in the city to make things nice. They decided to close the historical gap between the cities and the countryside. For people who are familiar with Latin America, you can go to a city like Managua. And the difference between the United States and living in Managua is about the same as the difference between living in Managua and living in the countryside in Nicaragua. It's incredibly different. They decided they were going to close that gap, much more so than even the Russian Revolution did, and they poured housing resources into the countryside and they closed the gap. The countryside housing has improved dramatically. Havana not so much. Okay, healthcare and education, because I'm already running behind, I will not say very much. They are very, very well known. They do have a lower infant mortality rate than the United States. That's pretty impressive. For years and years and years, they used to be able to say they had a lower mortality rate than the cities of the United States because the cities are where the poor people live in the United States. Now they can say they got a better infant mortality rate than all the United States, but of course that's partly because a lot more poor people in the United States than they were 10 years ago, too. Education, they're known for their universal education and high international standards on that. I won't say very much. Perhaps the next most important basic issues from human development perspective among the eight discussed here. The only one then that we're going to consider, only after those first four will we get around to consider neoliberalism's universal indicator of a country's well-being, GDP. And GDP is important. Obviously, you have terribly low GDP. It affects all these other things, health, education, and so forth. But of course, if you have to work all the time at jobs just to survive, that frees up, again, human development in the broader sense. So there's been a big discussion whether for 50 years, Tube has been a disastrous development or whether it's been a spectacular example of socialist development that's much, much better than capitalism and so forth and so on. And as you might guess, it's probably somewhere in between. They did actually have probably the best study of the period up to 1989 when they had the sort of the old-fashioned socialist system, which in some ways resembled the Soviet Union, though in a number of ways were different. Probably the best study that was out by Zimbalist and Brindendias in 87, with data up to 85, said that only Brazil had exceeded them between 1960. The trouble is converting from figures when they're kept the way the Soviet Union did in their material balances system over to the national product accounts that we keep our stuff in. So there's debates on it and they're obviously politically motivated. But this best argument said that they probably had the best growth other than Brazil for that period. And whether they're the best or the second best or third best or fourth best doesn't matter too much. They did very well. They were not an economic basket case, as the opponents in the United States argued. Since their implosion in 1990 when they had their great depression of about the same length as United States and then the long recovery since then, they've done sort of about the middle of Latin America. So over the whole period, they've done a little bit of the whole period of the revolution. They've done probably a little better than average in Latin America, not one of the best countries, far from the worst countries. I want to say we're on poverty and unemployment. It is impressive. They had eliminated poverty before 1989. Of course, the enemies of the revolution say that's because everybody lived poor in Cuba. So you couldn't notice the poverty. But they came out with a book carefully documented by the person who went on to became the minister of the economy and planning. But he came out with it in 83 arguing that Cuba had eliminated poverty and it was widely accepted in Cuba and around the world. And they approached in the way that the later international poverty conferences in the Scandinavian countries approached poverty. What poverty was about was not necessarily a monetary level, but it was a question about inclusion. It was a question about access to resources. It was a question about access to things like health and education and so forth. Unemployment, they had also eliminated quickly. That's not the case anymore. Nobody in Cuba would say that poverty is gone. But what they will say is that the poverty they have is different than poverty in a underdeveloped capitalist third world country. Because even though you're poor, you still do have access to health care. You still do have access to food. You still do have access to education. That doesn't make them happy. I mean they do not have enough access to the consumer goods that they would like. And that's a big problem and we'll talk about it. I'm not trying to paint it overly rosy, but that's how they view it. The last two that I'll talk on here are really pretty important. And the last one is the main criticism. Social participation was something which radicals around the world were attracted to Cuba from the beginning. The participation that they had both in their workplaces and through the mass organizations that were set up. The organization of Cuban women, the trade unions organization, the committees for the defense of the revolution, which are sort of neighborhood based groups, the students federation, probably one more than I'm forgetting. Which were incidentally all written into the constitution that the mass organizations were important parts of the decision making structure in Cuba. And they actually are. They participate in, they have permanent representatives in the Cuban government. So what I would argue again without much time to really back it up, I would argue that Cuba has always done very well at social participation, both in the political sphere and public life on the one hand and in the workplace on the other hand. In the workplace, the bosses, the managers of the factories, they very often, very often formally consulted the workers. Every morning the workers had meetings where they decided on divisions of labor, et cetera, et cetera. So there was a lot of participation. The managers tended to listen to the workers even when they weren't formally consulted. So there was a lot of participation. But what I want to argue is that self-governance is not the same thing as participation. And the goal of socialism, again in some broad set as part of human development, is that a human being should collectively with the other people in whatever institutions they're part of, they should collectively govern those institutions. And for all the participation that there was in Cuba, the government pushed participation, people engaged, the mass organizations were real. We can argue that. Obviously opponents wouldn't have the same view that I have on that. They did affect policymaking dramatically. That's not the same thing as self-governance. And my criticism is I don't really care if somebody comes to power and you don't immediately set up self-governing councils because people have lived for 10 generations under capitalism and learned how not to be self-governing. But in 50 years, you should have begun to build the institutions to transform the system systematically towards more and more self-governance. We can talk about that more in the break. Again, there's a thin line between participation and self-governance. I mean, if the guy's really listening to you all the time, if he's seeking your input, well, that's something approaching self-governance but it's not self-governance. Okay. So that's my criticism. That's the end of that. That's the end of the background. Consider the four broad central changes. I'm just going to pick on four of these. Each one of them has lots of individual changes that are part of this updating process that I'm going to be talking about. Now as a reminder here, our concern is not the details of the updating process, not even the details of these four that I'm talking about. What we're really concerned about is how these are going to affect the socialist project that we've just talked about, some of the successes and shortcomings that Cuba's had over the years. The best way to understand the extent of the changes that have occurred over the last quarter century and that they're still in the process of occurring is to begin with some fundamental characteristics of how the economy was in 1989 before this new process began to be put in place. Now without claiming that this is exactly this formulation of certain key aspects of its essential nature is the only characterization that could be given. It's going to be asserted that looking at where Cuba was at this way in 1989 does reflect its nature in a way particularly suited for a terse consideration of the nature of the changes. Okay. Restressing, I want to keep in mind that each of the four broad characteristics given here actually consist of many individual characteristics that people usually refer to as determining the nature of Cuba's pre-1990 economy. I don't want to indicate that that's all there was was just these four changes. In 1999, the Cuban economy was essentially entirely state run and owned. It was extremely centralized. Cuba was produced or they produced in Cuba according to a combination of long and short term planning and it received external capital for production and investment hence both growth and development beyond that available from domestic savings. So let me just talk about each of those four points, the updating things and what's going on there. It's massive as you all know if you read the bourgeois press all the time they are opening up a large section of the economy to be non-state run. It is already being talked that it may become 40 to 50% of the people in the country may be employed in non-state run enterprises. So it's very, very big. So that's the first change and there's some question about whether that threatens the socialist project and we'll talk about that later. The Cuban economy was very, very centralized. After the 1960s they shifted towards a model. It was all over the place in the 1960s experimenting with everything. They didn't really have their act together. They tried adopting the and adapting, more adapting than adopting the Russian model to their own situation. In that process they ended up with a system that was more centralized than the Russian system. It's not actually too surprised because it's a small island. You didn't need to have the territorial dispersion that you had just to deal with Russia. But in any case the ministries, the central government ran the economy much more tightly in Cuba than any other of the material planning economies in the world. They produced according to a combination of long and short term plans. And this is the issue, and I won't say too much about this, though I'm actually working with some people in Cuba about this and someday we'll get out some articles. I guess maybe when the Cubans figure out what's happening. They are committed from the beginning. They are committed in their statements about what the new model of socialism evolving will be that it will be governed by planning. That's really great but nobody quite knows what that planning will be. How it will be carried out. Because they used to carry out planning under the material balance system of the Soviet Union. That's not an option. They don't run their economy that way. Nobody else in the world does. There's no one to tie into to work that way. So somehow they actually have to come up with a new type of planning. Planning in the broad sense is that human beings collectively through discussions actually control this particular institution they're part of, the economy, instead of being pushed around by blind market forces. So that's what they're working on, how they're going to do it. And it becomes even more complicated because that planning is not only supposed to be over the state part of the economy, which wouldn't be too much difference than General Motors planning for all its subsidiary plants everywhere else. But the planning is supposed to also control the non-state. It's all supposed to control the direction of the non-state part of the economy. Exactly how that will be done is something they're working on. They did receive a lot of external support from the Soviet Union. The stories about how much subsidies they got are largely overstated because of the way they play around with sugar prices and stuff like that. But they did get external support and that did allow investment and growth. Everybody from the most progressive in Cuba, the most revolutionary in Cuba, to the most reactionary in Cuba, agree that Cuba, if it's going to grow at any pace that is necessary to meet people's needs and desires in any reasonable period of time, is going to have to have some capital inflows coming from the outside. And obviously the simple two questions you have to answer is, number one, how do you get those capital inflows to come in and not take over your country because that's not a desirable idea? And number two, how do you get them to come in anyways when you're in a competition with a bunch of other countries that are willing to let them come in and take over their countries and provide labor at even cheaper prices than they are in Cuba and so forth and so on? So it's agreed that it has to be done. Cuba is taking some very imaginative steps on that and go into exactly their new investment laws and stuff like that but they're becoming proactive about it. So just this last fall, they put out a list of what was it, 300 and some odd projects which they're looking for people to invest in in Cuba. They are trying to control what the investment comes into Cuba and does as opposed to allowing people from Cuba to come in and pick what they think they'll make the most profits on. Okay, well those are the four changes that I'll talk about. We'll talk about them a little more but if I am going to finish in 40 minutes, we will have to move on. On point three, I want to directly consider one issue concerning the relation of the economic updating to Cuba's socialist project which is the great fear of many supporters of the Cuba's socialist orientation. Will the economic reforms lead back to capitalism? So in this section we're going to make four short observations concerning this issue of restoring capitalism and then after that we're going to talk about three of the strongest though definitely not insurmountable barriers against restoration of capitalism. I'm going to repeat many, many times there is no guarantee that capitalism will not be restored in Cuba. I think there's reasons that we might be optimistic, certainly hopeful, but there's certainly no guarantees. First point, just comments on this issue of restoration. There is no guarantee that Cuba will not return to capitalism nor was there a guarantee even before the economic reforms were put in place. I mean we saw what happened in East Europe which didn't, well we can argue which East European countries went through reforms and which didn't, but in any case your small country in an overwhelmingly capitalist world that you need to trade with, there is no guarantee that they will not in the end go back to capitalism. It'll be a fight, it'll be a fight between those that want to move beyond capitalism and those that would like to go back to capitalism particularly if they think they can make a bunch of money in doing so. The official government position is that the revolution will work to find a new road to build socialism, but in practice different people in the government, in academia, and throughout society have very different ideas about what they would like the nature of the updated economy to be. In fact they even have very different ideas about what the nature of socialism would be. The third comment, and this is interesting, and this makes it very hard to find a document and say this is what the Cubans think or here's two positions they think. There's no sharp pro versus anti-capitalist polemics in Cuba the way you see coming out of Venezuela or something. No currents in the government or academia or any other than the most socially marginalized opponents of the revolution call in writing for restoration of any type of capitalism. Essentially all positions on reforms including those that I think would lead back to capitalism are presented as optimal ways to improve the revolution and in particular its central concern of well-being. So this makes, I mean you come to know how to read it but as far as actually documenting is actually proving it in what you write it's not that easy. Last of the four comments, developments either positive or negative in the world situation of capitalism are going to be very important to which way Cuba goes. It's always been that way Cuba was drawn back from becoming more bureaucratic to becoming less bureaucratic still with lots of bureaucracy but less bureaucratic when the Nicaraguan Revolution triumphed in 1979. That had a tremendous impact on reorienting the political discussion in Cuba and also in different contexts the success in Venezuela at the end of the 1990s. And so what happens in particular, well we'll see that. So re-emphasizing, I'm going to talk about the barriers right now what barriers there do exist to the restoration of capitalism re-emphasizing there exists no guarantee against the capitalist restoration in Cuba. But there do exist numerous major barriers to that happening. Now there's two different fundamental types of major barriers there's popular consciousness and there's legal barriers. Consciousness, we can talk about four of them. Number one, they have very extensive ties to people in the former East Bloc countries and especially the USSR. The reports are getting back from places like the USSR are not of a utopia that's been built after 25 years of their revolution. It makes going to capitalism seem less attractive. They do not necessarily think that they are going to. When the East Bloc, most of them went to capitalism they thought they would very soon be living as well as West Europe. People in Cuba don't think that. They think they might be living like the Soviet Union and that's not as attractive as living like in West Europe. Second point, when they look not just at the reverse transformation countries, reverse transition countries, in the East Bloc when they look at Latin America as their fate if they converted unlike the East Bloc countries that look to West Europe Latin America looks a lot less attractive than it did before 2008. They go back to capitalism. They're going to end up like capitalism in Latin America because they will be capitalism in Latin America and that's not all that attractive. Even when they look to the advanced world, even those that have the illusion that somehow they're going to get to be like United States or Spain or some place like that, those countries don't look as attractive as they did 10 and 15 years ago. Those are three elements of consciousness that help Cuba. The really lousy track record that world capitalism has had for the last 10 years is helping as a consciousness element keep people in Cuba thinking about whether there's a better way than capitalism. The fourth thing, and this is just something which most people don't know, there weren't many independent polls conducted by outsiders in Cuba. But 1994 the Gallup people were actually allowed in at the very low point of the depression in Cuba and they interviewed 1,200 randomly accepted randomly selected people across Cuba.  But anyway, the result was that 58% of the revolution found it positive on balance, 31% found it a negative. This is a consciousness element. People in Cuba strongly feel that they've gotten even though they're pissed at a lot of things that happen there they found that they feel that they've gotten a lot of things out of the revolution. Okay consciousness, let's talk about laws. I want to do three slides on what Cuba claims its new socialist model will be like. Restoring capitalism requires creating domestic capital and a corresponding domestic capitalist class on a large enough scale to impose its logic on the economy and to establish a political system suitable for capital's result. Well, you know, that's French. Reason for being. It's continued accumulation and expansion. Cuba has specifically and repeatedly declared that while private capital will be part of its updated economic model, private capital will not be allowed to become large. Now this position is stressed at the very beginning of the guidelines. The guidelines are the most for anyone that knows Cuba. 2011 they came out with a collective statement of the broad outline of where they wanted their new model to go. And the very first one it says, in the forms of non-state management, the construction of property, the concentration of property in the hands of any natural legal person shall not be allowed. So they declared it's not going to happen. And yes, I know there's a difference between what they declared and what happens, but it means something that that's their goal. Cuba has a very different vision of the role of the private sector in the economy than capitalism as opposed to the private sector determining the logic of the economy as under capitalism. Socialist planning system will continue to be the main national management tool of the economy, again right at the beginning of these. So that's the idea. Now whether it can happen or not, it has to determine, history will have to determine that this large private sector, this large non-state sector, will be politically subordinate to directing the economy. Small, mostly self-employed capitalists will mobilize their own capital from family, including particularly extended families abroad or friends, and they're going to provide services or maybe even small-scale production goods, which the dominant state part of the economy is never in the history of the revolution done a satisfactory job of providing. Really, I thought it was about four. Oh yes it is, okay, okay, very good. Okay, so real quickly I'll say that, you know I won't even say that, I won't say anything else. This sector might reach 40%, as we already said, but the essential point is there will be no concentration of capital. Laws on the concentration of capital, the best known example is paladaris, the restaurants, best known issue, they don't let them get beyond a certain size either in the number of tables or the number of employees. The more important and less known is that they don't allow them to have change. You can only have an individual unit so you can't build the big chains. Also on laws, more important on self-employment, every single person that's not working for the state has to be self-employed. In theory you cannot be wage labor yet in Cuba. Now of course there's lots of ways they get around that in practice, and since I'm running out of time we'll pick that up in the final thing. Okay, here's what I'll just say here. The last topic, so I'll try to actually come up close to my time. Our market's going to take Cuba back to socialism. Some people like Pat Devine already in 1987 tried to sink a stream, market forces and market relations, et cetera, et cetera. But here's the difference. If we think of markets just by the definition, a place where people exchange things, and that's not the same as capitalist markets. So for this consideration I'm going to say markets are just places where people exchange things. Commodities are just things which are produced in order to exchange with someone else, not to consume for yourself. Capitalist commodities on the other hand are things which are produced to be exchanged with someone else so that you can appropriate surplus value that someone else actually created and go through the capitalist accumulation process. And capitalist markets are things which circulate capitalist commodities. Having said that, trying to finish up somewhat in time and then I'll just stop. The idea is that this large number, this 40% of the people are going to be fundamentally self-employed individuals. They're actually going to allow small wage labor. That's a big problem. They're going to have to deal with it. But fundamentally, they're not going to be using the exchange, they're not going to be using the markets to capture wealth value created by other people. They're just going to be getting back what they put into it. My argument is if markets are actually like that in order to restore capitalism, as I said before, you have to have the production of surplus value, the capture, you have to accumulate and expand surplus value. There's no basis for that in the 40% of the population. The two big dangers, and I guess I'll stop on that, on markets. The most obvious one is that even though that's their intention for what markets will do, markets will go ahead and do something else. Either the people in charge will change and someone new will come in charge, but markets will go on to become markets. Now there's a quest. If that's the case, they will restore capitalism. But capitalism could be restored anyways, whether you had capital, markets or not. The question is whether somehow these markets which aren't really exploiting people are going to help exploitation sort of slip in without anybody noticing it or not. I argue that that's not a danger in itself, but it has to be politically dealt with. The other thing about markets is by their nature. They teach us to be selfish. They teach us to think of ourselves. They teach us to not care about other people. They break down solidarity, et cetera, et cetera. I actually argue that this second thing is actually the more dangerous parts of the markets coming in, the change in consciousness. I argue that it can be dealt with politically and through education, but you have to obviously not just be spouting propaganda at the people or they're going to just not listen to you, so forth and so on. So conclusion, Cuba has declared that it's going to try to continue to build socialism, continue with its socialist project. They are paying attention to a lot of the dangers which are out there. Those dangers nevertheless remain very, very real. They are being enforced to engage with the capitalist world much more than they did before. As they open up their will in time be tens of thousands of Americans running all over the city with suitcases full of dollar bills trying to buy up and bribe anyone they can in sight. These are tremendously dangerous issues. I think that the reasons I said markets in and of themselves do not mean that they have to go back to capitalism. If they approach this in a political way, if they do what they say they want to do which make a very attractive socialism, what they can call a viable and sustainable socialism, that meets a number of the needs which were not met for 30 or 40 years because they had blocked them and stuff like that. I think the Cuban people who already do have a lot of respect for their system can stick with their system keeping in mind that all this really depends upon what also goes on in the rest of the world and I'll end on the note that saying if you people could bring socialism here to England I think that would help Cuba an awful lot. Thank you very much all for this very interesting talk. Two things before we move to discussion. People at the door, if you'd like to move in or there's like little place here in the front, I think it's better. And the second thing, is it too cold? The room is, yeah, okay. Good, gonna get that sorted, okay. So, here you have Juan Gregera. He's our discussant today. He is a British Academy postdoctoral fellow at UCL and a member of the editorial board of the Historical Materialism Journal. So, please Juan. Thank you very much. Let me first thank Al for his charming and lively presentation and for the opportunity to discuss socialism in Cuba in this venue. I was surprised to see the room full of people and even I was more surprised that the room full that the people who stayed after, they realized the discussion was about what you were doing. So, I really must thank you and Al for this and the organisation for inviting me. I do have like a difficult task because I only have 10 minutes, but not only because of that, but because I think I have to, with this really optimistic view of Al, I'm left with the kind of grim, so maybe I should have a grim face as well, as I say on this. But I will try to not be the dabbless advocate, but rather to discuss things I value a lot and I think are key to our discussions of the future of socialism. So, that's why I will do a comradely and admiring and respectful critique of what Al did. So, let me begin with one broad issue, which is I think that people like, sorry, some historicization of the Cuban Revolution and it's not fair to treat the Cuban Revolution as a single thing and as a single period. So, some of the facts and the evidence you present I think needs to be historical context-wise because for instance, I don't think, apart from 1994 is still relevant today, I don't think some of the achievements of the 60s and the 70s are still the same today or relevant today. So, that will be my first broad issue, which will be kind of methodological. So, I do of course share the kind of undeniable social human achievement than the Cuban Revolution was and the sparkle of hope it meant for Latin America and for any kind of anti-imperialist resistance in the 60s, including the figure of Che Guevara and I will try to say these comments, trying to analyze what's actually happening in Cuba and being kind of fitting part of the complex inheritance and the complex legacy of these socialist experiences for us. So, I will do make two more comments on the paper and then another one of things that are not in the paper and I think should be part of the discussion. So, the first one is about the question of human development. I broadly agree with your criteria. We should try to assess the success of societies according to human development and the only problem I will mention, not just without discussing the question of housing that probably is a bit weak in the case of Cuba but most importantly for me and for a kind of socialism I will have in mind the question of social participation and I will think that we still need to discuss some of the tendencies of paternalistic state behavior over the workers and the kind of strictly centralized and bureaucratic decision process and the hierarchies that we're still finding here today even though of course those are tendencies but I will also say that the evidence you provide is not strictly relevant in the sense that finding supposed 80% of adults being part of the central organization for given trade unions does not necessarily mean participation. You need to assess what's the nature of the central given trade union and I think that's been seriously challenged recently in 2013 with the new labor code so maybe you could comment on that but I think that's still an open question and we could all go on with the same thing with the really kind of, with the so nice committees of the defense of revolution that used to be armed in the 60s and 70s and used to do precisely that defending the revolution and we should also discuss what's the nature of those committees today which of course has changed over time so that's what we have to do with the historicization of your paper. The question of self-government I think you already changed a bit from what I read today so I think we agree on that that's still an open, really something that's missing from a process that has already 50 years and we probably should discuss, probably we agree so I won't challenge you on that. The second problem we should discuss about the paper is basically the main conclusion about the barriers to a transition to capitalism but I would say that no matter how much I would like to agree with you that there are strict barriers to transition to capitalism and they're important, I think both are really weak and I will explain why. The question of consciousness, I think if you strip down I don't wish to make a stronger man of your argument but I only have the means so I'll do something like that that it might be a bit voluntaristic your approach so the fact that people think capitalism is not really strong is enough an argument to avoid a transition to capitalism and that we'll also have to do with many conditions of Cuba as an island in a capitalist world and I will discuss that a bit more later on. So the second question is the problem of legal barriers and I think some of those legal barriers are actually statements such as wishful thinking from the Cuban administration and I think your example of Palavres is a really good one. How can you stop concentration and centralization just by a few laws? So I think no matter how well thought or how well intended are the markets and how much Cuban administration stresses that they won't be capitalist markets sometimes we need to remember Marx saying they don't know it but they are doing it so they might end being capitalist in one important sense which is what we should discuss is whether there is a growth of capitalist social relations in Cuba there is a space for that and calling that non-state is just a way of avoiding those sectors it's avoiding the real world for that which is private sectors I think non-state is a misleading world and so you also are aware of this when you mention the discussion of the self-employed and how they are actually not really self-employed but rather engaged in which relations and so that's one of the ways social relations are escaping the regulations so that will be a broad point I will mention one thing a few things I guess you could discuss in a paper trying to discuss what's the prospects of socialism in Cuba I would say a true friend of Cuba is one that discusses and criticizes and is engaged with the Cuban revolution which of course you are but criticizing is also part of this so a few of them will be the growth of FDI, the privatization of tourism the emergence of Petrobras the Pope's visit and the liberation of 315 political prisoners there are many many things that are changing in Cuba and we should discuss them for the political and for the transformation of social relations that I think are growing so the big question and I think still have time for that not only to I should repeat how much I am the kind of socialism that developed in Cuba and how different it was from the Soviet experience I think the what's called the October crisis which is for the West is called the Crisis of My Seals is really showing what happened between Cuba and the Soviet Union right after they withdraw the missiles and if you look at those historical moments you can see why the project of building socialism in Cuba was really different from anything else and but to look at the Cuban revolution today is we cannot ignore all of these processes and we cannot ignore some things that will actually make the international conditions of Cuba even worse the prospects of the pink tide are actually going to make the Cuban revolution even more in Asia and particularly the Venezuela, the possible end or whatever it's going to have into the Venezuelan process is going to be an even greater challenge to the complex energy matrix of Cuba so we should I think discuss that then we also say that there is no Chinese option which wouldn't be nice but anyway we could discuss that politically there's no Chinese model for Cuba because of size because of the kind of natural resources they have because of the lack of those vast amounts of cheap label, China can offer so there's no, I should stop there but I will do my last two points which is I think the recognition that Cuba needs FDI is one way of showing that Cuba is broadly integrated to the capitalist world market and that's just one of the other ways to discuss that we cannot ask more from the Cuban revolution I'm actually surprised that the Cuban revolution has been going on since 1989 and that this special period was actually successful so I think we should begin to discuss and that's my kind of somersault chump to a political concussion in one minute which is I think we should begin to discuss not only what kind of transition Cuba is going to have because it might not be catastrophic it might also happen that capitalism Cuba being a poster boy as it will be will not, will have lots of external support for a while and might not be as catastrophic as we are expecting a socialist and what challenges that will, that kind of transitions, of possible transitions will actually leave as as another defeat of the real existing socialism in the 20th century which are actually the challenges for any socialist in the future a legacies that we should discuss and go on I'll leave with them thank you very much well our very interesting proactive points would like to have three minutes to respond to one or do you prefer we together more questions from the floor is I do want as many questions to the floor I'll take three at a time but if I get much more than six at a time what happens is half of them drop off when I go above three the others just go into a black hole I'd like if I could just five minutes and then just to him and then I'll take three and then I'll keep those to three minutes four minutes compromising okay so okay well first of all he reads it and a lot of people read it is me having an optimistic view I don't think I do have an optimistic view I think I stress often enough that the fate is up in the air and it's going to depend upon class struggle both in Cuba and around the world where it goes but that's more optimistic than some people's view um he asserts that I lack historicization he says that historicization is necessary and I absolutely completely agree I feel that's what I tried to do but this is pretty short paper as opposed to a book and so you know anytime you say something there's a predecessor to that but that's what the 1980s were and that affects the consciousness of a lot of the people in Cuba not all of them because half of them are young but it affects them a lot that poll which was there in 1994 is that out of date yeah of course it's out of date but it's the only poll that we have you know so I mean his point that that those two things don't that I said that I threw out as pieces of background don't prove anything in themselves I just totally agree with I mean that's just absolutely right but we pick up little pieces like that and then you go live in Cuba for 10 years and you pick up a few more pieces and that's the way you feel their historical picture which I think I totally agree with him on um uh participation that's what I actually not having paternalistic I mean the Cubans themselves excuse themselves of paternalism but paternalism is exactly that um Fidel Castro decided he would do what was good for the people and I actually personally think most of what he did was good and some of it was really stupid but most of it was really good that's not self-governance that's not even the goal I don't even want somebody to take care of people I want people to actually be governing themselves so I totally agree that it was too paternalistic actually Cuba does too social participation that participation had a paternalistic aspect and even to the extent that it didn't have a paternalistic aspect it wasn't adequate for self-governance I also believe I entirely agree on that consciousness and volunteeristic uh well of course I'm usually used to being volunteeristic I tried to I think consciousness is a I mean we can use Marxist term a materialist a material force at a particular point in social transformations I think there's something behind consciousness and that consciousness can change and that's why they have to pay attention to a lot of these things I don't mean to say that and I tried to argue that I think those are strong barriers I think if a people like a country it makes a big difference as to if they don't like a country as to whether they're going to rise up in revolution but that can change um legal barriers uh not a guarantee yeah I mean I did try to stress that what I'm really trying to say is they're aware of the problems they're doing something about the problems will those things be adequate will it even be the right things that they ought to be doing all those things are open to discussion between us and between us and them and stuff like that so it's a wide open discussion but I don't think they should be blown off as having no significance so when they pass a bunch of laws like that that do something the other people are going to figure out ways to work around them they're certainly not going to stop things but they're I think they're very uh uh important let me just say something uh pink time 30 seconds okay let me say something on these two things tourism and fd I don't get enlisted both tourism and fd I as bad things that's not quite the way I see it I see both tourism and fd I as extremely dangerous to the revolution though I consider a continuation of what they were doing before 1989 if they hadn't had an implosion is also dangerous to the revolution they had too much bureaucracy and if they hadn't eliminated though they were working with the rectification process but it was going pretty slow that was also dangerous in fact they're always dangerous because you can always end up blowing the revolution it's easy to blow a revolution and go back to capitalism it's much harder not to do so I argue that if they didn't have tourism in the 1990s in particular tourism has got all sorts of corruptions that is brought into Cuba as far as consciousness without it Cuba would have collapsed I really don't think anybody can study the economics of Cuba if they had not adopted the tourism problem in the 1990s they would have collapsed so right now we have a shot at being able to continue the revolution because we adopted a very dangerous and necessarily polluting and problematic measure and I actually think that's the way almost everything in the world we just don't get clean things like if I take this I'm pristine and everything's gonna be every single thing is a fight you grab what you get you try to take the good part you try not to get beat the hell by the bad part and you go forward good point just stop okay so we're gonna get some questions from the floor just three at a time so if we go here okay so let's do this three first please because tourism being removed and just benefitting probably would happen and this change that going to occur had been occurring in Cuba for the past 8 years I mean this need to move private enterprises etc that has been happening since well since the El Castro part of the palace around El Paso and I think that there's a bit of a like you're kind of missing out this generation very much looking at the generation who grew up with the success of the revolution I'm looking at also the idea of Russia, Venezuela of the USSR and Venezuela and how much money they were given to Cuba and how their politics started to evolve around their system and now their economy is based on terms of how it will start to evolve around that and yeah so I think the generation of this art generation is a lot more dismal and about things than the last one thank you I feel this kind of links into the point made about tourism just at the end there I just want to ask in your opinion how do you think the recent opening up in Cuba and American relations will actually affect Cuba's continuous socialism? Do you think it will actually hinder any further socialist objective or it will actually open in some way? Thank you I have a general question do you not think socialism and capitalism can exist forever like the months ago in okay okay so being quick and so the idea here and I talked to her in advance I'd really like to only take three and try to give fairly short answers as opposed to take 10 and take the two of them talk for another presentation of 40 minutes so it's very interesting again I would say it's very interesting that probably the majority of the people in this room find me to be too optimistic now I go down there a lot and I don't consider myself too optimistic nor do a lot of Cubans consider me too optimistic but I would actually argue that that's a reflection of the media that you people read here about the situation in Cuba that's just my point about being too optimistic. State capitalism I definitely believe that Cuba is not state capitalist and the reason I think so is I think it's not capitalist because capital does not move around in Cuba two sectors in accordance with the way capital moves in capitalism I think it's just not capitalist there's two things you put together and you said state capitalist because of its connection to the world capitalist system now the other question is what is its connection to the world capitalist system and that ties into tourism first of all I find it really fascinating that everybody always still talks about tourism tourism is not what drives the Cuban economy anymore that stopped driving it was essential in the 1990s it's still extremely important but they make more money for nickel depending upon what year it is they make more money for material which has its own problems that we all know but they make more money they did not make more money for that they take a lot of money and it's the growing sector from biotech from pharmaceuticals from medical products that they sell around the world which is phenomenal for a third world company and they could even sell more if they didn't have to deal with patent issues and with fighting people like Siba Geige and Novartis and the big drug companies and so tourism continues to be an extremely important part of the economy it didn't disappear or anything if you actually look at it it went up like this but it was also the only thing and now it's going like this right now actually the biggest earner of foreign currency is their doctors over in Venezuela that are bringing money and services what do I think is going to happen when they open up the U.S. the Cuban relations number one I think it's going to be phenomenally dangerous we have all been talking to them about this for 10 or 15 years and they say we'll deal with it we'll deal with it when it comes and all I can say is I hope to hell you can but you know Raul himself because it's not a question of police monitoring to watch these guys and it's not a question of the security police or anything they don't have when you have 10,000 Americans running around with briefcases full of money you're going to corrupt people and you're going to buy people off it's dangerous now Raul said that he's going to open up the process very very slow Raul is only going to be there until 2018 he is going to retire the other guys or some other guy is going to take over so I think it's tremendously dangerous when the U.S. capital much more so than other capital and please restate it real quick oh can I have them together well I actually personally do not believe that Scandinavia was a mixture of socialism and capitalism it's what I would usually call social democracy it is a capitalist system with a tremendously large welfare and safety net part to the economy but actually if you start scratching below where does money come from in Sweden they have a big arms industry that they sell to the rest of the world and so forth and so on let's say all capitalisms are alike Swedish capitalism is actually very different than the United States capitalism Swedish capitalism is also very different than Swedish capitalism was 30 years ago because they've gone to the right over 30 years and so forth and so on but my answer is no I don't think as I define socialism and capitalism I'm thinking of having them together do I think that they could be a capitalist state with a big safety net I actually don't think that's possible either because you can only do that if you're rich and that's always the thing we used to talk to people in Nicaragua when we were there and they say we want to be like Sweden we want to become capitalist and become like Sweden and we say no you're going to be like the Dominican Republic if you're not like him because that's the productive base that you have thank you another three questions to have there and here okay let's start from the bottom there yeah why would you say that Cuba is not becoming more capitalist if first of all there is a lot of external investment you talk about 300 projects etc and if the government or Cuba is selling products like pharmaceuticals, biotechs etc in a world capitalist market so I would like to understand a little bit the definition of capitalism because I understand that you define it domestically that you cannot invest in sectors you cannot make profit in your investment in Cuba but I think this definition will be down if it's happening at the global level so there is accumulation happening through Cuba and going out of Cuba okay just before we go for the second question just two points if we can please speak a little bit louder and also we have drink receptions afterwards so if you'd like to talk more about socialism in one and have more discussions it's going to be the first floor so please join us and out of those two announcements notice the second one is the more important keep that in mind okay so we have someone there on the corner yeah there's two other aspects of Cuba's development what you have to say social equality is one of them and that could already be said means a little bit compromised by tourism and the dual currency system that they have and then the other one is ecological sustainability for all different sorts of environmental indicators are quite good in Cuba compared to other countries with similar health and education outcomes and I was wondering if you think that that could be compromised by the thank you I just wanted to ask something about your definitions of development because you gave a list of things such as food, water, shelter etc but I feel like there's something quite crucial missing stability because for example in England if we all made drastic changes, redistributed well for 10 minutes we might all have eradicated poverty, we might say we've developed countries but then later realise it doesn't work and I mean there's a time factor missing okay not a question about the question of tourism I was because it came many times but not about if you could say something not about tourism in general and in the 90s but rather about the privatisation of some sectors of tourism, some firms privatisation okay if you wish okay let's see now well first of all I think it's a little bit problematic to talk about more capitalists and less capitalists it's like we got 27 people operating capitalistically over here and we have 6 people that still work for the state even though it's a bureaucratically performed one over here and so therefore I am trying to put it together into a system and the question is to my mind Cuba is not capitalist right now my mind is will it be transformed will it cross some threshold and when it does it will always be a question of exactly where and when my personal opinion is China is now capitalist my personal opinion is China was not still not capitalist in the 1980s somewhere between the 1980s and now it became capitalist and we can talk about how much capital was controlled by private interests and blah blah blah so that's what I'm talking about I don't think it's crossed any line now and my question is the danger of it crossing the line I mean your point is right I mean individually these practices by themselves even these petty bourgeois people are seed beds of capitalism but my concern is whether they have the potential to impose their own logic on the system as a whole I mean we can talk about it more especially if we have more drinks okay capitalism global I want to say something about the global thing it's an island it's got 11.2 million people it's not a continental economy and this is very important because it means whenever you produce something you have production chains and they cannot produce in an efficient way all pieces that go into that production thing in order to produce anything in Cuba you've got to import some pieces a tremendous part of their import bill is not their final consumer stuff not even their machine goods both of which they have to do but when they went into their crisis at the beginning of the 1990s their economy plummeted by almost 40% between 35 and 40% their industrial production went down by 85% and it's because they had factories sitting around workers willing to work but they couldn't get the inputs they had a bunch of inputs that they produced themselves but they didn't have all so that shut the whole thing down and this is a very complicated thing for any small country it's a different problem than the Soviet Union or China and the United States and we can talk about it because I'm not a big fan of little countries do better because they're homogeneous and big countries got lots of people who speak different languages and so socialism will never take on so I don't buy that but the question of necessary inputs into production change is important social equality absolutely it's gone down and there's lots and lots of papers that are being written in Cuba about it and they're discussing it and what it means for the socialist project which is very very good that the the fact they're writing papers about it it's always very very bad so it's actually and again it's very interesting we have this image and the image is partially created by the media that we read it's like tourism has brought this inequality and maybe even sex tourism if we throw it in though they really don't have a heck of a lot of that anymore but the driving force of inequality is actually the opening up of the economy to remittances from family members sending the money back that's so much more than the inequality that goes to the particular workers that work in either the tourism sector or any other internet because the tourism sector the companies are just international joint ventures is what they are so that's just inequality is phenomenally important if they don't deal with that they can't build socialism and they recognize that and there's some really great papers discussing that which I heard and stuff like that but that's where it is environment and as you said they've made some very impressive environmental stuff for a country that only has the resources they do could the coming in of capitalism the screw over their environmental gains it could but I would say that right now they're pretty conscious of environmentalism in all ways they'll probably make some errors and there'll be bureaucrats that say we need the money so forget about the environment they'll be fights they'll be political fights as always but I'd say in the big picture it's no different than anything else I mean this coming in from the outside could not only destroy their environmental gains it could destroy the entire revolution and every single other game they make too so I consider it is just one thing that's also under threat by coming in development and stability well the Cubans certainly agree with you they go on to the extent of coming up their name that they like to use as a shorthand form for what they're building sustainable and viable socialism that's the short term that they like to use and they pick those words very very carefully so they will appeal to the popular consciousness along the lines so they want it to be viable and by viable they mean so that our tariffs aren't all leaking and we don't have electric wires falling down to our ceilings in fact our ceilings falling down too that's what they mean by viable they're very very concrete and by stable they mean exactly what you said we want this stuff to be put in order and we wanted to stay in order we don't one minute one problem with Fidel can't have to make it one problem with Fidel Fidel was a phenomenal political genius and he would look around and see what the Cuban revolution was facing as a problem and he would mobilize the population through this charismatic character that he had which was absolutely phenomenal it was and by and large the Cubans would throw resources into that and they would seriously mitigate the problem not eliminate it entirely but seriously reduce it but then there would be another problem over here and he'd mobilize everybody to do that and this problem over here would fall apart and the Cubans would know that very very well and without wanting to go into too much difference about the difference between Fidel and Raul Raul is known as a person that builds systems and systems stay in place whether Raul is there or not and Raul goes home at the end of the day because it's not a loafer he works pretty hard you know if Raul goes home at the end of the day he had a very happy marriage for a long time he the system doesn't fall apart the army doesn't stop functioning or something like that and the reason I say that not just because I'm trying to throw out gossip and stuff like that is because this was a deep deep political hope of the people in Cuba who by and large tremendously respected Fidel but also thought that he had shortcomings but they also respected him because he's a giant in history and I hope that Raul would do this one thing which Fidel did not do which was establish stability establish a system that would keep going like this instead of like this tourism and privatization let's just talk about that later drink so okay three more we'll go in here any more we're going to talk about tourism and privatization okay so let's get here one question you were talking about the viability of not collapsing is the political control political controls on the market but how do you have political controls when you have external pressures obviously the market is not going to stay only within Cuba you have to contemplate no issues with external forces WTO you name it so what are those political controls that are you saying they don't explicit any more just one second now that's all the social consciousness in Cuba could you expand for example with the opening up of the internet there's a lot of new generation individualism with the opening up of the market there will definitely be an individualistic group that will have to kind of fight the coming up thinking could you expand how the government is trying to balance this okay one last question burning question no I'm worried you haven't talked about tourism and privatization we'll try to avoid that but okay so let me address those two then how are they going to maintain the political control they need in order to avoid the collapse back to capitalism especially in the face of all the international links that they need to have just for their economy to run all which are links which are driven by capitalists who are trying their best to make them collapse back to capitalism first of all the question in another way is do we think that Cuba can control its own future and that's actually part of the question there's a bunch of Cubans first of all Cubans are nationalists as hell and I mean they are very proud of their country everyone's proud of their country yeah everyone's proud of their country no let's just be careful we're not going to go into anything particularly when the record is on okay but the Cubans are very proud of their country let's leave it at that and so and so the question is can they control it in the face of these again what I want to come back to is I'm not making a guarantee I don't know there's tremendous pressure to to the extent that the Cuban government and the Cuban people fight to maintain socialism there's tremendous pressure from the outside trying to make them not do it including win over the hearts and minds of Cubans to the other to the other side and that's the fight that's a political fight and that fight also depends upon how things are going in the rest of the world if capitalism is looking real attractive that's not going to help them maintain their pride if capitalism continues to be in the shit can like it is now for 10 years that actually helps Cuba in maintaining their argument that as a third world country we could do better developing with a non-capitalist thing now the other piece of that is you know how do they maintain control and this gets back to the question which you referred to and also someone else about the generational split in Cuba and everything you know it's one thing to say okay what they should do is they should ideologically organized to try to prevent the ideas of capitalism from penetrating the country well you know they're not going to be able to because the ideas come in with every single tourist that comes in that looks like they have a better life etc etc there are a bunch of things which actually help the Cubans now are traveling around the world much more than they did 10 years ago they're actually seeing the poverty in the United States and they're actually going back and talking to their friends about it and some of their friends are convinced and some of their friends aren't because especially young people in poor countries always want to believe that they can get a better life somewhere because otherwise you kill yourself you know so so what does it mean to carry out propaganda particularly to a youth that's already partially been lost to the process and I do stress the word partially it's not that every single young person in Cuba is against the revolution or against Raul or against the every single Cuban has complaints about the government that's a different thing that's many countries have that but many of them back their system broadly while criticizing it actively anyway so that's sort of my answer there is no guarantee exactly the pressures you are the pressures and your question is will the socialist project be able to continue and it will be a fight and again you guys make socialism here in England that will be a big help okay expanding it and opening up the internet and the question of individuality they make they make too much of the internet the internet is not controlled it is in China but it is controlled exactly the same as it's here that's not true supposedly they're headed that way they are continuously expanding it and expanding access to it supposedly they're heading that way but I can guarantee you if you scratch below the surface that there's internal fights among powerful figures in the Cuban government about whether we should really open it up or whether that's going to let in capitalist ideas to the other people that we actually have to trust the people and if capitalist ideas come in we have to ideologically fight against them so forth and so on Cuba carried out a project called the battle of ideas it was an organized thing that was carried out for two or three years very last year of the 1990s and went into the early 2000s in my personal opinion in the end it got bureaucratized corrupted and failed miserably the concept behind it was absolutely great that we are going to take on these ideas so that is the only way forward they cannot isolate themselves and they cannot through police measures and it's not such a tight police state you can go down there and you can walk anywhere you want and take pictures of anything you want maybe not military sites but you know pretty much anything you want and open up the market individual ideas, those ideas have to be fought and the tricky thing is on the one hand you don't just let material conditions fight by themselves you and others that have thought about these issues have to go down and argue you have to have a battle of ideas on the other hand battle of ideas can't be yack yack yack talking about how bad capitalism is and how good socialism is there has to be some correspondence in people's daily lives with what they are hearing about what is and what is possible what is being and stuff like that so that's the reality that's part of why the Cubans feel that if they do not get their economy going better it's not going bad by Latin Americans but it's not going good enough so the Cubans are happy with it if they feel that if it doesn't go better they will lose especially the young generation and that means they lose the revolution so they are trying to build what they call a sustainable and viable socialism okay I can see a few faces that like to ask other questions but I will ask you guys to take the over drinks upstairs if it's okay so we can close the section so I just like to call your attention for our next seminar next Tuesday we're gonna have here Muleford Bateman talking about from Zohu to Zumba explaining the dramatic rise and fall of the microcredit model as development policy so please join us next Tuesday and I'll thank you very much for this very very interesting discussion thank you everyone thank you everyone thank you thank you


you need to look beyond the borders of ebay unless you're hidden your figures and you're happy with those figures if you don't want to grow any bigger if you don't want to sell faster and that's not a sarcastic comment it is literally the case if you're happy with it happy days but if you're looking to grow this is an opportunity to do so now it's not for everyone but for those that are willing to do it it could well be a very good opportunity to do so


HBCU judges radio welcome back to our presidential series conversations with our distinguished leaders from historically black colleges and universities across the landscape today Our special guest is the new president of Claflin University to the ninth president dr. Duane Wormack Who arrives in? Orangeburg today, it's a great fanfare and great commentary from folks online. So doc first and foremost What what's your reaction to today? This is the second time you've been through something like this? It is what what was it? What was the feeling with you? You know your wife and daughter there the Claflin community there? How was how was the reception for you? I? Mean it was amazing man. It was a Claflin came out in forces man. It was a packed house people standing against the wall Draped in the proper Claflin colors I Know man, it was it was it was extremely warm walk a man from from a alumnet was a class of 61 to you know students that are current students now man, and so it was a Mazing warm welcoming we felt at home. We felt appreciated and so we're excited about this new journey and this new opportunity in our life so it was it was very refreshing to see that the The message from Haristow State Which will soon be your former institution was so positive and so laudatory about all the things you were able to accomplish there with enrollment And legislative lobbying and increasing sponsored research and doing all these great things And they really made it clear that it you know, it's going to be hard to replace you So what is it about Claflin that attracted you to this opportunity? What are some of the similarities and differences you see of course positively in both respects? But what are the things that you see that for this new chapter in your life? Right, I mean Haristow has been home for me right for the past five years You know they took a shot on one of the youngest college presidents in the country believed in me and believed in my leadership the board was Just just an amazing board that supported me through thick and thin and we were able to accomplish a lot together We were able to assemble a team that believed in the bold vision had outstanding students who came in Willing to learn and leaving there to go do remarkable things the global leaders So it was it was a great run at in a Haristow and it wouldn't have happened without the support of Faculty staff students in the board and in the same greatest in Lewis community And I think you know what that in timing is everything right because I was in a great space You know I wasn't actively searching, you know, but when there's opportunity for Claflin, you know number seventh HBCU in a country You know have just recently Completed a hundred million dollar capital campaign In 2014 was ranked then the best liberal arts institution in the state of South Carolina You know not just HBCUs and so they are they have a very strong foundation that's here and so when I think about some of the skill sets and abilities that I bring to the table and Looking at the job announcement and talking to the search firm and talking to the board some of the areas that they want to improve on Going forward, you know really leans to my level of expertise So I'm excited to come here build on the legacy as we continue to transcend into the future So you're following a very distinguished president and Henry Tisdale an academician Great scholar and the gentleman much in the vein that that you have led your former institution Have you had a chance to speak with him? Has he shared with you anything about the Claflin community about the the vision that has been in place for 19 or so years And how you can build upon it in areas in which you can Um offer a divergent but a complementary new strategic outlook for the school Oh, yes, indeed. So we've had a couple conversations my day today actually started off meeting with him before the press conference Just to I fundamentally believe, you know, I'm standing on the shoulders of a giant and I believe I've always believed this in regards to history You can't know where you're going if you don't know where you come from and so he brings a rich historical context of This institution and what it what it stands for and not just from 25 years of a presidency But he was also here as a student So he understand this is this is home for him and so he was gracious enough to share his wisdom and knowledge and Nuggets with me and as you know one thing he left me with he said, you know, that it's yours now, right? You know, I'm here to support you. I'm here to as as much as you may need me But know that it's important that you create and develop your own legacy, you know, and so um, so I'm We've had Intense conversations about, you know, the great things that are happening and they have a pretty robust strategic plan that's outlined their trajectory You know for the next couple years at least and so, you know I have that as a theoretical framework to work from and I think it's um, the board has been clear and you know And within the search process the things that they're looking for to do and to go to the next level And I think that's what attracted them to me, you know, classroom wants to grow You know, and I have a strong background in that classroom wants to increase some of the academic programs, you know and A couple other things so I'm excited to be able to come here and You know bring some of the skill sets that I've been able to do at other institutions and continue to build on a great legacy here Claflin, you know, they're their their mantra is very simple, you know, they want to um Prepare visionary leaders And install that this notion of you know, the Claflin confidence in those students And so that that resonates with me and I'm excited to continue to build on that You make an interesting point about some of the things that already exist So you're now moving from an institution where you had to put things in place To an institution where you have to build upon things already in place Is that do you think that that's a for anybody not just for you, but for any Leader who is wanting to follow in your footsteps How do you how would you instruct them or advise them to approach that kind of a transition where you have to go from an architect to Uh, almost a contractor of sorts and adding on to something that's already pretty good Right, and I think it takes um Different skill set and ability to be able to do it, but I will say this first and foremost Um, I do this because this is a calling for me and my ego is not tied to the work at all Right, so I'm there's not about nothing about me. I know stretch and his work and anyone who's work with me and serve with Me know that's just that's never me. And so um, I I'd go to do the work And so hairstyle at that time needed to you know, grow and build on some of the things that are there Um, I think you know a class land what they need uh in some of the areas that you know I think there are some growth areas and and errors is there, but I think it's you know I'm I'm I'm not that egotistical to think that I have to solve all the problems If I can come into a place that has a solid foundation and I can build on that I'm okay with that as well. You know, um I was 37 well 36 when I accepted java hair still in 37 when I started I know spring chicken no more, right? So I I am uh, you know, I think I think I think you're still pretty young brother. Don't don't it's a lot of people listen to like, wait a minute now you What what what a difference is, you know, when you when you serve in these seats You uh, you think about the average tenure of hvp president And you know, and so the work is this is my 21st year now in higher ed man So I've been been been doing it for a minute. And so um, so so not that I'm I I'm excited about the opportunities. So just because it's a Sort of a solid foundation that doesn't mean it's not a lot of work to be done You know, so there's a lot of work to be done here as well. So I'm looking forward to Working with the team here and you know, um, and how do we continue to push for it to continue to do great things here? you were um, One of our leading presidents in the sector in the way that you kind of spoke out about the impact of legislative Appropriations and the political process on your hbcu And while a lot of folks kind of shy away from that you embrace the opportunity to say, hey, you look we need more resources We need more money and this is why um And now you're in a in a totally different realm Where there's not a lot of public or legislative engagement in that respect Um where you're making an appeal to you know lawmakers in your at your state level and at your you know Your county or your city level What do you think that that that transition is going to be like? Where you're now largely tuition and and philanthropy driven, um, you know to survive and thrive Right. So my in my 20 years. I've been 10 years public 10 years private So, um, so I've had a a keen understanding of both the public aspect and and the private institutions and so Um, I I think you know for me the the opportunity now, um To in some ways control my own destiny, you know, you know, there's notion of you know, you uh, What's the old saying, you know, you eat what you you eat what you yeah, exactly And so um, and so so for us understanding enrollment being enrollment driven The the fortunate piece for me is every hbcu I've served I've transformed the enrollment management process. So that's my gift, right? So when I think about that piece of it and Record enrollment multiple years at but then Cookman when I was there with enrollment management process We've had record enrollment every year at hairstow. So that's the area that I know So if I if I can control my destiny and it's based on enrollment, I feel pretty confident And so, um, you know, I think the other piece about that is that you don't have in some ways with the private You don't have as much red tape, right? You know, we can we can do things strategically That's in the best interest of our students degree program creation, you know Degree offering not happen to go through 10 levels of bureaucracy to be able to get degrees approved and things like that So there's some pros and cons to both the the instant piece about leaving public is you knew you were guaranteed that money, right? So that that was going to be in there Every time here is you got it. You got to go and get it, you know, and so, um So I'm excited about the uh, the opportunities and the challenges that come come with that and you know, I took that in Strong perspective of, you know, as we're thinking about the transition and what made sense for me next in my career And what type of institution I will go and serve and it made sense, you know, um, I am a small Institution guy. I'm not, you know, that that's who I am. That's what I believe in. I believe in that small that that intimate family feel to touch feel the students students know um On on they know who they present it is and be able to walk around and know my students on a first name basis So claffin still gives me that opportunity as well What do you want the alumni to know about their role in your transition? It was it was hilarious looking at some of the comments on the uh, facebook broadcast of the introductory press conference And some people are asking, you know, is he saved does he know the lord? Um And you gotta you gotta love asia see what i'm not for climbing in a moment like that But what is it that claffin has a solid alumni base? They really show up in a lot of different ways What is it that you want them to know about their role as advocates and stakeholders in your success? Right, I think to your point in the last question in regards to when you lose state appropriations You have to increase alumni given right, you know, and so that if you look at any of these non hbcu's their amount of alumni that support that institution and so, you know, and and for me it's just not about You know, given in it from a dollar perspective, you know I I need the alums to help as we continue to if we want to continue to be Great, you know, it can't happen without alumni support and I look forward to going to visit everyone in alumni chapters You know personally um to you know, put that plea and call out for them to support us You know, I think it's you know, people say what makes harvard harvard What makes princeton princeton what makes all of these ivy leaves is the alumni is that simple, you know, um, You know, they they believe in that brand and and what they end up doing not just from a giving perspective But they also help in facilitating relationships to help You know offset that and also create opportunities for the current students, you know Most time these corporations those alums are those different type of institutions The first place they go and recruit is their amamada And so how do we you know get our students and quality internships that lead to lifelong ships that helps with them You know when we think about your private institution, you know, I think part of that challenge is you know The debt students leave with you know, we claffling continues to serve a a Large percentage of you know first generation college students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds about 75 to 77 percent are You know pill eligible So, you know, how do we ensure that they graduate with less debt? So alums can help us, you know with that process as well And then not not just the less debt the game for employment How does the alumni help us get our students gainfully employed To ensure that they can come back and be contributing alums as well So I'm I'm excited about working with alums anytime you have over 50 percent alumni given people believe in this institution So clafflin has a great foundation of outstanding alums who love this institution I'm looking forward to working side by side with them as we continue to move clafflin for