Dragging its feet, Cuba legalized the first private companies with padlocks that limit their operational autonomy, but are susceptible to being opened by the demands of the market and the liveliness of the islander, accustomed to the pick since he found that the state-controlled economy and anti-imperialist rhetoric did not they were going to solve your needs. Imports and exports must have the intermediation of a state company, and the partners of private companies, be nationals with permanent residence in Cuba. Foreign investors are excluded from the new companies, as inferred from the Decree Law, mostly compatriots domiciled in the United States and Spain, who, surely, will short-circuit the regulatory framework with frontmen and registry tricks. The Government will tolerate them as long as they agree.
The liberalization undertaken will be socially fruitful and will stimulate other transformations, despite the inevitable comparative grievances of the new capitalist schemes, stigmatized by an anti-capitalist revolution, and despite the restrictions that hinder the operation of counterrevolutionary SMEs, always postponed due to the lack of political will. and discrepancies within the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), not as monolithic as it is perceived. The street knock in July, the conviction that the US embargo does not have an expiration date, is structural and must be assumed as part of the landscape, and the 11-point drop in GDP, triggered the start-up of businesses with their own legal personality .
Once the coercive policies of Washington have been consolidated and the reduction of Venezuelan aid, the accumulation of obstacles buries the margins of maneuver of a regime that survives, paradoxically, thanks to the remittances of compatriots expelled by the failures of unreal socialism; predictably, they will be the capitalists of the new societies. Tourism collapsed with the pandemic, Cuba cannot operate in dollars, it was left out of financial channels, it is in debt and the importation of consumer goods collapsed; also, the purchasing power of the majority.
Consequences? People without eggs, without meat, or life, while squeezing the black market and the demands for more freedom from a citizenry that demands a comprehensive and democratic reform of the system. Private companies are a plausible step forward despite the fact that professionals linked to the press, health, education and other sectors are excluded, whose individual rights remain in vain since they cannot be employed by the new companies, nor exercise on their own.
The questions about the scope of the decree law are relevant: the union regime of the workers, the credit system or the degree of emulation of the Chinese and Vietnamese experiences. They have been forcibly hanging in Cuba for decades. Inescapable demands are undertaken because there is no other remedy when, paraphrasing a minister, waiting is not the solution.
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