Inequality and Anomie

...First, our surveys indicate distressing signs of economic polarization...

...At the same time, however, there are some very posi- tive findings, such as strong support among all sectors for values like economic stability, "living in a world of harmony and peace" and "living in an independent country...

...Other needs which occupy a somewhat lower but still significant level are those associated with health, job stability, professional and Guillermo C Milan is a social researcher at the Institute of Philosophy in Havana...

...Other potentially influential economic actors in civil society are the close to 200,000 legally registered selfBY GUILLERMO C. MILAN technical development and, in one out As a re of five people surveyed, marital stability...

...It is among those who have the least confidence in the socio-economic solutions proposed by Cuba's politi- cal leadership that anomie is most evident...

...One of the social consequences of the current economic crisis is that values associated with individual economic struggle are increasingly gaining acceptance among the Cuban population...

...The most desirable behavioral traits men- tioned were confidence and self-respect, personal hon- esty, and "having the determination to see through one's objectives...

...rather, the general political framework in which these cooperatives are inserted must actively promote alternative values and organizational structures...

...These processes have brought with them new social phenomena, some of them deeply troubling to the generation of Cubans who had grown accustomed to living in a highly egalitarian society in which the state, not the market, was the principal regulator of social and economic life...

...What stands out is a trend toward values and a sense of life that includes self-fulfillment, the full self-expression of personality, and a reaffirma- tion of the values of life, democracy and social participa- tion...

...About half of all expectations of improvement were based on individual solutions like self-employment, overcoming professional barriers and individual effort...

...Fifteen percent of individuals interviewed in Havana consider themselves "extremely needy," while only 4% claim to have no unmet material needs at all...

...Cooperative members have been urged to affiliate with existing labor unions, which is in keeping with bureaucratic goals of political control but incongruent with the goals of both independent unions and cooperatives...

...Economic success alone will not alter this situation...

...The current situation appears to be generating different forms of psycho-social dissatisfaction that often come about when culturally sanctioned means are not adequate to achieve culturally established goals...

...This has had a dramtic effect on the psycho-social sphere of life-the conscious and emotional ways in which people take on certain personality traits and forms of interacting within their social milieu...

...This is a situation known in the sociological tradition as "anomie...

...The socio-economic crisis and the inversion of the social pyramid-in which the skilled workers and professionals are rewarded less than unskilled workers and others who have access to dollars-have brought about a kind of social disorientation, or anomie...

...Translated from the Spanish by NACLA...

...There is clear opposition to paternalism, egalitarianism, privilege and the lack of urgency and social discipline...

...Perceptions expressed about how one econorn achieves success in life fell into two dis- the inve tinct groups: one in which respondents gave priority to individual efforts and social py one in which they emphasized the polit- disorie S i bn-pie ical and economic conditions of the country...

...There remains a genuine ideological vision of an independent country that is searching to reaffirm its identity as a unified nation...

...Significantly, among both anomie, groups, only a third of those surveyed expressed any optimism about their - own future...

...amid, social significant number of responodents favor the privatization of some sectors, greater freedom of on the rise...

...Not a single association of cooperative members exists...

...This perception presumably underlies the fact that around 30% of the respon- dents said they valued capitalism as the social alternative which would allow one to develop as an individual...

...Survey research conducted in Havana between 1994 and 1998 by the author and two colleagues from the Cuban Institute of Philosophy, Moraima Diaz and Lourdes Urrutia, found attitudes indicating the emergence of social anomie in Cuba...

...As for the obstacles to achieving success in individual projects, 30% said that the obstacles lay in the inadequacies of society itself, while 10% link these deficiencies to individuals, saying that society presents no such obstacles...

...individual employment, increased foreign and national investment, and the idea that personal work effort and creative capacity be recognized as an organizing principle of distribution...

...Emigration, suicide, and the breaking of social norms involving both criminal and noncriminal behavior all correlate with a strong lack of confidence in the political system...

...This situation has hindered them from developing greater public autonomy, except in the local sphere...

...This has given rise to oligarchic tendencies within their organizational structures, resulting in increasing inequality and predatory relations with other social groups...

...During the first three decades of the revolution, there was a gradual transformation of the Cuban population's values in favor of the revolutionary process, but transformation has come much faster than ever before in the last few years of economic and social crisis...

...The international shocks of the current decade have generated processes not before known in revolutionary Cuba...

...Insufficient wages, the high costs of daily life, inadequate transportation and housing-in that order-were the dissatisfactions indicated by over half the respondents...

...A significant portion of those surveyed during this period indicate the growth of a tacit agreement to leave unreported deeds which might violate existing regulations, to accede without prejudice to goods of dubious origin or known to be sult of the lic crisis and rsion of the r n is stolen, to allow emigration in any of its forms, legal or otherwise, and to accept suicide as a solution to individual and family problems...

...Of the unmet needs mentioned by the individuals interviewed, those most frequently mentioned were economic necessities associated with declining living standards...

...This indicates that at the psychosocial level, a sense of life based on the individual, the career and the family is becoming increasingly legitimate...

...In this sense, we can verify a trend toward a reorientation of psycho-social identity and of moral and ideologi- cal values that broadly corresponds with societal trans- formations...

...NACI4A REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 34REPORT ON CUBA sis of the new cooperatives has been productivity...

...These results reveal a perception among some sectors that some sort of dysfunctionality exists in Cuban society which prevents individuals from achieving some sense of self-fulfillment...

...Indeed, it is of interest to note that the population is increasingly tolerant of ideas such as the free use of property and the buying and selling of individual labor power within the impersonal principles of the labor mar- ket, with no norms regulating wages and no sanctions against those who violate labor laws...