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| Raúl Castro, President of Cuba |
But as more and more islanders go into business for themselves under President Raul Castro's economic reforms, the ethos of capitalism is increasingly seeping into Cuban daily life, often in stark conflict with fundamental tenets of the Cuban Revolution.
These days it seems there's a mom-and-pop snack shop or pirate DVD stand on every other block in parts of Havana. The chants of cart-pushing vendors echo through residential streets. Farmers line up before dawn at an open-air market to jockey for the best spot to sell their produce. After decades of being urged to report any black market activity in their neighbourhoods, some Cubans now find themselves looking at their neighbours' legal businesses and worrying that they're falling behind.
The free market is still limited in Cuba, but already it is altering lives and reshaping attitudes in palpable ways. Some fear -- and others hope -- that values anathema to a half-century of Communist rule are taking root more with each passing day: It's OK to make money, within limits; workers can reap the benefits of their own labour directly, instead of seeing it redistributed; individual enterprise is rewarded. » | Andrea Rodriguez, The Associated Press | Saturday, December 07, 2013
