Cuba: The Historic Microcosm of Most New World Republics? Part 4

In part 3 I have summarized the political developments of Cuba until Fidel Castro's take over. Now it's time to see what the socio-economic situation was like for the people at large. I hinted that it wasn't really terrible overall (contrary to what a communist revolution might indicate). This makes it all the more troubling that a redistributive revolution occurred.

From 1903 to 1958 Cuba's GDP grew 1110%. (see Figure 1) Yes, even after drop in price of sugar in 1920s, a couple coups, two modernizing dictators with mass opposition, social unrest, electoral violence, as well as Great Depression. We see a dip from 1925 to 1936 (which coincides with Machado's rule from 25 to 33) but it also coincides with sharp sugar drop before Machado took power and depression that hit only 4 years into his dictatorship. Even during that downturn the government continued to industrialize and increase amount of social services.

Now lets summarize a few points for a feel of economic situation right before Fidel Castro takes power. We can see that it wasn't 5% gilded age oligarchs sitting on top of endless poverty like in 1916 Russia. Old theories, that Cuban pre-revolutionary society was economically stagnant, unfair, and/or neo-colonially exploited by US do not hold water. Lets see how it really was in Cuba in the 1950s:

1) A large advanced middle class compared to most of the world and noted by UN
2) 8th highest industrial salary in the world (higher than Denmark, Belgium, France)
3) The richest and most developed nation in Latin America
4) 1 month paid holiday, 8 hour workday, 9 days sick leave, 6 weeks holiday before and after childbirth
5) Havana fourth most expensive city in the world (Key piece of information) and with more cinemas than New York
6) Third lowest mortality in the world and death rate that fell from 22.4 per 1000 in 1903 to 10.7 per 1000 in 1953
7) Highest rate of education spending in Latin America
8) More doctors per capita than United Kingdom
9) Largest labor union privileges in Latin America with bans on dismissal. Politically powerful labor.
10) GDP per capita equal to Italy and higher than many countries like Japan (admittedly no big achievement since many countries were ruined in the war)
11) 4th highest literacy in the region and higher than in Spain (economy could sometimes not keep up in demand for education ) (Key piece of information)
12) One of the highest ownership rates for radios and cars in the world. 4th highest Latin American consumption of printed media
13) Lowest infant mortality in Latin America.
14) One of five most developed countries in Latin America in terms of agricultural population with only 46% of people living in the countryside (Key piece of information)
15) Key destination country for talented immigrants. Proportionally, a bigger target of emigration than United States
16) Was successfully in the process of diversification from being an export based economy in the 50s. Used high sugar profits to create a stabilization fund to absorb economic shocks and aid in diversification. Tourist industry and non-traditionally exports began to bring substantial money and the economic prospects for growth looked good.
17) Between 1949-1958, Cuba's annual share in average income paid in worker's remuneration (wages, fringe benefits, pensions) was 65% and only behind US, UK, Canada

We see that things on the average national level kept rapidly improving. So why were people of all political stripes so angry? Well, the urban professional class (the industrial workers), still made 1/6 as much as American workers. Cubans oriented themselves on United States. (Key piece of information)

Even though their society was better off than most Latin countries in many categories, it psychologically seemed that they were falling behind or not advancing fast enough. It is also more difficult for economy to grow once it becomes industrial enough and Cuba's growth slowed to 1% GDP a year before the communist revolution. The above 17 factors and 1% growth a year does not make for catastrophic redistributive conditions. Regulation of business and privilege of labor could have always been lessened by a Cuban Nicolas Sarkozy equivalent without violence.

The psychological reasons of reality clashing with expectations explains the discontent of the urban dwellers but not the severity of the criminal looting that arrived from the rural areas.

At this point we know about the Gini index and that the average GDP of a society can be high while income/social disparities are enormous. When a billionaire walks into a poor bar, the average wealth drastically rises. However, considering Cuba had a large solid middle class, we know this was not the case. Cuba definitely had a fatty middle of people with medium incomes to stabilize the social situation.

URBAN/RURAL SPLIT IN CUBA IN 1950s

What we do see is that the split between the urban areas and the countryside became much sharper in every category. The rural data presented here refers to rural workers working for third parties rather than peasants who worked for themselves. The urban data refers to professional/industrial workers in 6 provincial capitals with Havana bringing the urban average up.

54% of Cuban people lived in urban areas. That compared to 80% in today's US but US urban description includes sub-urban areas where whites escape supposed inner city rot.

(side note: In the next few decades in United States as: 1) whites flee economically dying cities like Detroit 2) inner cities are reversed with suburbs in terms of where the poor people live 3)rent culture takes over from home owning culture, we can expect to see more of stark contrast develop between city and country in US future as suburbia disappears.)

Housing-

75% of rural housing in Cuba was classified as either in bad shape or ruinous compared to 30% in urban areas.

24.4% of rural housing was classified as in moderate or acceptable shape compared to 50% in urban areas.

.6% of rural housing was classified as in good shape compared to 20% in urban areas.

Havana and other major cities were noted for high level of land/housing speculation that drove up the prices enormously. Their housing bubble didn't pop before revolution. It was unprofitable for private developers to build in the countryside and government had other more important concerns, like education/healthcare, than building affordable good rural housing.

Education-

Cuban society 60 years ago was far less complex technologically than US society in 2009. We all know these days that finishing college/grad school in 2009 is like finishing high school/college in 1960. Same thinking must be applied to 1950s Cuba that was lagging behind 1950s US.

of Cubans who never went to school (1.5 million), 67% lived in rural areas
of Cubans who reached middle school (86,000), 95.3% lived in rural areas
of Cubans who reached high school (88,000), 95.7% lived in rural areas
of Cubans who reached college (1,292), 2.4% lived in rural areas (KEY)

23% of Cubans older than 10 years were functionally illiterate and 46% of these people lived in the countryside. Number of illiterate sharply rose in older adults. We see that vast majority of elites were based in urban areas from which political power flowed and decided national destiny.

Efforts to bring development and infrastructure to the countryside were prevented by this low literacy/education as well as rural conservative oligarchs who exploited rural populations for political votes. People in rural areas literally did not know what was in their economic interests and did not have enough consciousness to understand and properly express their socio-economic interests. Many of the rural illiterate poor just served as seasonal labor for either agricultural industry or to serve city dwellers in unskilled tasks.

Agricultural sector of 1950s Cuba could be compared to its modern equivalent of food preparation, packing, and working in McDonalds or supermarkets. Those rural Cubans that got some schooling probably had enough consciousness to realize that its very difficult/expensive to live in Havana so they tried to make something of their life in small towns. Illiterate Cubans thought they might as well make some money in the cities even if it means living in suburban slums if necessary.

It might be safe to say that 2009 American middle school does a better job at bringing an individual to higher level of consciousness than a Cuban high school (if not a rural college) in the 1950s. It is difficult to make accurate comparisons with United States but they become troubling if we start attempting to make them. Only 28% of American population has finished some type of Bachelors degree and only 85% of American population has finished high school. It means roughly 2/3 of American population is in a consciousness/cognitive spectrum that compares to Cuban illiterate-middle school spectrum. That is not sufficient for them to financially make it in rapidly growing urban areas like NYC/Boston or make the best political decisions for their areas (considering the wealth/power of rural American oligarchs).

It is very difficult to think that America has equivalent of peasants but we must understand that technology is progressing at an increasingly exponential rate. The economic/scientific/political complexities of the world increasingly require at least a good modern bachelors as a base. It is very possible that grad school has already or will soon surpass college as the high school equivalent in American 1950s. Obviously most Americans these days do not fall under the category of functional illiteracy but perhaps the definition of what's illiterate needs to be revised or broken into levels.

As American elites increasingly and disproportionately live in urban areas, we can begin to see the political power of urban areas rise dramatically. Serious modernization efforts will then become possible with EU as the role model society. However, as we have seen in Cuba in part 3, even militant rapid modernization efforts can fail to prevent violent redistributive social environment. They might not be fast enough to satisfy the real demand of rural areas or the psychological sense of progress amongst the urban educated. United States also lacks a solid export based way to bring income for modernization.

We see the supply of education not satisfying demand and that is compounded by the illiterate equivalents of modern society having higher birthrates. The birthrate disparity due to modern contraceptive education, provides another difficulty for United States that Cuba did not have (at least to the same degree). Education cannot build upon itself. Even if forceful militant public efforts at providing it (versus the private oligarchal control of supply) are undertaken, it might not be enough. The government is still in only the early stages of assessing the full educational dilemma.

To be concluded in part 5,