Before
and since the proposed new Cuban constitution
(pdf) was released, there has been lots of talk about how it “could permit
owning private property,” as a Washington Post editorial
put it.
Sure
enough, it deals with private property – but not exactly in that new-dawn-of-private-property
way, which wouldn’t make sense because it is already permissible for Cubans to
own private property, as we use the term. The vast majority of Cuban homes are
owned outright with property titles and since 2011, residential properties are
bought and sold on the open market. Many but not all individual farmers own their
land and homes outright. Cars are owned and traded. Personal effects, of
course, are privately owned.
What
the new constitution does is to enumerate different kinds of property – and
among these, to draw a distinction between personal property and private
property. (See paragraphs 93 and 94 in the text linked above.)
The
distinction is immaterial to a capitalist but significant to Marxists, and it
goes like this: “personal property” refers to personal effects that have no
economic purpose, while “private property” is defined as private ownership of
means of production.
Hence a
socialist constitution that stresses the state’s predominant economic role will
also enshrine this concept of property, and with it the private sector’s role
in the economy.
A
narrow way to view this is that the constitution is catching up with reality,
because private entities, both individuals and cooperatives in farming and
other sectors, already own their means of production.
Another
way to view it is as a more solid legal foundation for future legislation
governing the private sector, such as the pending laws on enterprises and
cooperatives.
If,
that is, the Cuban government decides to take advantage of it when it comes
time to write those laws.
No comments:
Post a Comment