Developing a Philosophically Grounded Alternative to Capitalism

The dream of the imminent end of the world inspired the struggle of the early Christians against the Roman Empire and gave them confidence in victory. Scientific insight into the inevitable disintegration, now taking place before our eyes, of the prevailing social order...is sufficient guarantee that the moment a truly proletarian revolution breaks out, the conditions for its immediate initial (if certainly not idyllic) modus operandi will also be there. -- Karl Marx1

The Lawmaking Process in Cuba: Debating the Bill on Agricultural Cooperatives*

The assumption regarding parliaments in socialist countries, including Cuba, is that they are little more than rubber stamps for the communist parties. A review of the theoretical literature on representative governments in socialist countries, for the most part concentrating on their ineffectiveness and subordination to the communist parties, can be found in my book, People’s Power: Cuba’s Experience with Representative Government.1 It is the purpose of this article to demonstrate how the Cuban National Assembly lawmaking process functions.

Pages