Dismantling the ‘paternalist state’ in Cuba

Last March, Cuba’s  Sixth  Party Congress took what its leadership described as an irrevocable decision: to adopt a large number of economic guidelines that will gradually reform, decentralise and liberalise aspects of the Cuban state. The process is intended to accelerate economic growth and remove bureaucracy while continuing to relate development to nationally planned objectives.

A careful reading of what the Cuban government said then and since makes clear that its fundamental aim is to increase economic efficiency by separating the controlling role of the state from enterprise, through giving the latter the freedom to manage and act independently