``As is the case in most countries in hard times, during the Special Period in Cuba people were forced to make due with what they had. However, unlike other countries the Cuban people's extremely high degree of social consciousness enabled them to take a different approach to the problems their society was facing. To what degree did the various creative and environmentally friendly policies - which were, let's face it, predominantly making a virtue out of necessity - carry over into the development of an environmental consciousness and continue into non-austere periods? The jury is still out and the situation is fraught with contradictions, but at least for a moment Cuba offered a different vision of `Progress' and what might constitute `The Good Life' despite material privation, at least as judged from the top of the mountain of material (and environmentally destructive) stuff available here in the United States.'' Mitchel Cohen
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This is an important point to make, that social consciousness seems to automatically invent solutions. Part of the development of social consciousness is the awareness of the collective conditions, which our concepts and experience with society and nature and their processes provides. The underlying principle, I think, is that a reconfiguration of social relations and systems can often solve problems that appear to be technological or contradictory, or at cross purposes.
The idea of turning government vehicles into a taxis system was brilliant.
You could also see this transformation process at work in Cairo as the various groups invented solutions to their struggles, and these solutions will in turn will affect how they go about reforming their society...
CG