IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 6 ENGLISH | Page 68

He lacks a license for this sort of work because the State authorities and bureaucracy will not accept that such a job, just like so many others, exists. Meanwhile, Felipe doesn’t delay and earns his money doing honest, technological work. It comes with guarantees and is absolutely undetectable by zealous inspectors, police officials, or bureaucrats who pursue these “illegal economic activities.” Simply put, not everyone limits him or herself to starting just a croquette or pizza shop, or to selling peanuts on the corner, given the calamitous state the national economy is in, and with a view to a new one far from the old, Statist model. This creates a sense that our economic reality is still totally controlled by the State and its lackeys, right down to the last letter of the law. Fortunately, it seems that will never again be the only national reality for Cubans, at least not so long as there is an economic regime that is so unfair for most. Notes: 1- The May 16-22 edition of The Economist believes that the State salary in Cuba was 30% below the sum of a real salary, in 1989. 2- The 1943 National Census registered that 62.4% of the population between 14 and 64 years of age, was economically active, but that people who were employed in jobs that paid taxes to the State were 32% of the total (about 1,700,000 in 1950), according to an expert report by the International Reconstruction and Development Bank given to the Cuban government, on July 12, 1951. Given the low invalidity, mortality, emigration, crime, and prisoner statistics at that time, one can conclude that most were earning a living honestly in jobs in the marginal economy or through small, informal businesses. 3- Anuario Estadístico de Cuba (1952): 357. 4- Popular name that was given to these articulated buses, which were really trucks being used as buses, due to the shape of the two ‘humps’ on their roofs. 5- A cynical claim stated that “whatever is not prohibited by totalitarianism is obligatory. 6- The names that appear throughout this paper are pseudonyms, by request of the folks who agreed to tell us their experiences. 68