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Cuba's Free-Market Experiment: Los Mercados Libres Campesinos, 1980–1986

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2022

Jonathan Rosenberg
Jonathan Rosenberg*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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In 1970, as part of a comprehensive program of institutionalization, new economic policies were introduced in Cuba emphasizing more extensive use of material incentives, wage differentials, and piece rates to stimulate productivity. Those policies raised the incomes of Cuban workers and created new demands for a better diet and more consumer goods. Yet problems in the state-run domestic food sector made it difficult for Cubans to secure the higher standard of living promised by their increased salaries and wages. In May 1980, the mercados libres campesinos (MLCs) were introduced as part of a strategy aimed at harnessing the productive capacities of the peasant sector to help satisfy the resulting pent-up demand. The MLCs provided sites where agricultural producers (free peasants, cooperativists, workers on state enterprises, and owners of small plots and gardens) could sell their surplus production directly to consumers. The law governing the MLCs contained several significant restrictions, but the markets were “free” in regard to prices and quantities sold.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , 1992 , pp. 51 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

∗

Part of the research for this article was supported by a grant from the UCLA Latin American Center. I would like to thank Juan Clark for his extraordinary assistance in arranging the Miami area interviews and LARR's anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments. I alone bear responsibility for any errors or omissions.

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