Cuban Govt Leasing Idle Land
Friday, September 19th, 2008The Cuban News Agency reports:
- HAVANA, Cuba, Sept 18
(acn) The Cuban Ministry of Agriculture announced that during the first day of the process of leasing state idle lands nationwide, a total of 5,515 requests were made.
Following the victory of the Cuban revolution, in keeping with the rebel doctrine, the government undertook the collectivization of agricultural lands. As the Russian, Cuban, and Nicaragua experiences have demonstrated, collectivization doesn’t work, as it writes personal incentive out of the production equation. After all if you have a job working for a state enterprise, you will receive your $12 per month whether you work or not.
Likewise, since the workers have no stake in the profitability of the enterprise there is little incentive to not steal product for sale on the “mercado negro”, giving oneself a bonus, at it were. And, thus, the prices of the remaining stock must be raised to the consumer.
Private farmers, working the leased lands for themselves, in cooperation with relatives, or within a collective structure, are able to profit from their labors; and in doing so will further the development of private markets, by farmers planting what they think will sell and by freely selling a portion of their produce to whomever they wish for whatever they can get.
I hope similar reforms will be effected throughout the Cuban economy. If, for instance, the employees of state owned restaurants owned the business, collectively, the restaurants would be cleaner, and the food and service better, as the employee/owners would have an incentive to ensure the customers return. Likewise such an ownership arrangement would reduce theft, as it the cost of the lost product would directly effect the income of the employee/owners. Black market products would probably no longer be know as “gifts from Fidel”.
It seems that Raul Castro and other top Cuban government officials are aiming to avoid the Chinese capitalism model, with its proliferation of billionaires, and to develop a system of free markets, to take advantage of personal incentive; while at the same time, maintain the excellent free public health and education systems. Given the opportunity to improve their standard of living through profit from their labors, I suspect Cubanos, at least outside of Havana, would be happy to pay taxes to support the health care and education systems of which they are justly proud.
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