ABSTRACT
The paradigm crisis undid old political and ideological alignments and produced a new, unsettled, constellation of left discourse. Three ideal type perspectives among today’s left on the questions of democracy and socialism have been identified: liberal, orthodox, and renovative. Socialist discourse is clearly on the decline, having lost much of its legitimacy when caught in the cross-fire of an ascendent neoliberalism and a defeated communism. Renovative Cuban leftists view socialism as a necessary and integral aspect of their national society, but they imagine a radically democratized and decentralized socialism. Liberal economic tenets about the merits of market forces in promoting greater efficiency and productivity are also making gains within Cuba. Cuba’s emergency economic program resembles the adjustments implemented in Mexico and elsewhere: less state, more market, more foreign investment. National revolutions in Cuba and Mexico, for all their many contradictions and authoritarian outcomes, fostered traditions of solidarity, community, social rights, and the state’s responsibility for the well-being of its citizens.
