I read with interest and learned from Armando Chaguaceda’s criticism of my interview published in El País, which compares two socialist models: that of Cuban central planning, with tentative and inefficient reforms, and the Sino model, which has been successful – from an economic point of view. Vietnamese model of market socialism. The point of the criticism is that I ignore the authoritarianism and lack of democracy in China and Vietnam. I have five comments on your criticism.
1) In January 2023, Chaguaceda sent me a message about a preliminary version of my essay. The message didn’t exactly focus on the criticism cited, but touched on the “political contradiction between democracy and autocracy”. I replied that I would take his judgment into account, as I did in the El País interview he quoted. However, Chaguaceda omits a key phrase from this quote, which I reproduce below:
“I have proved that the Sino-Vietnamese model is capable of rescuing Cuba from the current chaos and the situation it has been experiencing since the 1990s and putting it on the path of sustainable economic and social development. Moreover, it could do this by maintaining the power of the Communist Party. [hasta aquí la cita que reprodujo Chaguaceda]. But then I add in the same paragraph: «Personally, I would prefer a hybrid model (market with state regulation) with democracy, like the welfare state of the Scandinavian countries or the model that was followed in most Eastern European countries under the Soviet Union orbit and enjoy today an economic level superior to that of Russia and with a dominance of democracy.” [omitido por Chaguaceda]. The quote continues: “But I think if it is difficult for Cuba to adopt the Sino-Vietnamese model, it will be more difficult to move to a hybrid economic model with democracy.” [esto lo cita Chaguaceda]. And I close, “I hope I’m wrong” [omitido por Chaguaceda].
Rather than ignoring the importance of the political factor, the sentence above fully demonstrates my preference for a democratic system over the autocratic one in China and Vietnam. This goes perfectly with my book In Search of an Economic Model in Latin America. Market, socialist or mixed? Chile, Cuba and Costa Rica – also quoted by Chaguaceda – compared Cuba with a hundred indicators with Chile (partly during the Pinochet dictatorship) and Costa Rica (hybrid model with democracy) and concluded that the latter country showed the best results.
2) However, I would like to ask a crucial question, related to the fact that the transition in Cuba to the democratic market or hybrid model would be politically more difficult for the Cuban leadership than the transition to the market socialism model. The explanation is that the former would mean not only a delegation of economic power, but also the end of the political regime. On the other hand, if the Cuban leadership opted for the Sino-Vietnamese model and applied it well, Cubans’ standard of living would improve noticeably. In his work, Chaguaceda accepts the progress shown in my book through said model regarding the “creation of wealth and the transformation of the economic structure”, but does not refer to the substantial improvement in the living standards of the population (which is tested with a series of indicators both in my book and in the interview in El País). If the dilemma was between maintaining the current situation and switching to market socialism with an improvement in the living standards of Cubans but without democracy, I would choose to switch because the terrible situation that the Cuban people are suffering hurts me and I, on the other hand, am the strategy of the embargo that has been trying – unsuccessfully – to defeat the autocratic regime through hunger and poverty for six decades, which of course does not affect the leadership. (To avoid further controversy, I repeat, as I did in my La Joven Cuba essay, that there are multiple causes of the crisis and that the tightening of the embargo under Trump is one of them, but that the main cause is economic is system that is down worldwide). Elsewhere, in my essay in La Joven Cuba, I give Cubans the choice between maintaining the current situation and moving to a better model. I quote: “I call for an open, respectful and democratic national dialogue.”
3) I am not a promoter of the “Asian alternative” for Latin American countries or those facing underdevelopment. Nothing similar can be found in any of my works. I only propose it in the case of Cuba when there is no realistic democratic alternative, as I would also propose for North Korea. Again, I prefer a hybrid model with democracy, and so I close my entire quote by saying, “I hope I’m wrong”; that is, this model will be implemented in Cuba.
4) Chaguaceda asks the defenders of the “Asian alternative” a question: “Wouldn’t it be desirable, in line with the opening to capitalist investment, domestic or foreign, to defend the urgencies and agencies not plugged in by state and private workers, entrepreneurs who Smallholders, the pensioners?». Since Chaguaceda seems to count me among the defenders of the Asian alternative, which I oppose, I would like to remind you that I have defended these groups in my books and articles. An example is my latest book on Cuba, Voices of Change in the Cuban Non-Governmental Sector. Self-employed, beneficiaries, members of cooperatives and home buyers and sellers, in which I use surveys to identify the needs of these groups and their specific desires for change. Regarding retirees, in many of my works I prove the decline in the inflation-adjusted pension between 1989 and 2021 and that retirees are among the poorest sectors in Cuba.
5) The last point I want to address is the contrast between the short extension of short popularization articles or interviews with limited space – like the ones I’ve published so far – and a book like the one I’ve completed and submitted for publication, which is 240 single-line pages (115,000 words). In the book, I deal with authoritarianism, especially the Chinese one, and I show at length that since Xi Jiping (President and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party since 2013, the most powerful leader since Mao Zedong) came to power, two regressions have occurred : a shift in focus towards the central plan to the detriment of the successful market-dominated model and a tightening of the authoritarian control of Xi and the Communist Party.
As a staunch Democrat and respectful of dialogue and the exchange of ideas as essential to economic, political and social progress – on which I broadly agree with Chaguaceda – I welcome the controversy among friends. Now I await criticism from the ruling party in Cuba, which will be neither the first nor the last.