Non-State Socially Responsible Enterprises: The Key to Inclusive Economic Growth in Cuba

Abstract

Cuba finds itself (once again) between a rock and a hard place. The rock has two surfaces. One of the rock’s surfaces is that the economic recovery dynamics it had set in motion to counteract the calamities of the special period, are too slow and uneven to significantly boost economic growth. The other surface of the rock is that the recovery in citizen’s quality life that accompanied this economic recovery has been unequally distributed in terms of age, race, gender, and geography. For many Cubans, social mobility has meant a slide downward or a never-ending struggle to remain in the same place. The hard place is that in order to reignite the momentum of economic growth, the “updated” economic guidelines known as the Lineamientos have introduced market dynamics into the local economy that despite being modest will steadily alter the power relations. One the one hand, they will exacerbate the existing inequalities between citizens. On the other, they will alter existing balance between the state and its citizens as a result of the contemplated massive state sector layoffs (over one million workers) and of the emergence of citizen entrepreneurs who do not depend on the state for their livelihood (the goal is 45 % non-state employment by 2016). Since, unfortunately, there is no thriving large private sector ready to absorb these displaced workers, the net effect of these layoffs could be an increase in the ranks of the unemployed, the underemployed and the poor—this would mean, in turn, an increase in an underprivileged, unhappy, disillusioned, frustrated and volatile civil society.