Cuba Details New Policies on Budding Entrepreneurs

[Judi Lynn]

Cuba Details New Policies on Budding Entrepreneurs
By ELISABETH MALKIN
Published: September 24, 2010

MEXICO CITY — Cubans learned on Friday the details of what they would soon be able to do as budding entrepreneurs, including renting spaces for their businesses, hanging out a shingle, and if things go well, hiring a few employees.

The Communist Party newspaper Granma published details of Cuba’s new regulations on self-employment, clearing a thicket of restrictions that had virtually choked off the country’s minuscule private sector.

“It’s going to be a different kind of socialism,” said Ted Henken, an expert on the Cuban private sector at Baruch College of the City University of New York. The new policies could “let out all of these natural impulses to network, to contract out, to be efficient and productive.”

~snip~
Cubans will be allowed to work privately as carpenters or party clowns; they will be allowed to repair computers or give music lessons. They can repair jewelry and carry passengers on their own boats. Under the new rules, they can also begin to set up their own food businesses or workshops to make shoes.

They may even be able to get loans to do it. The article highlighted that the Central Bank of Cuba was studying how to make small-business loans available.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/world/americas/25cuba.html?_r=1&ref=americas

[bherrera]

1. Cuba moves away from communism

Thus we can say the words of Fidel, the Cuban model does not work in Cuba, are the way the news reported them. Now they move away from communism to create a middle class of entrepeneurs, bourguesie which will act as a counter weight to the entrenched oligarchy, which is not really communist, but opportunist.

This is repeating the pattern in many other nations, when communism fails, it is changed from the inside, as the society revolts from within. Fidel Castro, an old man, realizes the revolt is to happen whether he likes it or not, and thus he tries to channel its energy. But this move will fail, because the changes do not give the opportunity for the true rise of a market economy.

If the US does end the embargo, then the regime will not have any more excuses, and I am sure gradually Cuba will become more like Brazil or some other normal country, instead of the poverty island it is, full of smart, educated, and miserable people.