Economic Outlook
September 1, 2003
If we aspire to a government entirely at the service of society—acting only as a regulator or arbiter—then the state should be responsible solely for basic services such as the armed forces, police, civil defense, customs, water and sewage systems, postal services, public health, and education; all of these to be properly overseen by civil society through mechanisms to be established, with the aim of making them efficient and preventing corruption. With these viewpoints, we make it clear that we believe in a free-market economy. The productive sectors of society need the market itself to guide the economy and prices, without state intervention, except in times of crisis. In such moments, the state’s role should be to help ensure compliance with the law and maintain social stability—an indispensable condition for sustained development. The rest is a matter of time and of the effort and industriousness of our people in the process of producing and delivering quality goods and services; in this endeavor, we will stand alongside the people.
In our economic proposal, we begin with the privatization of all productive entities currently in the hands of the state, carried out in an orderly manner and prioritizing, in all cases, the workers who are actively employed in the various production and service centers. We believe this is a matter of justice and of granting them a share of what they have worked for over these 45 years of ruthless exploitation and deprivation of their rights. After this stage, the country’s economy will be energized by the successes and failures of men and women with entrepreneurial initiative, who will have to put their abilities to the test in the face of internal and external competition. We trust that this competition among companies of all sizes, together with labor competition, will revive the economy, as these are the levers that raise productivity and the quality of goods and services—factors that are indispensable for development.
With the aim of providing guarantees to the men and women who will save in order to build capital for investment—savers in general—and here is the key word for developing as a country: security for foreign investors and international financial centers—we must put on a straitjacket from the very beginning. Nothing can be more rigid or absurd than the current situation. Let us therefore adopt the dollar as the currency, in order to have a stable and reliable currency and thus conduct our economic activity, both national and international, within a financially stable environment. Let us observe Latin America and the developing world in general, and the monetary problems they face. We should also take into account the great benefits the European Union has enjoyed after adopting the euro as a common currency. If we create a state governed by the rule of law and establish a serious and efficient legal environment that facilitates and inspires confidence in investors—and add to this the inherent characteristics of our people, who are entrepreneurial, risk-taking, brave, thoughtful, ambitious, and competitive, all qualities necessary for the takeoff of our economy—then our development will require industriousness and effort with quality and productivity. None of our proposals are innovations; they are based on humanity’s economic experience in its tireless pursuit of a better life, as observed across different contexts around the world.
With the objective of illustrating our ideas, we will present an example, which may be refined by specialists in the field, but which we consider necessary, since our people are not familiar with these issues. We will do so in a simple manner to make it more understandable.
Taking into account that the entities of production and services in the country are currently in the hands of the state, let us assume that they must be transferred to the National Bank of Cuba to be appraised and sold.
In our example, let us take a hotel built by the regime. A specialized commission of the bank will appraise the property. The workers of this hotel will be given training that, among other matters, will instruct them on what a corporation or joint-stock company is, what shares are, which will be sold to them in their entirety in equal parts, and on the responsibilities and commitments of this corporation and its owners to the bank, without opening the sale to outside parties and at a low interest rate.
These shareholders (the hotel workers) will elect the directors of the corporation without interference; all of this must be carried out under laws and regulations previously established.
Once this transaction has been completed, it will be the full responsibility of the corporation and its owners to ensure the operation of the enterprise and the fulfillment of the financial commitments established with the bank.
In parallel with these transactions, there must be educational programs and conferences for the general information of the population and their instruction on these matters through radio, television, and the press.
We believe this is one of the many ways to achieve justice and, moreover, one of the means by which we will create a hardworking, disciplined, and responsible society. It will also be a way to demonstrate that democracy will not strip the long-discriminated Cuban people of anything, since they currently have nothing at all. On the contrary, it will grant rights and privileges unimaginable under the current totalitarian regime, and it will endow the future democracy with moral strength against the communists in disguise who will begin to appear when their incompetence in the face of the new situation, and their lack of privileges different from the rest of society, forces them to work to provide for their families—without the regime’s patronage that has corrupted them in leadership positions where they profit daily without scruple through theft and speculation, under the titles of militant revolutionaries or communists to the death. These individuals will emerge claiming the rights granted by democracy, holding signs demanding what they now deny the people and reserve exclusively for their henchmen. But the only inheritance we will receive will be the great harm they have done, which will have allowed the Cuban people to be vaccinated against the various communist viruses that will appear in different guises and are already preparing to do so.
The Republican Party of Cuba proposes these forms of privatization in the belief that, in this way, the mask can be torn from the current front men of the regime and a very high moral barrier can be erected for communists to overcome in our democratic future.
We will prevail!
Board of Directors.
Republican Party of Cuba.