Dr. C. Marxlenin Perez: Hello, how are you? How nice to greet you again Cuadrando la Caja (Balance cash). A television proposal to debate, to discuss, and to come to consensus from Cuban socialism. I’m Marxlenin Perez and I welcome you to this different kind of Cash, because today we are going to talk about decentralization or centralization in the Cuban economy. Do you believe that there is a strict centralization of the Cuban economy or that, on the contrary, we should decentralize much more? If you like the subject, please join us.
And to address the issue of centralization or decentralization in Cuba, I welcome to the studio
Dr. C. José Luis Rodríguez, researcher, professor, advisor on economic issues and former Minister of Economy and Planning and Finance and Prices. Welcome, José Luis.
Dr. C. José Luis Rodríguez García: Thank you very much.
Dr. C. Marxlenin Pérez: Also with us is Dr. C. Luis Marcelo, who is a researcher of the National Institute of Economic Research known as INIE. Welcome, Dr. C. Luis Marcelo.
Dr. C. Luis Marcelo Yera: Thank you very much.
Dr. C. Marxlenin Pérez: And Carlos Enrique is a Master of Science and also a special member of our panel who is a member of our family today in Cuadrando la Caja, who is a professor, a researcher at the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy, which belongs to the University of Havana. He is welcome.
M. Carlos Enrique González García: Thank you.
Dr. C. Marxlenin Pérez: Together we are going to deal today with a topic that has recently become controversial, it has always been controversial, but in recent times it has been discussed with greater emphasis, whether the solutions to Cuba’s development have to do with a higher decentralization, of resources, of economic policies. Therefore, I propose that we begin, José Luis, with a brief review of the relationship, the issues, the views on this subject historically, in order to be able to bring it to our context.
Dr. C. José Luis Rodríguez García: First I thank you for the invitation to be here. I have been here repeatedly in this space and it seems to me that it plays an important role, because we are dealing with issues related to the economy, particularly the Cuban economy, which are very important at this moment. The debate between centralized planning decisions or planning at the enterprise level or at the consumer level is an old issue in the debates on socialism. The first debates on these issues took place in the 1920s in the Soviet Union, when they began to discuss, in the first place, the existence or not of monetary-mercantile relations in socialism. That was in the background, in this subject. And a conclusion was reached which life later proved to be wrong, and it was that it was based on the assumption that monetary-mercantile relations existed in socialism because of the different forms of property and left a gap, where no explanation was given as to how those relations had their own existence in state property, in social property. This remained so until the 1960s, when it was explained, why the market exists in the conditions of socialism and the role it has in the same extent that due to the volume of resources available, it is not possible to manage, directly the means of labor, the use of those means of labor, of the labor force also, in a direct way, but it is necessary to manage them indirectly. Because there is no possibility of adding up all the resources to do it that way, in such a way that I would say that today decisions in socialist economies have two levels: a centralized level of those decisions, the centralized planning that guides the changes in that sense, and the planning at company level, at consumer level, which works with the possibilities it has in the use of those resources, but already in a particular dynamic, in a particular environment, which allows for an optimization. A first issue to be elucidated in this sense is that centralized planning is not opposed to decentralized planning.
The problem is that there must be a balance between the two and this is what sometimes gets lost in the discussion; this is what happened in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe where practically, since the 30’s it was coined that mercantile monetary relations were pure formality, that they did not have their own content in socialism and that, therefore, practically left the field only to material balances. That is to say, resources are materially assigned and reflect a price to be able to make accounts in accounting, etc., but there was no dynamics associated with monetary-mercantile relations. However, this led to debates since the 1930s and particularly, the first strong debates on the feasibility or not of planning, took place outside the Soviet Union. The Austrian school began to challenge planning in socialism Ludwick Bon Mises, Friedrich Hayek began to question the possibility that it could contain all the information necessary to be able to plan in an economy. This was challenged by a young Marxist economist at the time, Oscar Langue (Polish Oscar Langue) who modeled what would later be called market mechanisms in socialism or market socialism. The first model of market socialism was developed by Langue in 1935, 1938 and this debate continued over time.
There were paradoxical situations, the development of methods of optimizing the management of large volumes of resources centrally, through mathematical economic model. Thus, for example, a Russian economist Leonid Kantarovich, in 1939, discovered linear programming and began to apply it in the management of scarce resources. However, he was totally misunderstood in his time, he was even separated, in short, he was sent to Siberia, we are not going to put it in detail, and that meant that the discoverers of linear programming were apparently the Americans, in 1947, when this gentleman had already discovered it in 1939, with a model for the management of scarce resources. It was so valuable that, in 1975, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. That is, a model with important sources of knowledge behind it.
The same happened with an economist who emigrated early from the Soviet Union (the best known), Vasili Leontiev, who created the input-output model, which is a key model for planning, however, he had to develop it outside the Soviet Union, and also in 1973, he was awarded a Nobel Prize. A model created under conditions of planned management in socialism. These models (to simplify history a little) were not used in a rational way by the leadership of the Soviet Union, by the economic policy in use, which was more dedicated to try to rationalize the use of the market as opposed to planning, through the thesis of market socialism, etc., and they were eliminating planning as if it were an obstacle to the functioning of the market.
That was what was being sought; there is no need for this to be a bureaucratic thing, totally immovable. What we have to do is to corner it a little bit. That is how it was, in the first place, Yugoslavia eliminated it with self-management, at the beginning of the 1960s. Later, in 1967, Hungary eliminated planning, then the Poles and so on. We know where all this long history ends, unfortunately, and it is with the acceptance that the problems cannot be solved by socialism and must be solved only by the market. From there came Perestroika and the whole disaster of the disappearance of the Socialist Camp. We can say that all these discussions were contaminated by these elements, they were unfortunately contaminated and today we have to go back to the role that corresponds to planning and the role that corresponds to the market, whether centralized or decentralized, in the way of planning and then managing. Because planning is one thing and then you have to manage what was previously planned, and that can be done centrally, there are things that logic indicates that they are centralized decisions, we will go into that, but one of them, obviously, is the division between accumulation and consumption. That cannot be done at the microenterprise level, it has to be done centrally, but there is another set of decisions, which can and should be managed decentrally, through a series of mechanisms that allow not making decentralized decisions incongruent with centralized decisions.
Dr. C. Marxlenin Pérez: That is precisely where we want to go as we develop the topic. That is why with this historical introduction that perfectly, it is a well known history that we have been following from Cuba, looking at, although it seems that sometimes we do not take seriously enough the teachings of history, right? That is why this program also intends to relate to that history and to those experiences that we have to deal with every day, in order to know how to appropriate them from Cuba. That is why I propose then, to you, to bring the topic Cuba, how does this topic of the relationship between centralization, planning in our country come about? The myth is that we have an iron or strict centralization in the Cuban economy, is that so? Are we in those conditions?
M. Carlos Enrique González García: There is no doubt, the debate between centralization and decentralization is quite in vogue right now and normally this debate is aimed at decentralizing more, precisely, those products that in Cuba, although in recent years this has been decreasing a little, we have a fairly high level of centralization. Therefore, it is normal that, let us say, what is being called for or what is being talked about is precisely decentralization. Now, it is important to emphasize that we are not talking about black and white, we are not talking about a positive or negative element, neither centralization nor decentralization is good or bad, exactly.
It is about finding a balance within an economy, especially in the economic conditions of a country at a given time. At the end of the day, this centralization, decentralization discussion is nothing more than a debate between the capacities of the different economic agents within an economy to make decisions and who makes these decisions within an economy. It is an interesting and important discussion; if one were Cuba one could talk about this discussion centralization, decentralization of many elements. I think there are four or five main elements, I am going to mention them quickly, later we will surely go into many of them. The first one is the issue of ownership. I am sure that later Professor Luis Marcelo will go into this issue, to what extent we have more absolutism in social property or less, whether property is more centralized in social property or whether there is more heterogeneity within the socioeconomic structure. There is the issue of planning, which we are going to talk about. There is the issue of market planning, that relationship, but there is also the issue of planning with the administration or with the management of the business sector.
There are other elements that are also important. There is the issue, for example, of the foreign trade monopoly, to what extent it is more centralized or less centralized. There is the issue of territorial competences, to what extent the territories have more capacity to manage resources, to make decisions, which we are also going to talk about in the program and are some of the important elements within our economy that are within the logic of this discussion between whether we centralize more or decentralize, it is more in practice.
Dr. C. Marxlenin Pérez: Carlos Enrique said that in his opinion there is still a high degree of centralization in Cuba.
M. Carlos Enrique González García: Basically.
Dr. C. Marxlenin Pérez: I want to use that as a polemic, Luis Marcelo, do you agree with Carlos Enrique?
Dr. C. Luis Marcelo Yera: Yes, but we must also take into account the conjunctural moment we are in. We cannot aspire at this conjunctural moment to have all the decentralization we would like. Scarce resources impose it; nevertheless, I wanted to express that we cannot lose sight, we must have a sort of compass of where we must go and what happens? The classics of Marxism could not see, could not participate in the great decentralizing movements that took place both in the state and in the business groups in the 20th century;
Dr. C. Marxlenin Perez: You know that we are talking about that relationship, which is sometimes paradoxical, between centralizing more or decentralizing more, as Luis Marcelo said, in the current Cuban conjuncture. We will take a break and come back to go into more detail on this issue.
Pause
Dr. C. Marxlenin Pérez: And we are talking, you know, about centralization or decentralization because there are conflicting opinions, not so much in our panel, but especially in our people, about which should be the way from an economic policy that goes one way or the other. I was still thinking about the idea you mentioned in the first block Carlos, we have a high level of centralization and I would like to know specifically what we mean when we say that we have a high level of centralization in relation to what was said about the situation we are in.
M. Carlos Enrique González García: Yes, indeed, probably one of the most discussed issues in this regard is precisely the issue of planning. Sometimes it is thought that a decentralization process in Cuba or to reduce the level of centralization we have means to stop planning or that giving more space to the market means that we are not going to plan anymore and therefore we are going to lose the socialist character of our economy and, in fact, this is not the case. I believe that what has been said, even in other programs we have talked about it, is the issue of the need to give the market a certain space for quality monetary-mercantile relations, which reflect the economic reality within an economy. We are talking about prices, the exchange rate and that possibility of having quality monetary-market relations, that is, that are not formal, as professor José Luis said a while ago, because that gives strength to planning, gives it space and gives it tools. It is true that in many occasions we are familiar with this planning, which is allocative, of material goods, of quantity of fuel, that is, in quantities, but it would be a transition towards a planning more based on financial mechanisms where you would still allocate money, you would give, but then the access to these resources would be more decentralized and this would necessarily happen because there would be prices that reflect real conditions within the economy. Also in this issue of planning, another element that is closely related to it is the discussion of the role of socialist state ownership in the economy. To what extent planning has to participate in the management mechanisms, in the direction, in the administration of the socialist business sector, is another issue where there is also a very interesting discussion because we are also used to planning, through the ministries and others, intervening in a very direct way in those business management mechanisms. But changing that, transforming that, does not mean to stop planning. It means focusing on the important elements of planning and creating a kind of barrier. Planning is effectively in charge of deciding where to go, where the big investments are, which sector to develop; while the business management part, to manage the company, to decide which are the salaries, how many workers I have, which technology I use, what I produce, how I produce, what price I sell. That already falls within the business sector and there should not be a difference between the private sector and the socialist sector. The socialist sector, the socialist state enterprise, must have the capacity to decide its own elements and to decide the elements that have to do with the entrepreneurial part, within the economy, and this is not to the detriment of planning. Todo lo contrario, le permite la planificación centrarse en los elementos importantes y le da las herramientas adecuadas, las señales adecuadas para que la planificación pueda marcar el camino que queremos, que el camino es lograr un ambiente de crecimiento económico y que permite el desarrollo y el éxito del proceso de construcción socialista que, al fin y al cabo, son lo mismo. A veces estamos acostumbrados a ver desarrollo y construcción socialista como cosas diferentes y es el mismo camino en la práctica.
Dra C. Marxlenin Pérez: Se supone que vayan en paralelo, que van en el mismo sentido.
M. Sc. Carlos Enrique González García: Exactamente.
Dra C. Marxlenin Pérez: José Luis sobre este tema se han mencionado palabras claves. Yo creo que son importantes la propiedad privada, la propiedad estatal, el monopolio del comercio exterior, la planificación. On the contrary, it allows planning to focus on the important elements and gives it the right tools, the right signals so that planning can mark the path we want, that the path is to achieve an environment of economic growth and that allows the development and success of the process of socialist construction which, at the end of the day, are the same thing. Sometimes we are used to seeing development and socialist construction as different things and it is the same path in practice.
Dr C. Marxlenin Pérez: They are supposed to go in parallel, to go in the same direction.
M. Sc. Carlos Enrique González García: Exactly.
Dr C. Marxlenin Pérez: José Luis, key words have been mentioned on this subject. I believe that private property, state property, foreign trade monopoly, planning are important. How do you see the issue of planning, centralization?
Dr. C. José Luis Rodríguez García: An important element was mentioned there, and I think it is necessary to clarify it. The fact that today, with the scarce resources we have, we have to make decisions that do not allow decentralization, does not add a virtue, but a temporary necessity; because it is not normal for you to have a lack of resources to be able to work. Therefore, the fact that you make very centralized decisions based on the scarcity of resources is not virtuous, it is simply a necessity and this must be accepted in a certain period, etc., until the conditions change in this sense; but there are things that I insisted that there is room for both things, to plan centrally and to plan at a business level or at the level of the population’s consumption. It seems to me that in this sense there are some elements that abound in favor of decentralization, which is important, but in order to achieve decentralization, first you have to have what you are going to decentralize, what resources we are going to decentralize. I am not saying that they should be assigned centrally in any case, but what powers I am going to give, for example, to the company so that it can seek its own resources through its own management, take the necessary credits, make international collaboration, manage Foreign Trade. This power that I give it is indispensable for the decentralized management of resources and for planning in this sense; But this is based on another important premise and that is the capacity of the economic actors to operate in this decentralized space; this may be one of the most complicated things because today the custom is that I work with what I am given, what the plan assigns me or what the province assigns me, etc., and this is not so for a decentralized management; there have been experiences of decentralized management which have given good results but on the basis of complying with these premises.
Dr C. Marxlenin Pérez: In our country.
Dr. C. José Luis Rodríguez García: In our country, for example, between 1996 and 2009 there was a commission for the attention to the eastern provinces that worked not only verifying the situation of the different territories, but it also worked on the post that was given to be executed by the territories and that brought tremendously extraordinary things, I remember that the province that better managed over the years those resources that were given centrally by the budget in this case was Guantánamo. We could say that it was the province with the least resources to work in that sense, but it had a much clearer notion than the rest of the eastern provinces to work more efficiently with the scarce resources it received, logically it was not the one that received the most resources, because there are provinces with more resources: Holguín and Santiago, for example, were given more resources according to the population and so on; but Guantánamo used those resources very efficiently. I remember that we made an album, this was directed by the Ministry of Economy at that time and that gave proof of a decentralized management centrally limited by a volume of resources given by the budget that showed you the possibilities and a very important element when I speak of the necessary institutionality for this we must not forget a detail that is not the detail is very important which is the participation of the population in planning. To do it centrally is very complex because a discussion between accumulation and consumption at the population level is very difficult to identify, but a discussion of what investment capacities I am going to develop based on productivity or based on an organization of the productive process can be discussed at the company level and it has been shown that it is possible to do so, but this is not yet adequately institutionalized because we do not have a bottom-up planning as it is called to then see with the top-down parameters that the situation dictates what we can do better and what we cannot do at this moment. In other words, it is a combination of centralized management in planning, pardon, centralized planning and possibilities that open up for decentralized planning with the very important element of democratization in the plan with decentralization. In the “Special Period” very significant decisions were also taken in this sense, it was seen that we could not manage from the center enough details so that with scarce resources we could manage the export and import of certain elements for a group of companies at least, and Foreign Trade was decentralized at the enterprise level and this gave good results, without any doubt. It created capacities in the companies, if this is analyzed in the results, because we always have to look at whether something is good or bad, we go to the results, first thing, it was seen at the end of the 90s that there were capacities that had been developed through specialized financial houses in this case FINTUR and FINATUR in tourism how national production had penetrated in the tourism supplies from decentralized management for example for the beer industry, for food production, and we covered an important space 92% of the beer that was drunk in Cuba in 2001 was national production. Today that seems to be a very distant thing.
Dr C. Marxlenin Pérez: A dream.
Dr. C. José Luis Rodríguez García: But it was achieved from decentralization, from the advice received from abroad for example a recapitalization of the 10 beer production plants that existed at that time in Cuba with the collaboration of the Canadian BAT in Cuba and all that was combined with a business management where initiatives and procedures began to emerge that allowed a much more flexible planning and much better results; But all these factors have to be combined, first there has to be a minimum of resources, either managed by the company or assigned by you if there is no other possibility, and second there has to be the capacity to manage those resources. In other words, the actors cannot be improvised in terms of economy and when it is said that we are going to decentralize, for example, the management of the municipality, it is necessary to see what preparation the municipality has to face the enormous universe of problems it has to deal with.
Dr. C. Marxlenin Pérez: Yes, I would like to pause for a moment José Luis because I would like to ask Luis Marcelo about decentralization and the territories. There has been an interest in recent times and an effort in that sense of a greater decentralization and giving them a more prominent role in the decisions.
Dr. C. Luis Marcelo Yera: There is a great effort, but we are still far from achieving what we want. I am observing in the debates that are being carried out by the National Association of Economists and Accountants the elements that are raised in this field and how our municipalities, which are the ones that should carry out this decentralization process, that is to say, to empower themselves from the central power of the country. They have very big problems, first of all because we do not have enough training to be able to assimilate this. We have problems with the emigration of the work force, it is very complicated for a Cuban municipality to face the situation of the country at this moment and although there is the will to carry out this decentralization process, it is a tremendous challenge.
Dr C. Marxlenin Pérez: But it would be a bit contradictory, Luis, what has been said as an effort to decentralize, but if there are problems of resources, scarcity of resources, how to give the territory the task of assuming its own decisions if there is no access to resources precisely because they are scarce.
Dr. C. Luis Marcelo Yera: I really see this as a dilemma, we will have to see the special cases, the specific cases, how to overcome these obstacles, but I see a big problem at this time, if it is not solved, first electricity, if it is not solved, fuel, I do not see how we can carry out the territorial decentralization process to which we aspire, I honestly say so.
Dr. C. Marxlenin Pérez: With those positive experiences that you mentioned then, José Luis. We are going to do an act here because we have a Guru from Jatibonico who has something to tell us about this
The Guru from Jatibonico
What to centralize? What not?
What should I release in the economy?
Will the one who never decided exercise autonomy?
Will they have to be pushed or
or will they go too far?
a dilemma that I imagine as the one that no
but yes, or a “to be or not to be” as a question of destiny.
as a matter of destiny.
Dr C. Marxlenin Perez: And as the Guru says decentralize or centralize a kind of to be or not to be, that is the question and that is what we have been addressing in these minutes of the program that is why Luis Marcelo you have something to tell us in this sense that rounds a little bit the idea of what you have been raising so far.
Dr. C. Luis Marcelo Yera: I wanted to touch on a subject that for me is crucial and is not addressed much, which is the link between business decentralization and business groups, business unions, corporations that together are called in our jargon higher business management organizations, the famous OSDEs that are so controversial. We have 89 OSDEs in the country, 69 at the central level which are the most important and 20 at the provincial level including the special municipality of the Isle of Youth. I think that we must be clear about the fact that this system must have clear in its horizon that it must be gradually decentralized. Because we have not followed the path we should not copy, but we should take into account the path followed by those who have already solved all the decentralization problems, which are the international corporations, they have already gone through this. We should take that experience into account, we have not taken it into account and I think there is an important reserve every time I can say it, Cuban tourism business groups should take into account what the best hotel chains in the world are doing in this field. This is not an ideological problem, it is simply an organizational problem, adopt the ideology of the corresponding management of the Gran Caribe, Cubanacan, Gaviota chains, but take this into account because that is what achieves the competitive synergy between the parent company and the productive unit at the base, that experience. I think we must take this into account in our country and open up to these possibilities. It is not easy to find a book that tells you how to decentralize a group, you can talk, you can find a text on how to decentralize a company, but a group is not the same thing.
Dr. C. Marxlenin Pérez: We will certainly find a book on how to decentralize the Cuban economy. That is the book that we have to continue doing, José Luis, on this subject, I know that there are still many elements to be addressed, but the most important ones that we should not fail to mention in the path to centralize or decentralize.
Dr. C. José Luis Rodríguez García: I insist on what I said before, one thing and the other is not exclusive, there is planning at both levels, what is done at one level must be coherent with the other, we cannot focus everything on centralized management or pretend that all decisions are decentralized because that is not the case in the world, it does not happen that way. It is a complex process I was talking about the training of the people who are going to carry out this decentralized management, this decentralized planning.
Dr. C. José Luis Rodríguez García: I insist on what I said before, one thing and the other is not exclusive, there is planning at both levels, what is done at one level must be coherent with the other, we cannot focus everything on centralized management or pretend that all decisions are decentralized because that is not the case in the world, it does not happen that way. That is a complex process and I was talking about the training of the people who are going to carry out this decentralized management, this decentralized planning. Furthermore, it is important to bear in mind that decisions will be made on the basis of action in a financial scenario where prices play a fundamental role and the planning of price formation is the most complex issue of planning, it always has been and unfortunately we cannot speak of great positive solutions in this sense, not even in those countries where this has been developed (the former socialist countries), let alone even today in the world when you see what inflation is desired by the United States, by the European Union, etc., and how to reach that level or not by the different countries, you find a very complicated price dynamic in this sense because there is a price policy at the European Union level and then each country applies it more or less according to its own circumstances. Here we have to make a balance between one thing and the other, avoiding practices that life has also shown to be harmful, such as price caps.
Price caps cannot continue to be the way in which you try to regulate prices that are not under control. It has to be through economic mechanisms, how, by increasing productivity so that the price is lower, that is the real way, it is not the way to put a ceiling even if the costs are much higher than that because that is not the way to solve the problem. That is to say, there are many things when I say institutional, they refer to these things that regulations we are going to have between the national authorities and the local authorities in the decision on companies, cooperatives; even. Because we cannot continue in this process with the mixture of regulatory entities that are the ministries that in many cases exercise concrete management, so it is a mixture of an environment that does not correspond to them, it is true that in a situation where it is seen that something does not work, the first action is to intervene, yes, but we are going to see how we intervene; because there are ways of intervention and ways of intervention, one way to control prices is to increase the supply of the product, the whole world does it, the price went up and such a thing, well I launch the reserves for the market. One of the things I was seeing here that I do not have time to develop now is that in order to have decentralized management there must be reserves, both in local currency and in foreign currency, to be able to intervene in the market at a given moment and this is part of the coherence between the national and the local in that decision, all this, therefore, shows a demand for institutionalism, for organization that today we do not have, that is the way, but we have not developed it properly and above all we do not have the necessary participation so that solutions may arise from the direct managers who are the workers. So these are things that we have to do, some of which we have already done and some of which have not been implemented, for example, the decentralization of foreign trade.
Dr C. Marxlenin Perez: Precisely in this context, a complex scenario Carlos Enrique, briefly, what to do to move forward on the right path of socialist development?
M. Carlos Enrique González García: Very quickly, we believe that a higher level of decentralization will allow a better balance between what is centralized and what is decentralized in Cuba. To have a better balance and to make progress in those elements that have been explained, that the companies can decide what to do in their area, that the territories have the capacity to make decisions, that they have excess to resources and all these elements that we have seen would allow or bring a series of practical advantages for our economy to mention four or five elements: The first is a greater efficiency of the socialist state property and the possibility that it competes in better conditions within the economy both with itself among the different socialist state enterprises and with the private sector that exists in our economy, a second element, a second advantage would be a less comprehensive planning, that is to say that the planning is focused on what it has to do and the enterprise in turn focuses on what it has to do, which is to produce and produce the best possible under the conditions we have in our economy. We would also achieve greater efficiency in decision making at the territorial level and know where to use the resources, which is very difficult to know from a center, the territories know their circumstances and where to put the resources so that they are used in the best way, another important element that we have not talked about, but which is fundamental is the creation of incentives or the alignment of incentives in the different economic agents within our economy, be it private productive actors, state actors, government, consumers and others, and perhaps finally, to be able to have a much more coherent price system, which is much more related to the economic reality and what we normally say when we say the phrase “to have monetary relations”, and perhaps finally, to be able to have a much more coherent price system, which is much more related to the economic reality and what we normally say when we say the phrase of having quality monetary-mercantile relations, that is, that express the reality of our economy and that can then be a tool for planning to be able to plan the development that we need in our country.
Dr C. Marxlenin Pérez: To decentralize and centralize as our guests have told us today. So I think that this is a balance that must be made in an organic and coherent way with the principles of the Revolution, with what we have proposed in favor of the people, of democracy, of collective participation, and that is why I like this topic. Because it also has to do with that decentralization that is put in function of the people, of the labor collectives and in that sense it would also have to do with a more dynamic, more organic, more coherent business operation. I know that there is much more time for this topic, unfortunately we do not have enough time, but I believe that solid elements have been contributed to put this topic into perspective and into debate. I thank you three for having participated once again in squaring the box and on this issue, what do you think, remember that it is not enough to describe, to interpret, but together and this is key in any process we do, we have to participate and I count on you to do it from Cuban socialism. See you soon.
(Taken from Cubadebate-Sp)
