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Thursday, October 10, 2013

More of the Same

More of the Same / Fernando Damaso
Posted on October 9, 2013

Self-employment, in the face of capricious decisions by the authorities
in charge, continues to lurch along, and its progress and solidification
as a lawful way of life for thousands of people becomes more complicated
by the day. Although it has been officially declared that the policy
continues the same as when it was first authorized, and the only thing
intended by the new regulations is to set up greater order, in practice
it is not so.

Apart from the widespread confusion between what is authorized and what
is unauthorized, caused primarily by the generic, ambiguous, extremist,
and bureaucratic regulations of the Ministry of Labor and Social
Security, the Ministry of Finance and Prices, the Councils of
Administration of the People's Power, and others involved, plus the
arbitrariness of inspectors and others in control, requiring compliance
with nonexistent provisions, and imposing excessive fines according to
their personal interpretations, the chaos created makes the practice of
self-employment a living hell.

Day by day, because of all this institutional disorganization, it
survives by the tenacity of those who practice it, risking resources and
efforts on activities that not even its proponents have been able to
define within serious legal boundaries, leaving everything to future
studies, adjustments, and details, as the authorities are wont to
respond to those who ask, demonstrating their professional
precariousness for holding the positions they occupy. While the
unconditionally incompetent constitute a majority in the different
levels of state administration, the solutions shine by their absence,
the rope continues to tighten to the breaking point, with the
implications that entails, and the problems pile up.

It seems that self-employment, which emerged as a necessity to resolve
the employment that the state is unable to assure to its citizens,
continues to terrorize those who were forced to authorize it, those who,
without the help of their many advisors, find ways to control it without
completely strangling it and, what concerns them more, without losing
any of the perks of power accumulated over so many years. But it turns
out that the citizens of today do not look anything like those of
yesterday: they are now tired of fables and impositions and are willing
to defend their rights of survival.

9 October 2013

Source: "More of the Same / Fernando Damaso | Translating Cuba" -
http://translatingcuba.com/more-of-the-same-fernando-damaso/

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