About this episode

Helen Yaffe discusses the practical aspects of building socialism in Cuba, including economic management and social welfare.

Helen Yaffe joins us for a conversation exploring what the attempts to build socialism in Cuba look like in a practical sense—from housing to food distribution to economic management. Helen Yaffe is a professor of Latin American political economy at the University of Glasgow. She is the author of We Are Cuba! How a Revolutionary People Have Survived in a Post-Soviet World , and Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution . She is also the cohost of the Cuba Analysis podcast and the documentary Cuba's Life Task: combating climate change . The episode begins by bringing back the lens and exploring what we mean when we talk about socialism and communism and transitional states, inserting the centrality of development and underdevelopment into the conversation of building socialism and situating Cuba into this framework. We break down the main components of Cuban socialism, which include central planning, the decentralization of feedback mechanisms (deep democracy), the commitment to social welfare with a particular emphasis on medical advancements and technology, science, etc. We then break down how these components existed within the different stages of Cuba's attempts to lay the…

People in this episode

Guest: Helen Yaffe

Topics covered

• Cuban socialism
• economic management
• social welfare
• housing
• food distribution
• medical advancements
• political economy

Keywords

• Cuba
• socialism
• communism
• economic management
• social welfare
• housing
• food distribution
• medical advancements

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Glasgow, Cuba Analysis

Books & works: We Are Cuba! How a Revolutionary People Have Survived in a Post-Soviet World, Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution, Cuba's Life Task: combating climate change

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