- Record: found
- Abstract: found
- Article: found
Constituting Socialism for the Twenty-First Century: Examining Cuba's 2019 Constitution
Abstract
This article summarises the results of a qualitative content analysis of the 2019 Cuban Constitution, approved in a national referendum on 24 February 2019, and compares Cuba's constitutionally identified structures and processes with those highlighted as core characteristics of what has been termed twenty-first-century socialism. The article draws mainly on the work of Marta Harnecker (2010 and 2015), who includes the following features of twenty-first-century socialism: a) promoting participative democracy; b) creating the political instrument needed to lead the transition; c) instituting social ownership of the means of production; d) organising the economy toward satisfying human needs; e) having a decentralised (but aggregating) planned economy (including establishing worker-organised production as well as conceiving of efficiency as respect for nature and investment in full human development); f) incorporating material and moral incentives; g) educating for full human development and cultural transformation; and h) building regional (and international) integration. Cuba's 2019 Constitution overall measures up well with respect to these characteristics. The article concludes that Cuba's 2019 Constitution identifies structures and processes that are in line with the characteristics of twenty-first-century socialism. There is also evidence that Cuba represents a “unique model” (Burbach et al. 2013a), one that has been evolving since the 1959 Revolution, including during the Special Period of the 1990s and during the decade prior to the 2019 Constitution being approved, and one that has developed in the context of the US blockade and other hostile actions.
Content
Author and article information
References
Aldama de Pino, Miguel Ángel, and Casañas Díaz, Mirta (2018) Filosofía de la Educación de Fidel Castro (1945-1981). Havana: Editorial Universitaria Félix Varela.
August, Arnold (2013) Cuba and its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion. London: Zed Books.
Azzellini, Dario (2013) “The communal state: Communal councils, communes, and workplace democracy”, NACLA Report on the Americas, 46(2): 25-30.
Bellamy Foster, John (2010) “Foreword” [to special issues on Twenty-First Century Socialism: Inventing to Avoid Mistakes, by Marta Harnecker], Monthly Review, 62(3): iii-xvii.
Bishop, Maurice (1983) Maurice Bishop Speaks: The Grenada Revolution and its Overthrow, 1979-1983. New York: Pathfinder Press.
Burbach, Roger, Fox, Michael, and Fuentes, Federico (2013a) “Cuba: ‘Updating’ Twentieth-Century Socialism”, in Roger Burbach, Michael Fox and Federico Fuentes, Latin America's Turbulent Transitions: The Future of Twenty-First Century Socialism. London: Zed Books, 143-51.
Burbach, Roger, Fox, Michael, and Fuentes, Federico (2013b). Latin America's Turbulent Transitions: The Future of Twenty-First Century Socialism. London: Zed Books.
Campbell, Al (2018) “Cuba's co-operative sector and the project of deep reforms', in Sonja Novković and Henry Veltmeye (eds), Co-operativism and Local Development in Cuba: An Agenda for Democratic Social Change. Leiden: Brill, 160-78.
Campbell, Al (2021) “Evaluating against a multi-dimensional economic goal: A sustainable and prosperous socialism”, International Journal of Cuban Studies, 13(1): 105-26.
Carnoy, Martin, Gove, Amber, and Marshall, Jeffery (2007) Cuba's Academic Advantage: Why Students in Cuba Do Better in School. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Castro Ruz, Fidel (1960). “Discurso en el Acto con los Empleados del Comercio”, Havana, 5 June.
Ciccariello-Maher, George (2016) Building the Commune: Radical Democracy in Venezuela. London: Verso.
Cole, Mike (2012) “Twenty-first-century socialism and education in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela: An alternative to the neoliberal model”, in Ravi Kumar (ed.), Education and the Reproduction of Capital: Neoliberal Knowledge and Counterstrategies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 189-208.
Constitute Project (2019) Cuba's Constitution of 2019. Available at: https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Cuba_2019.pdf?lang=en.
Draper, Hal (1974) “Marx on democratic forms of government”, Socialist Register. Available at: https://socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/5326/2227.
DuRand, Cliff (2018) “Co-operatives in socialist construction”, in Sonja Novković and Henry Veltmeye (eds), Co-operativism and Local Development in Cuba: An Agenda for Democratic Social Change. Leiden: Brill, 100-9.
Ellner, Steve (2013) “Just how radical is President Nicolás Maduro”, NACLA Report on the Americas, 46(2): 45-9.
Engels, Frederich (1880/1972) “Socialism: Utopian and scientific”, in Robert Tucker (ed.), The Marx-Engels Reader. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 605-39.
Fägerlind, Ingemar, and Saha, Lawrence (1983) “Education and development under capitalism and socialism”, in Fägerlind and Saha, Education and National Development: A Comparative Perspective. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 195-233.
Faiola, Anthony (2019) “Socialism doesn't work? An emerging middle class of Bolivians would beg to differ”, Washington Post (16 October): A10. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/socialism-doesnt-work-an-emerging-middle-class-of-bolivians-would-beg-to-differ/2019/10/08/3b1cb3ae-e6f6-11e9-b0a6-3d03721b85ef_story.html.
Fidler, Richard (2015) “[Review of] Marta Harnecker's A World to Build: New Paths Toward 21st Century Socialism. [(translated by Federico Fuentes). New York: Monthly Review Press]”, Monthly Review, 18 June. Available at: https://mronline.org/2015/06/18/fidler180615-html.
Fitz, Don (2020) Cuban Healthcare: The Ongoing Revolution. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Forman, J. (1973) Communism: From Marx's Manifesto to Twentieth-Century Reality. New York: New Viewpoints.
Garcia Batista, Gilberto (ed.) (2002, 2016) Compendio de Pedagogía. Havana: Editorial Pueblo y Educación, 36-44.
Gilbert, Jeremy (2020) Twenty-First Century Socialism. London: Polity Press.
Gill, Timothy (2016) “Whither Venezuelan Bolivarianism?”, NACLA Report on the Americas, 48(4): 367-71.
Ginsburg, Mark, and Garcia Batista, Gilberto (2019) “Reforming education and teacher education in Cuba: Revolución and perfeccionamiento”, in Carlos Ornelas (ed.), Politics of Education in Latin America: Reforms, Resistance and Persistence. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 215-43.
Griffith, Tom, and Williams, Jo (2009) “Mass schooling for socialist transformation in Cuba and Venezuela”, Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 7(2): 31-50.
Guevara, Ernesto Che (1973) “Man and socialism in Cuba”, in Bertram Silverman (ed.), Man and Socialism in Cuba: The Great Debate. New York: Atheneum.
Harnecker, Marta (2010) “Twenty-first century socialism: Inventing to avoid mistakes”, translated by Janet Duckworth”, Monthly Review, 62(3): 2-83.
Harnecker, Marta (2013) Conquering a New Popular Hegemony: Marta Henecker on Twenty-Firstt Century Socialism. New York: Committees in Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.
Harnecker, Marta (2015) A World to Build: New Paths toward Twenty-First Century Socialism (translated by Federico Fuentes). New York: Monthly Review Press.
Hetland, Gabriel (2016) “Chavismo in crisis: To stay in office, the Venezuelan government must address its major weaknesses”, NACLA Report on the Americas, 48(1): 8-11.
Hoogvelt, Ankie (1976) The Sociology of Developing Societies. London: Macmillan.
Howe, Irving (1977/1985) Socialism in America. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanavich.
Hudis, Peter (2020) “What is democratic socialism? What is socialist democracy? Review of ‘True Democracy’ as a Prelude to Communism: the Marx of Democracy by Alexandros Chrysis”, Socialist Studies/Études Socialistes, 14(1): 105-9.
Lebowitz, Michael (2010) The Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Leopold, Bruno (2020) “Karl Marx believed in democracy”, Tribune. Available at: https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/10/marx-the-democrat/.
MacDonald, Theodore (1985) Making a New People: Education in Revolutionary Cuba. Vancouver: New Star Books.
Marx, Karl (1871/1972) “The civil war in France”, in R. Tucker (ed.), The Marx-Engels Reader. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 526-76.
Marx, Karl, and Engels, Frederich (1942) The German Ideology. London: International Publishers.
Marx, Karl, and Engels, Frederich (1848/1983) The Communist Manifesto. London: International Publishers.
Moulian, Tomás (2000) Socialismo del Siglo XXI: La Quinta Via. Santiago: Ed. Lom.
Pearce, Stephanie (2013) “Chávez in the Americas: Increasing autonomy in Latin America and the Caribbean”, NACLA Report on the Americas, 46(2): 40-4.
Popular Unity Government (1971/2013) “Popular Unity Government: Basic Program”, NACLA: Report on the Americas, 46(3). Available at: https://nacla.org/article/popular-unity-government-basic-program.
Rosen, Fred (2013) “What was created? What remains?”, NACLA Report on the Americas, 46(2): 22-4.
Ross, Clifton, and Rein, Marcy (2013) “The new socialism: Review of Latin America's Turbulent Transitions: The Future of Twenty-first Century Socialism (by Roger Burbach, Michael Fox, & Federico Fuentes, London, Zed Books, 2013)”, NACLA Report on the Americas, 46(2): 69-71.
Sustainable Development Index (n.d.) https://www.sustainabledevelopmentindex.org/.
Tablada, Carlos (1989) “Incentive systems”, in Che Guevara: Economics and Politics in the Transition to Socialism. Sydney: Pathfinder, 174-201.
Wolff, Richard (2019) Understanding Socialism. New York: Democracy at Work.
Yaffe, Helen (2020) We are Cuba! How a Revolutionary People have Survived in a Post-Soviet World. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Zwerling, Philip, and Martin, Connie (1985) Nicaragua: A New Kind of Revolution. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books.