Dr. Richard Levins, a population science professor at Harvard, proposed using the economic model of socialism to promote sustainable development in his speech at Barnum last Wednesday. Levins, the director of the Human Ecology Program at the Harvard School of Public Health, spoke about Cuba's ecological path to development.
In his discussion of Cuban ecological prosperity, Levins tried to clarify what he called misconceptions about Cuban economic development. Despite widely-held beliefs to the contrary, Levins said that Cuban development is not stagnant, citing the country's globally-acclaimed revolutions in the field of medicine and agriculture. Likewise, Levins insisted that Cuba is not an isolated country - in fact it attracts tourists from Spain and Italy, among other developing countries, he said.
Levins visits Cuba for two weeks every year, where he conducts a series of sociological studies. On one such trip, he examined the racial disposition and sexual orientation of bus drivers for child day-care centers, concluding that a fair distribution of male and female bus drivers take children to school. This supported the assertion that, in comparison to the US, Cuba is a relatively sexually unbiased country.
Levins supported Cuba's attempt to further enhance its economic prosperity while maintaining a high degree of ecological efficiency. "Expansion is a necessity for the economy," Levins said. "[Cuba should] follow the pathways of the United States and Europe."
Levins' optimistic view of Cuba's future growth did not go uncontested. Sophomore Chris Goodchild felt that the lack of productivity in communist countries ultimately lead to their demise. "While the ideals set forth by Dr. Levins will be better for Cuba's development, Cuba should instead follow the examples of former communist countries," he said, explaining that the collapse of the Soviet Union was largely a product of the country's lack of industrial productivity and that in order to enhance the general welfare of a country, the country must first advance its economic development.
Besides praising Cuba's socialist path to development, Levins pointed to what he referred to as the underlying flaws of capitalism. He alluded to the tendency of the US to overproduce, asserting that goods in a capitalist system become commodities. "Life is becoming commoditized," he told the audience.
In Cuba, Dr. Levins said that goods are produced according to need rather than the demand for luxury goods. Their methods of production are ecologically efficient, he said, while production in the US and other more developed countries often does not take environmental concerns into account.
"On the one hand, people of the world want a higher standard of living. On the other hand, these higher standards of living are hazardous to the environment," Levins said.
Levins also pointed out that, in comparison to the US, the degree of racism and sexism in Cuba is negligible, asserting that although there is still a noticeable lack of representation of black leadership, Cuba is "making room" for the youth, women, and blacks. "They are a model system for developing countries in Latin America," he said.
In fact, Cubans have increasingly identified their society as Afro-Caribbean. Levins supported his argument, illustrating a specific example concerning a Spanish-owned hotel in Cuba. The firm was thrown out of the country because the employees were racially biased.
According to capitalist standards, in its progression toward an environmentally scrupulous country, Cuban agricultural development has regressed. Cuba has taken action by significantly reducing the use of chemicals in its farming methods, utilizing the environmentally efficient practice of plant-mixing, having insects such as spiders and ants apply toxic chemicals, and using animal traction to employ motor-operated tractors.
Freshman Robyn Bornstein proposed a solution to the dilemma of advancing technology while also maintaining a high degree of environmental efficiency. "The age-old controversy surrounding the utilization of technological efficiency, in contrast to methods that are cognizant of environmental standards, is a vast proliferation of that which is both sacred and sophisticated, often dealt with through the use of non-Euclidean economic consistency," he noted. "I prefer the utilization of a hybrid between environmental need and methods of technological efficiency."
