ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to provide an overview of the evolution of cooperatives in Cuba, especially focusing on the emerging new forms that are envisioned to be independent of the state and self-managing, even as these are to function within a state-led legal and regulatory framework. While these are still at an experimental stage and the overall legal and regulatory framework yet to be finalized, these have already generated considerable interest both within and outside Cuba. This chapter draws on the growing literature in the field as well as on the author’s own fieldwork in Cuba over the past several years to review and explore Cuba’s “cooperative road” to reforms and to what is envisaged as a model of 21st century socialism. The chapter argues that while Cuba is at a critical crossroads it is well positioned to make such a transition, and that its emerging forms of cooperatives offer a viable and sustainable alternative to a disastrous embrace of neo-liberal capitalism that is being offered by the US and other “friends” as the only route to prosperity.
