Could Cuba industrialize?

[Entrails Konfetti]

Cuba is in a climate lacking in natural resources, and is battered by hurricanes.

There are some forms of industrialization in Cuba, but is it a predominatly market and tourist economy.

We've learned about there being oil on this countries shelf. This type of oil can be used for heating. Cuba is in the midst of negotating deals to extract this oil.

Cuba might be able to industrialize more in the oil area, but it would take some investment from the states capital.

I think Cuba could industrialize abit more at a slow rate, but it wont be as highly developed as western nations because trade isn't as widespread.

[VukBZ2005]

When it comes to the industrialization of Cuba, it should be done with the necessity of the working class having control over the means of production. Cuba can not become a industrialized country under tourism, it makes no real economical sense. Since it is a necessity for Cuba to industrialize in order for it's revolution to be reached to it's logical conclusion, then it should do these three things:

(1) Facilitate the construction of Factories that have automated machinery that could be installed as a eventual step (for now, it should only have normal industrial machinery). It can obtain this from China or one of its industrialized
trading partners.

(2) Get the machinery and install them in the factories.

(3) Upgrade the entire production and transportation infrasturcture in Cuba, with more working class control over the means of production.

I want to see some of the responses to this before I respond...

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by Communist [email protected] 14 2006, 07:02 PM
(3) Upgrade the entire production and transportation infrasturcture in Cuba, with more working class control over the means of production.

Wouldn't it be necessary for a broader industrial prolitariat?

You might take away from other members from other areas of the economy.
Thats what happened with the Cultural Revolution in China, and we all know what happened there.

Don't get me wrong I'm for total worker control over the means of production.

[Connolly]

Could Cuba industrialize?

I dont really see why any nation on earth couldnt industrialise given the right leadership and advances.

You mention oil!

Are we not as humans, developing ways to overcome the reliance of scarce material and energy resources?

Wind turbines, wave generators etc.

New ways are developing to transform feudal forms of production to capitalistic - Leninism for example, which overcomes the necessity for the bourgeosie to rise - instead using any combination of lower classes for societal transformation.

I dont see why the energy and technology involved are exceptions.

We will overcome these "hurdles" - with new ways to reach the same goals.

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by The [email protected] 14 2006, 08:12 PM
I dont really see why any nation on earth couldnt industrialise given the right leadership and advances.
Sure they can idustrialize, but how far?
This isn't just about the general question of industrialization, it also has to do with Cuba building socialism, though the means of production aren't under direct worker control. This may mean somehow the workers must seize control of the state, and maintain it.

Maybe or maybe not on Castro's agenda is implementing the conditions for the workers to seize power, and maintain it.


Are we not as humans, developing ways to overcome the reliance of scarce material and energy resources?
In the here and now, a country such as Cuba discovering oil is a good thing for their economy.

They have to make the present pleasent, or better for a vibrant future.


New ways are developing to transform feudal forms of production to capitalistic - Leninism for example, which overcomes the necessity for the bourgeosie to rise - instead using any combination of lower classes for societal transformation.
1) Cuba doesn't have Monarchic past like europe.

2) Cuba's economy has always been primarily based on market, arigiculture, and tourism. Its not really industrial, and socialism needs the material basis that industrialization brings. Until then if Cuba wants to implement a socialist agenda its dependent on revolutions in other industrialized countries.


I dont see why the energy and technology involved are exceptions.
Mass production, material pre-requisites.

Wind turbines are dependent on weather, and that is always changing.


We will overcome these "hurdles" - with new ways to reach the same goals.
How are you going to overcome technology?

[Xanthus]

Originally posted by EL [email protected] 14 2006, 11:26 AM
Wouldn't it be necessary for a broader industrial prolitariat?
Even the USSR didn't have a broad industrial proletariat to start out with.

The largest thing stopping Cuba is lack of trade. China and Venezuela eleviate this problem somewhat, but none the less, Cuba does not have established ways of gaining necessary primary resources such as metals, nor do they have a domestic market large enough to sustain large-scale mass production. With increased international trade, both these concerns would vanish, but under the embargo they remain difficult to overcome.

Of course, all this goes to show how impossible socialism in one country is. What Cuba really needs is the advance of the world revolution, and with it's influence, worker's control. Events all over Latin America suggest that this is not an impossible perspective.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2006, 02:54 PM
Of course, all this goes to show how impossible socialism in one country is. What Cuba really needs is the advance of the world revolution,
Exactly.

No, Cuba can't industrialize that much more under current world conditions.

They can't even much hope to do what China and some other Third World countries have done to a degree - the kind of export-oriented industrialization based on the superexploitation of labor. Besides the problem of finding export markets, Cuba's ratio of labor productivity to wages and social benefits is far too low.

The Cuban government has made a certain effort to develop economic sectors which take advantage of Cuba's highly educated population - biotech research and lately computer software.

[VukBZ2005]

Originally posted by Severian+Mar 14 2006, 04:07 PM--> (Severian @ Mar 14 2006, 04:07 PM)
[email protected] 14 2006, 02:54 PM
Of course, all this goes to show how impossible socialism in one country is. What Cuba really needs is the advance of the world revolution,
Exactly.

No, Cuba can't industrialize that much more under current world conditions.

They can't even much hope to do what China and some other Third World countries have done to a degree - the kind of export-oriented industrialization based on the superexploitation of labor. Besides the problem of finding export markets, Cuba's ratio of labor productivity to wages and social benefits is far too low.

The Cuban government has made a certain effort to develop economic sectors which take advantage of Cuba's highly educated population - biotech research and lately computer software. [/b]
I agree, to a extent. However, there are some things Cuba can do now to industrialize as much as possible, and since Latin America is having all these convulsions all over, it is only sooner or later before Cuba could obtain the trade that it needs to industrialize and allow their economy to grow.

[Karl Marx's Camel]

Because:

1) Cuba having the highest developed population in Latin America
2) Its population is very occupied and concerned with health
3) It is a relatively small nation

I think Cuba should also focus on new technology and creating and producing new medicine. It doesn't take a lot of raw materials. It takes, I assume, intelligence, high education, and funding.
Its education system would not be in vain. I think its a sad thing that Cuban scientists and many very intelligent people should work in a resturant or washing cars, when they could have been used to create new medicine, technology etc

[Xanthus]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2006, 03:20 AM
Because:

1) Cuba having the highest developed population in Latin America
2) Its population is very occupied and concerned with health
3) It is a relatively small nation

I think Cuba should also focus on new technology and creating and producing new medicine. It doesn't take a lot of raw materials. It takes, I assume, intelligence, high education, and funding.
Its education system would not be in vain. I think its a sad thing that Cuban scientists and many very intelligent people should work in a resturant or washing cars, when they could have been used to create new medicine, technology etc
Well... that is an interesting thought. It should be reletively easy to compete with the bloated American multinationals on price-point. However, the point of industrialisation in a socialist economy is not to make a profit but to provide the population with an abundance of useful goods. Pharmasudicals is one of the most corrupt industries, and generally the profitable products (SSRIs, baldness cures, new plastic surgeries, etc) are the most useless, and in some cases harmful. Ultimately, although you may find washing cars to be sad, I think clean cars and resturants are more useful then anti-depressants, even though far less profitable.

In the context of an island of socialism within a sea of capitalism, that is not a bad idea, in the same way that opening the economy to tourists was a (debatably) necessary, and not bad idea for stabilisation of the faltering economy. The biggest problem though is that this new industry would be dangerous to the revolution because it would probably create a new privliged class of scientists which would become a natural counter-revolutionary class as would they seek to further exploit their very profitable work for personal gain, not unlike what the tourist industry has already done.

[Mariam]

[QUOTE]No, Cuba can't industrialize that much more under current world conditions.

I do agree. We are talking about Cuba, a country still under heavy-handed siege. A siege imposed by the head of capitalist world. But when there is will, there is way.

And I do believe that Cuba can industrialize through some kind of intra-continental agreements to help develop it's resources. Not only intra-continental, but inter-continental too, regardless of it's statment under the capitalist siege.

It's all based on the adopted thoughts of industrialization, and how to utilize both: resources and opportunities, to shape a unique model of a militant country.