[lbo-talk] Cuba's painful transition from sugar economy

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Cristobal:
Comment :The only reason you are asking this question is because you haven't
bothered to look for the abundant Cuban economy data and reports such as
hose by numerous UN agencies and research centers and instead swallow whole
those pro neo-lib articles Ulhas regularly posts in his ongoing campaign of
vilification of Cuba.
Of course there has been investment in agriculture. Forced to abandon
chemical fertilizer based crops it switched to organic based agriculture
through new land management and he introduction of urban crops.For this UN's
FAO recently mentioned Cuba as a world example.
As for industry, Cuba is also extremely well known for its very advanced
bio-tech industry which in contrast to most of well VC funded US bio-tech,
it does offers already a variety of vaccines and heart drugs to 35 different
countries.
It is important ,especially as an economist, not to be dazzled and confused
by gizmo/ widget counting of the kind Ulhas does for India, and realize that
Cuba has been pursuing a strategy of development via the service sector
:education, health services and tourism in addition to a vigorous fishing
industry. Cuba exports hundreds of medical doctors to Brazil,Venezuela and
Africa and trains many foreign students in the field.Also her international
centers for rehab medical programs and plastic surgery have a large
international market, etc,

WS: This reminds me of an old Soviet era joke.  An American and a Soviet
diplomat met at the UN.  The American asks: "I am looking for some
statistics which I have difficulty finding.   Could you tell me what is the
actual per capita food consumption in the USSR?"  The Russian (after a
pause): "Yeah, and you have a 50% unemployment rate among Blacks."   

The fact of the matter is that Cuban agriculture employs 25% (way above most
developed countries, including ex-Soviet bloc ones), while contributing only
about 6% of the GDP.  This is not a good thing because it means that about a
fourth of Cuban labor force contributes significantly less to the economy
than the remaining three quarters - mainly those employed in the service
sector.  For a comparison, Chilean ag sector also contributes about 6% to
the GDP, but employs  only 14% of the country's labor force.  In France, the
figures are 3% and 4% respectively.  

So there is a real problem here - finding productive employment for at least
half of the 1.2 million Cuban ag workers. The problem goes well beyond the
mere numbers, because the kind of skill required in modern industry (such as
the bio-tech research that you mention) or in the modern service sector are
not in abundance among agricultural workers.  So I do not see how the posted
article 'vilifies" Cuba, unless like in that old Soviet joke, revealing any
economic problem amounts to "vilification."  

Wojtek