I watched a documentary a while ago, about how, after the embargos, and trade sanctions placed on Cuba by the USA during the 1960's, the cubans became quite adept at 'making do'
The trained engineers left Cuba in the 1960's to go work in the USA, and /cuba became something of a DIY society.
After the collapse of the soviet union, the $6 billion or so of goodwill of external goods were also cut off. Stores were empty. In 1991, after the wall came down, the economy imploded. The cubans had relied on cheap imports from the soviets but that stopped.
So they had to become somehow completely self sufficent.
A few organisations were developed during these decades:
In the seventies The national association of innovators and rationalisers, a group of revolutionary minded scientists and mechanics made booklets for everyday people.
In 94-95 the state could no longer support its people, stores were empty, but this gave people the freedom to spawn their own economy.
The government, knew the crisis would be very complex, so the army published a book called the 'the book for the family' a compilation of practical exercises from popular mechanics to simple fixes for electrical home appliances, medical instructions, botanicals, growing food, protection, survival etc.
What happened was the people flourished. they came up with many of their own inventions, and another book was made entitled Con Nuestros Propios Esfuerzos (With Our Own Efforts), the book detailed all the possible ways that household items could be manipulated and turned inside out in order to fulfill the needs of a starving population.
Ive seen pictures of the book. It looks like a large phone book, but it was ingenious in the ways, a simple motor for instance could be used for so much etc. It was very much like an instruction manual for a post appoloyptic world, after some sort of collapse.
Ive never been able to find an english copy unfortunately. I dont think it was ever translated.
A cuban american artisit, highlighted a small section of this Cuban self sufficency on a countrywide scale, as an art project in the USA, entitled, 'technological disobedience'
Heres a clip from the artist:
[video=youtube;v-XS4aueDUg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-XS4aueDUg#t=69[/video]
The trained engineers left Cuba in the 1960's to go work in the USA, and /cuba became something of a DIY society.
After the collapse of the soviet union, the $6 billion or so of goodwill of external goods were also cut off. Stores were empty. In 1991, after the wall came down, the economy imploded. The cubans had relied on cheap imports from the soviets but that stopped.
So they had to become somehow completely self sufficent.
A few organisations were developed during these decades:
In the seventies The national association of innovators and rationalisers, a group of revolutionary minded scientists and mechanics made booklets for everyday people.
In 94-95 the state could no longer support its people, stores were empty, but this gave people the freedom to spawn their own economy.
The government, knew the crisis would be very complex, so the army published a book called the 'the book for the family' a compilation of practical exercises from popular mechanics to simple fixes for electrical home appliances, medical instructions, botanicals, growing food, protection, survival etc.
What happened was the people flourished. they came up with many of their own inventions, and another book was made entitled Con Nuestros Propios Esfuerzos (With Our Own Efforts), the book detailed all the possible ways that household items could be manipulated and turned inside out in order to fulfill the needs of a starving population.
Ive seen pictures of the book. It looks like a large phone book, but it was ingenious in the ways, a simple motor for instance could be used for so much etc. It was very much like an instruction manual for a post appoloyptic world, after some sort of collapse.
Ive never been able to find an english copy unfortunately. I dont think it was ever translated.
A cuban american artisit, highlighted a small section of this Cuban self sufficency on a countrywide scale, as an art project in the USA, entitled, 'technological disobedience'
Heres a clip from the artist:
[video=youtube;v-XS4aueDUg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-XS4aueDUg#t=69[/video]
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