The Community Development as Part of the General Concept of Development in Cuba (página 2)

The researches of the UNDP on human development not only contribute with its conclusions and present a new concept but have a quantitative aspect since they make possible to elaborate an indicator to measure the human development integrally. It is the HDI (Human Development Index) as a measure of the people"s ability to develop a healthy life, to communicate themselves and to participate in the activities of the community and to have access to a reasonable level of life.

Even when the HDI has received lots of critics, the concept of human development has been generally accepted. However, it has been also questioned because of some theoretical limitations, for example: it does not recognize the capitalist limits for the process of creation and increasing of the opportunities of the individuals and it does not have an explicative theory for the problematic of the underdevelopment. In general, many authors state that this conception still being in theoretical elaboration and as result there is a prevalence in it of a pragmatic approach.

This conception makes emphasis on the fact that there is not any automatic link between economic growth and human progress rejecting in this way the idea that the solution to most of the social problems of the underdeveloped countries is the growing of their economies.

The new paradigm of development takes place in a context of a strong social inequality, a really aggressive and advanced individualism and the mercantilization of social relationships. This increases the weakness and destruction of the community institutions and the local links of proximity that began with the emergence of Capitalism. Every community and the philanthropy of the "civil society" will take care of their "poor ones" the same way the market will take care of the "most capable ones".

In relation to this new paradigm of development that combines neoliberal economic actions, unregulated labor relations and reform of the State (decentralization and privatization of public services) to the denominated "human development" (satisfaction of basic needs and development of human capabilities), a different concept of development emerges now a day. Some of the main elements of this concept are: the legitimacy of a universal notion of development (diversity as wealth), the development as a process more than a final result, the development with improvement of individual and collective potentialities, sustainability as a essential requirement, centrality of social actors, participative character of development, the development as a contradictory process which is contained in the advantages and retrocession, the recuperation of the territorial dimension and the link between this dimension and some other levels.

Potentialities of the Economic Dimension of the Community Development in Cuba

The debate about development is the medullar aspect of the social thought and its platform to extend itself to the practice with concrete variants of transformation and policies strategies. Every transformative variant must have a model for development.

Even when it is influenced by the world historical evolution in Cuba, the community development is included in the general concept of development. It is very important to take into account that its projections and needs must be articulated to the wills, actions and general policies of society.

The influence of the external environment on the development of the nation has increased during the last years. It also has increased the influence of the mutual dependence between the socio-economic, political, juridical and spiritual relations on the contemporary society due to the processes of globalization that are taking place in the world. Besides that a multiple and complex group of mediations have also impeded the building up of community development processes.

There two starting points for the analysis of the present Cuban development: the underdevelopment as a condition of origin and the peculiarities of an economic model of transition to Socialism.

The economy of transition to Socialism in an underdeveloped country presents the difficult challenge to make the social forms of appropriation of the socialized and undeveloped productive forces interact with the complex system of more advanced relations of production and trade with its respective economic statutes.

If the social relations of production are diverse as it happens in the transition, it also happens with the productive forces in social terms which are full of structural disproportions and distortions derived from the underdevelopment.

It is very important to study the economic fundament, that is to say the peculiarities of the interaction between the productive forces and the relations of production in order to understand and act properly in the concrete historical frames of a specific social organization and the working of society as a whole.

The social and economic system marks a distinctive difference in multiple planes and directions. The emergence of the problem of the interdependence, the endogenous capability of its development and limits will depend on the definition of the community on time and space.

Taking into account the main features of our model of development based on a transition to Socialism we should recognize the community as present as a integrated totality of social and heterogeneous subjects in the socio-economic aspect with a defined and institutionalized structure. It is framed into a more complex, populational, economic, productive, institutional, social and cultural system which intends to preserve the relations of structure and dynamic flows of mutual interdependence. It comes to be as a cell of identity of the system as a whole, a minor totality that reproduces the major totality to which it belongs. That is the reason why the antagonisms and contradictions of the major totality are essentially inherent to the community even when they have their respective particularities.

Besides that, community preserves horizontal, vertical and diagonal links of interindependence either in its interior or in its relations with the external environment. This phenomenon is reflected in a particular way in the political and institutional or power plane. The levels of centrality and decentralization are diverse and depend on different circumstances such as socio-economic regime, kind of institutional system and government and so forth.

Community is always defined on a time and space where there are certain productive forces, social division of work, classes, social groups and links of diverse sort such as economic, technical and productive, infrastructural (social, spiritual, political), and superstructural, that is to say multiple interindependences.

Community development is conditioned by lots of dimensions as complex process where all of these dimensions interact to each other and it is impossible to separate them. In the case of the economic dimension of the community development, it is conditioned by the dominant economic relations and the level of development achieved by the productive forces in a given moment. All the processes that mediate the man"s participation and cooperation in the community building up are related to the material and spiritual wellbeing. That is the reason why the economic fundament in these relations is so important.

The examination of the mode of production provides a material economic fundament of the prevailing social relations in a community and makes possible to have an idea of this community"s potential for development. Therefore it is very important to understand the reflex of the advance of productive forces in the society"s relations of production and how these relations can favor or block the development of these productive forces.

The economic development of the community development is conditioned by the economic relations that prevail in the country and the level of development achieved by the productive forces in a given moment.

Certainly, the property relations in relation to the means of production constitute the base of the system of social relations of productions that determine the situation of the social classes, social groups of production in the distribution, exchange, consumption and content of the economic interests. That is the reason why in the community development in Cuba are reflected the peculiarities of the relations of production of the transition to Socialism with a strong social and economic heterogeneity. This heterogeneity is essentially marked by the different types of properties that converge on our economy and propitiate different kind of property"s subjects and as a result different economic, social and individual interests.

The conditions of heterogeneity of the present Cuban society should be present in any analysis of the community taking into account the diversity of actors that coexist within it. In our communities are present now a day new socio-classists structures that correspond to the economic changes in the country. This is a complex and objective reality of the Cuban society at present. This condition and some other problems can turn into obstacle for the building up of community projects.

In the economic dimension of community development in our country it is crucial the leadership of man and his/her potentialities to change his/her reality. At the same time he/she is transformed by the potentiality that represents his/her general and specific education and the culture that has been able to acquire through these processes. There is a very close relation between these aspects and the participation not only in the collective and productive processes but also in the community.

For the building up of the community development, it is necessary to have a certain notion of the real potentialities of the group for the participation and cooperation and to identify the forces of the social structures that might impede the development of these potentialities since in the last years there have been carried out radical transformations which have changed economic dimension of the community development. These changes affect severely the individual and the participation and cooperation in the community.

From the approach that we give to community, as a link where the relations of participation and cooperation are the main variables, it is supposed to be a collective activity and a dialectic attitude to face reality since social contradictions are not assumed as negative events but sources for development.

In the economic field the cooperation is expressed in different ways, as the necessary, substantial, stable and repeated relations among different subjects that have the same purposes.

According to Marx, cooperation does not only tend to develop the individual productive force but to create a new productive force with indispensable feature of massive force.

The community development in a project of Socialism-building is reaffirmed through the cooperated planning of social actions in order to solve the complex system of social demands. In such a project cooperation is not limited to the system of production but it integrates the others dimensions of the community development such as the social dimension and the natural environment. In the case of cooperation we start form a conception of integration and commitment of the members of a given settlement or group that is considered as a community.

The process of cooperated planning of the different social actor of the community will be aimed to the improvement of the economic, social and natural environment conditions as well as the modification of the attitudes and practices that might act as obstacles for the development of the community. It will also be very important to promote actions that preserve the continuity of the community.

Conclusions

In the scientific ideal and in the changing practice has prevailed the idea that development is an integral process that includes cultural, ethic, political, social, economic and environmental dimensions with an interrelation that is inherent to the very same process of development. Development is a total process that includes every single aspect of life of a collectivity, its relationships with the external world and its won awareness.

From the 90"s on, crisis, reforms, adjustments and the new international conditions enhance the need to increase the consistent action of the localities" social actors in order to promote initiatives that impulse development in harmony with the planned regulation of the national economy as a whole. In this case the processes of community development have a special connotation as a tool and instrument to achieve viable endogenous alternatives of development from the special conditions of a structural underdevelopment.

The research in this field should show off the way in which the economic dimension has been integrated to the logics of the national community development as well as the economic, institutional and some other changes that have been taking places during the last years could favor the participation, cooperation and the identification of community interests in projects with social benefits.

It represents a big challenge to conjugate the high development of labor forces in Cuba as an essential part of the development of the productive forces with different ways of cooperation that integrates the diversity of economic subjects taking advantage of the potentialities for the community development.

Referencias bibliográficas

– Espina, Mayra P. Apuntes sobre el concepto de desarrollo y su dimensión territorial. En "Desarrollo local en Cuba, retos y perspectivas". Editorial Academia. La Habana, 2006.

– Marx, C., Prólogo a la Crítica de la Economía Política. Ed. Política. La Habana, 1966.

– Pablo González Casanova. "Comunidad: la dialéctica del espacio". Temas n. 36, enero- marzo de 2004.

– Álvarez, Sonia. La transformación de las instituciones de reciprocidad y control: del don al capital social y de la biopolítica a la focopolítica. Revista. Venezolana de Economía y Ciencias Sociales, 2002, vol. 8, nº 1 (ene.-abr.)

– Alonso. J.; Pérez A.; Rivero, R.; Romero, E.; Riera, C.: El autodesarrollo comunitario. Críticas a las mediaciones sociales recurrentes para la emancipación humana. Editorial Feijóo, Santa Clara, 2004.

– Figueroa, Víctor. Ensayos de Economía Política de la Transición Extraordinaria al Socialismo en la experiencia de Cuba.

Autor:

MCs. Gertrudis Leticia Toledo Cabrera