Between the “Party Line” and the “Bottom Line”1

Abstract

Most past studies of Cuban entrepreneurship (referred to by the Cuban government as trabajo por cuenta propia or “self-employment”) to date have focused either on a single industry or set of industries such as private paladar restaurants, bed and breakfasts, or shoe manufacturing. This chapter describes and analyzes one of the relatively underexplored potentialities of Cuba’s emergent private enterprise sector: “entrepreneurial solidarity” (emprendimiento solidario), also known as “social entrepreneurship” or “socially responsible enterprise.”. Specifically, this chapter investigates this topic thorough a case study approach that focuses on a single Old Havana neighborhood (Santo Ángel), tracing the efforts of Papito Valladares’s grassroots community project there (Artecorte) to marry: (1) economic development (via private entrepreneurship as a licensed cuentapropista) with (2) social responsibility (via a variety of community development initiatives) and (3) cultural preservation (through an important alliance with Office of the City Historian). Artecorte embraces an ethic of contagion over competition, combining bottom-line-oriented private enterprise with neighborhood uplift, community outreach, and collaborative synergy—alternately independent from or in sync (and occasional partnership) with the government’s “party line.”