Focus: Raul Castro speech to the UJC

In a previous post, we mentioned Raúl Castro’s April 4 speech to the Youth Communist League (UJC) in Cuba, focusing on its discussion of regime continuity in the coming years. But the speech merits revisiting in order to zero in on another topic: economic reform.

Raúl’s discussion covered a number of familiar topics—the moral imperative to work, the drive for a sound economy and the need for removal of superfluous expenses and waste—and broached those that Cubans and outside analysts perk up to: reform of the agricultural sector, and wage reform to create a system that rewards hard work and greater production. Yet he also discussed two topics that are usually treated in Cuba as a bit taboo: first, the question of unemployment and of dealing with unproductive, excess workers in a socialist state (that is, unemployment and underemployment); and second, domestic unrest and impatience with Cuba’s current economic challenges.

To be clear, the President did not say that the state would dump unproductive workers. He points out that “the budgeted and entrepreneurial sectors have hundreds of thousands of workers in excess”; that there are people that “do not feel the need to work for a living because they are covered by extremely paternalistic and irrational state regulations”; and that although the State “will strive to create the necessary conditions for every Cuban to have a dignified job, this does not mean that the State will be responsible for providing a job to everyone after they have been made several work offers.” In fact, less so than saying the state will leave citizens in unemployment, he suggests that the state needs to find ways to create jobs that will allow these individuals to be productive. Furthermore, his cautious move with barbershops and beauty parlors implies that some of the “excess” might be able to take on a more free-market-like experiment.

On the second topic (domestic unrest), Raúl looked to silence the naysayers. The impatience expressed by some for immediate changes in many areas comes from ignorance, he argued, of the size of the task facing the Cuban state. “Those who are asking us to go faster should bear in mind the list of issues that we are studying, of which I have mentioned only a few today. We cannot allow that haste or improvisation in the solution of a problem lead to a greater one.”

These are all ideas to keep in mind moving forward: what changes will we see from Havana’s apparently extensive analysis of the challenges facing the country? What jobs will be created, and how will productivity change? What “superfluous expenses” will be cut from the state budget, and how will they be otherwise covered?

(The UJC logo above touts three things around which the young revolutionary’s life should be centered, according to the group: “estudio, trabajo y fusil,” which directly means “study, work, and rifle.”)