Restructuring Labour Motivation and Planning

During the 1960s, the Cuban economy suffered from over-centralisation of planning and an ineffective system of incentives. These problems did not arise, however, simply from erroneous decisions about economic structure. As pointed out in Chapter 14, the Cubans were pushed along the route of centralisation and moral incentives by the circumstances and contradictions operating in the early 1960s. The process of destroying old structures and instituting social reforms created labour shortages and general economic disruption. Only by abandoning the socialist goals of the revolution could these problems have been eliminated by a reintroduction of market relations and traditional incentive structures. And in the absence of a functioning market, there appeared to be little alternative to centralisation, since at that time the political structures did not provide a viable basis for an alternative approach. Moreover, with the general disruption of the revolutionary process, centralisation probably provided the only avenue of control open to the government: other routes might have led to greater instability.