Paternalism

What are the key issues that have emerged in this debate? One key issue is debate itself, or the lack of it. Many letters to the editor rail against the habits and practices of false unanimity and the suppression of differences, and openly denounce “bureaucracy”. 

A second key issue, and the most controversial topic, is the debate over the ration book and its possible elimination. Most letters are supportive; some are against. Among those who agree with its elimination there is a discussion about how and when this should done, and what measures should be implemented to ensure that those who cannot work are not disadvantaged.    

A third key issue is paternalism, a complex phenomenon with both material and psychological dimensions. When people look to the state to solve all their problems for them and when they expect society to provide for all their needs regardless of their labour contribution to society, this is paternalism. Not only does paternalism stifle individual and collective initiative, it robs people of their sense of social responsibility. Paternalism is linked to both the structural dysfunction of excessive subsidies and low wages and to the over-centralisation of decision making and administration. It is also a consequence of egalitarianism.
 
When conscientious and productive workers are paid the same, or nearly the same, as lazy workers, a contemptuous attitude towards social property and the socialist work ethic tends to develop among the less politically conscious workers, who may think: “Why bother to work hard when I’ll get paid just the same?” In his famous essay Socialism and Man in Cuba written in March 1965, Che Guevara noted that despite the importance given to the social recognition of exemplary workers in Cuba – incentives of a moral character that Che argued would be decisive in the long run to the development of communist consciousness – there existed a “vanguard group” that was more committed to the revolution than the mass of workers. 

Among these vanguard workers “there has been a qualitative change” in their attitude towards the revolution and its tasks “that enables them to make sacrifices in their capacity as an advance guard”, yet most workers still “see only part of the picture and must be subject to incentives and pressures of a certain intensity. This is the dictatorship of the proletariat [i.e., the political rule of the working people] operating not only on the defeated class [of capitalist exploiters] but also on individuals of the victorious class.” 

While Che emphasised the importance of moral incentives and warned of the dangers of relying on “the dull instruments left to us by capitalism” such as individual material incentives, he argued that an appropriate combination of moral and material incentives was needed to simultaneously develop the productive forces and forge a communist consciousness. 

The distinction between a minority of exemplary workers and the majority who are less politically conscious and committed still exists in Cuba today. “For the worker to feel like the owner of the means of production we cannot rely solely on theoretical explanations – we have been doing that for about 48 years – nor on the fact that his opinion is taken into consideration in the labour meetings. It is very important that his income corresponds to his personal contribution and the fulfillment by the work centre of the social object for which it was constituted”, Raul Castro said in a speech to Cuba’s National Assembly of People’s Power on July 11, 2008.