Subversion and daily resistance in the Cuban economy

Abstract

The statistical data discussed in the previous article show that the official (legal and regulated) economy has ceased to provide the main income for Cuban households. So where has this obligation shifted to, and why do Cubans continue to work for the state, if wages are not enough to live on? To answer this question, we rely on studies of 'everyday resistance', a concept developed by anthropologist Eric Wolf in the 1970s, which refers to the set of disorganized, covert and generally depoliticized acts and activities that subvert the prohibitions and obstacles imposed by those in power, including norms, laws and economic and social structures. The less an economic system imposed from above works, the more massive, ingenious and obstructive will be the acts of micro-resistance that the population employs to defend itself from the impacts (hunger, scarcity, stagnation, etc.). Given the great difficulties and powerlessness to confront the PCC in the political arena, Cubans have invested all their dissatisfactions, struggles and aspirations in the construction of black and 'gray' markets, in underground production and imports, in the spontaneous and disguised privatization of state resources, and in the evasion of controls and taxes, among other mockeries of the law.

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