• by Leonardo Padura Fuentes
• Tuesday, August 11, 2009
• Inter Press Service

//NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN CANADA, CZECH REPUBLIC, IRELAND, POLAND, THE UNITED STATES, AND THE UNITED KINGDOM//

The caution with which Raul Castro introduced changes in the country's economic and financial structure during his three years as president seems to have ended: circumstances now require Cuba's leaders to approach the economy with greater realism and reshape certain structures inherited from the old Soviet-style socialist model, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban writer and journalist whose novels have been translated into a dozen languages.

Padura asks in this article, what then is the new socialism that will be adopted in Cuba? Perhaps the Chinese model? What can be predicted is that even if no major political changes are introduced -altering the single-party system is not on the table- and even if the state monopoly remains in place, in the social sphere there will be transformations that, as the president has warned, will involve cutting "unsustainable" subsidies and spending.

Whatever changes or economic cuts are in the offing, it seems clear that the time for protectionism and egalitarianism is long passed. Cuban socialism will reduce subsidies and perks and impose stricter rules for a society that is taking in water from every side. In the end, Cuba's new model seems to be this: more socialism, but with fewer social benefits.

(*) Leonardo Padura Fuentes is a Cuban writer and journalist. His novels have been translated into a dozen languages and his most recent work, La neblina del ayer, won the Hammett Prize for the best crime novel written in Spanish for 2005.

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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