1.) Some attempts to establish Socialist regimes in third world countries
succeeded, others failed dismally - very much depending upon the
preconditions of growth.
Regarding Cuba it should not be forgotten that Cuba was in the
early twentieth century one of the most prosperous countries in the
Carribean (tens of thousands of Jamaicans actually emigrated to Cuba as the
land of opportunity.) Also, Cuba was - together with Trinidad - the one
Carribean country to have some manufacturing and to have an industrial
proletariate - ... -. Thus it started objectively from a quite favorable
position already - I don't have the figures around but in the 1950's Cuba
would probably have been in the `middle category' as to its GNP per capita -
as it still is, together with Jamaica but below Trinidad or Surinam - let
alone `tax-haven countries' such as the Caymans or the Dutch Antilles.
I say `objectively' of course since as to the inequality of
distribution Cuba under Battista was rivaled by few Latin American
countries, though by many Carribean since the Carribean is traditionally one
of the front-runners in global inequality -. Furthermore its development was
obviously helped by the USSR buying the entire sugar-crop at a `fair' price
which (I believe) was 30-40% above the world-market price, mainly in return
for oil. The development was thus sponsored by the USSR like Surinam by
Holland or Martinique by France - it is not entirely fair to compare heavily
sponsored countries with non-sponsored countries but I think it's fair to
say that as to the amount of growth in the 60's and 70's Cuba was somewhere
in the middle category - and of course growth-rates dropped dramatically in
the 90's with negative growth though the Cuban economy is now reviving -
mainly, I think - because of the impact of tourism. However, as to the
division of wealth Cuba is obviously very different and in some respect much
better of than most countries in the Carribean - to state the obvious: Cuba
and Jamaica have almost the same GNP per capita. In Jamaica everybody can
buy toothpaste, while in Cuba it may not be around for weeks and in Jamaica
the poor can't afford to go to the dentist - while in Cuba there are too
many dentists !
So, the Cuban story is not an overall succes-story and it certainly
does not constitute a real alternative for smaller third-world countries
because of the special relationship between Cuba and the former USSR - most
smaller third world-countries can simply be starved into submission to the
US or France or Holland. (As happened with the Bouterse regime in Suriname
which was really forced to abdicate in the mid-eighties after the so-called
jungle-command of Ronni Brunswijk - supported by the Dutch secrete service
as we now know - began to disrupt electrity-supplies and supplies of bauxite
on which the whole economy of Surinam depends.)
Anyhow, while the socialist expiriment in Cuba has some great
achievements to its credit the point is that Cuba already started from a
relatively healthy economic base - socialism has failed dismally in trying
to conjure up forced development along the USSR line in countries where
there was no development at all - worst under the Mengishtu regime in
Ethiopia and in South-Yemen, but also in the Cabe Verde and in Angola and
Mozambique.
However, the mention of these last two countries already points to
something else - for most of the poorest countries capitalism is no
alternative either. No capitalist is going to invest in countries where
there is no infrastructure, no schooled work-force, no reliable government
and no western comforts. And this excludes almost all African countries and
the Arab countries - if it wasn't for oil. The best way of development might
be - but who are we to know that best ? - some form of socialism not based
on the USSR model of forced industrialisation but upon the development of
agricultural cooperatives based on the peasant-communities. This was
actually what Frelimo tried to implement in Mozambique, but the promising
developments there were smothered in blood by the South-African intervention.
This South African intervention is one of those many cases where the
US supported intervention and/or intervened in completely peripheral
countries to `fight communism'. Ironically, as the Soviet threat has now
evaporated I guess socialism - or socialist-inspired regimes - in the
peripheral third world countries (not Mexico, say, or Turkey) may have a
better change of survival than in the seventies and eighties as these
countries are simply too unimportant to invest soldiers or funds for
counter-insurgency in. Thus, for example, while the Dutch government in 1981
was almost succesful in persuading the USA to intervene in Surinam as
Bouterse was `a communist', Bouterse is now back again and the USA simply
doesn't care. (Holland still does, though: it tried to sponsor a coup in
Surinam four months ago which was easily discovered by the Bouterse regime -
one sign how unimportant the third world now really is for the `rich
countries').
As to disontenment in Cuba I'm not sure whether most of the
population supports Fidel - the old probably do but I'm not so sure about
younger persons. I'm not sure whether the discotntent see an alternative to
Castro though, a take-over by mobsters from Miami is not much of an
alternative. Anyhow - in a communist country you can always blaim want and
deficiency of supply on communism - there is always the capitalist
alternative - as `truthfully' depicted in the US-televison. The situation in
their capitalist neighbour seems to be diferent: I would say that the poor
in Jamaica are at least as discontent as the Cubans but they have lost
confidence in all `politrics' - claiming to be socialist, capitalist or what
have you - and only rely on God and their gun.
2.)The `Southeast Asian' tigres are as Blaut rightly points out in some
respects a very bad example for the rest of the third world. For one thing,
in the spirit of its Greater Asian prosperity sphere Japan already put up a
processing-industry in Korea and Taiwan. Both thus had an industrial base
to build on. The `prosperity-zone' was not altogether an empty shell. Unlike
the English, Dutch or Americans in Southeast Asia the Japanese were not
interested in defending their home industry against competition from
manufacturing in the colonies. (Although it should be added that most heavy
industry which Japan built in Korea was located in the North). Most other
countries were in the protective shell of the Commonwealth or the French
trade zone which, of course, relagated the third-world countries to
producers of primary materials. There were exceptions here, one being
Malaysia which has a large Chinese banking and trading community and was
already in the thirties the most prosperous `tropical' colony in the British
empire. Thus the Southeast Asian tigers were before World War II already not
like the poor primary material producing countries in Africa. It is also
true as Blaut remarks that they greatly profitted from US-sponsorship but,
then, the Philippines appearently did not, nor did Turkey or Iran greatly
profit. US-investments and aid might be invested productively or it might
just be dissipated in corruption, `politrics' or prodigious consumption - as
in Panama now, or in Jamaica under Seaga, Iran under the shah or in Turkey
for fifty years now.
So it is not entirely the case that one can't learn anything from
the Southeast Asian tigres. The Southeast Asian tigres built a reasonable
efficient state-apparatus (the lower levels are reasonably free of
corruption - of course this does exist on the government level). Again,
thanks to the good services of comrade Kim Il Sung in South Korea in 1950
and to expatriates from China in Taiwan these two countries were among the
few in Asia to put through a comprehensive land-reform which is lacking -
most conspiciously - in the Phillipines for example, where about 70% of all
land is in the hands of 400 families. Third, and this is a fact which all
too many officials of the IMF or the Worldbank in all their enthusiam for
export-led growth are only too happy to overlook - Taiwan and South Korea
have partly because of this land-reform a much more equal distribution of
incomes than most other developing countries - and more equal than the UK or
the US too - Not only does this guarantee a fairly broad home-market (most
other developing countries essentially have a very rich class which imports
everything from abroad and a very poor class which can just afford food) but
also because of this more equal spread of incomes they have high rates of
savings. Fourthly, both Korea and Taiwan already invested heavily in good
primary and secondary education before the development-spurt of the sixties
began - and still do - the rating of average students of secondary schools
in Korea in math are - I believe - 40 % above the US-average. In all these
matters the tigers are - I think - an example for other developing countries
as is - fifthly - but that is pretty obvious - that the great industrial
complexes which the South Korean state constructed in the fifties - as
export substitution economic communis opinio nowadays notwithstanding - were
not allowed to lapse under the control of multinational cooperations during
some drive for liberalisation as is now happening under World Bank dictates
in much of the Third World. We can pretty much predict this will lead to the
dismemberment of `inefficient industries' leaving most third world countries
with no industry whatsoever.
Guess I have fulfilled my `productive quota'
Cheers
R.J.Barendse
IIAS, Leiden/RSPAS, Canberra
Peace Research Centre
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
Australian National University
Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia
Tel: +61-6-2492259 (Wk)
Tel: +61-6-2675324 (Hm)
Fax: +61-6-62490174