Cuba to begin ending socialism 51 years after the revolution
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...evolution.html
Quote:
Cuba has warned that it will have to shed as many as one million public sector jobs. The government is already sacking 500,000 employees - 10 per cent of its workforce - by next March. But president Raul Castro, who took over from his brother Fidel in 2008, warned this was only the beginning - a million jobs might have to go to curb an unsustainable state sector. It will be the biggest shake-up of the country's economic system since the 1959 revolution. The communist nation wants private business to take on more employees as rules on non-state-run enterprise are relaxed.
Not only is it the latest sign of the weakening of the state's economy, it will also be seen as the ultimate failure of its communist system. The news comes less than a week after Fidel Castro admitted its model was not working and that the 1962 Missile Crisis had been a mistake. Currently, only a handful of workers are allowed to run their own businesses while the overwhelming majority are state-employed. However, a job for life and protection from poverty by the state can no longer be guaranteed now that the government-dominated economy has proved unsustainable. After Russia and China, who now boast booming private sectors with oligarchs to match, Cuba was the last bastion of an ideology hawks will now claim to be outdated. The reforms are being ushered in by new leader Raul Castro.
In the future, workers will be encouraged to set up their own small businesses or take employment with a number of private co-operatives which will be allowed for the first time. They will include raising animals and growing vegetables, construction jobs, driving a taxi and repairing cars - even making sweets and dried fruit. Many of those to be let go will be pushed into jobs at foreign-run companies and joint ventures.
Others will need to set up their own small business - particularly in the areas of transport and house rental - according to an internal Communist Party document. The job cuts will start immediately and continue for months, according to a statement from the nearly three million-member Cuban Workers Confederation. The confederation - the only trade union allowed in the Caribbean nation - stated: 'Our state cannot and should not continue supporting businesses, production entities and services with inflated payrolls, and losses that hurt our economy are ultimately counter-productive, creating bad habits and distorting worker conduct.' Jobs at the ministries of sugar, public health, tourism and agriculture will be let go first.
The last in line for cutbacks include Cuba's Civil Aviation, and the ministries of foreign relations and social services. Some workers said they were caught off guard by the announcement which will see 500,000 jobs lost by April next year. 'I heard the rumours about firings a while ago,' said Luis Estrada, a 55-year-old health clinic worker. 'I hope nobody will be left defenceless. Here, everyone has a job.
Well here we have it, one of the last (offical) socialist countries turning to capitalism which China has embraced along with Russia and whom are now rapidly developing at an amazing pace lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty in such a short space of time - ironic really, because as the East is a roaring capitalist paradise the West is becoming more and more bogged down with socialist centralism which is hurting growth and jobs here (the United States continues to creek under over $11tn of debt along with Europe which is hurting under the burden of both government and EU regulation and high taxation).
The best way to develop and get out of this mess is to cut taxes drastically along with government and its size - remove hurtful regulations and allow business and people to make decisions rather than faceless eurocrats in Brussels and bureaucrats in Whitehall. If we are honest with ourselves, in Great Britain we need to cut the public sector by at least 2 million.
Thoughts?
