3719. Wilder Peréz Varona: El Problema Es Quién Gobierna el Mercado

By Wilder Pérez Varona, La Joven Cuba, July 22, 2026

Wilder Pérez Varona. Foto: La Joven Cuba.

A pesar del consenso sobre la necesidad de hacer cambios en la economía cubana, las medidas anunciadas el 25 de junio de 2026 han abierto más preguntas que certezas. Llegan en medio de una crisis que combina contracción productiva, colapso energético y éxodo migratorio, agravada por el recrudecimiento del cerco estadounidense. Y bajo estas circunstancias es imposible no preguntarse quiénes podrán acumular riqueza, qué ocurrirá con los trabajadores de los sectores menos rentables, cómo se evitará que privilegios burocráticos muten hacia formas oligárquicas, y qué papel jugará el mercado. ¿Alcanza con leer este paquete como un ajuste técnico para salir de la angustiosa crisis? Para aportar a este debate converso con el investigador cubano Wilder Pérez Varona, doctor en filosofía, ensayista e investigador cubano, quien ha dedicado tiempo a analizar la recomposición del imaginario político en Cuba, sobre todo en el ecosistema digital. En estos momentos, investigador posdoctoral del CONICET por la Universidad Nacional de Quilmes (Argentina). En el diálogo Wilder examina qué relaciones de poder redefine la reforma, qué estructura social empieza a consolidarse detrás del lenguaje del «perfeccionamiento del socialismo» y si es posible sostenerla sin transformar, también, el ordenamiento político que la administra. Estamos frente al paquete de reformas más abarcador en los últimos 30 años. ¿Son solo medidas técnico/económicas? No. El paquete aprobado de 176 medidas tiene un contenido profusamente técnico —tipos de cambio, sociedades por acciones, procedimientos de quiebra—, pero su naturaleza es decididamente política. Estas medidas no solo cambian la economía; cambian quién tendrá poder sobre la riqueza del país durante las próximas décadas. Es cierto que nacen de una emergencia. Cuba enfrenta una crisis productiva, energética y demográfica a la que es difícil hallar precedentes, agravada por el endurecimiento del asedio estadounidense. Hoy Washington restringe el comercio, intenta impedir el acceso al financiamiento, desalienta la inversión extranjera y obstaculiza el suministro de combustible, mostrando que existe una estrategia deliberada para cerrar cualquier margen de recuperación económica. Pero reconocer el peso del bloqueo no significa asumir que las reformas son políticamente neutras. Toda reforma económica redistribuye poder. El problema no es únicamente cómo producir más, sino quién decidirá sobre esa riqueza y quién se beneficiará de ella. El cambio más importante de este paquete no es que exista más mercado, sino que se redefine la relación entre propiedad y poder. Una empresa puede seguir llamándose socialista mientras los trabajadores y la ciudadanía no tengan ninguna capacidad real para decidir sobre ella, con lo cual la propiedad social se vuelve una ficción jurídica. GAESA es el ejemplo más claro de ese mecanismo. Más allá de las noticias recientes sobre liberación de activos, podría conservar su capacidad de gestión con estas reformas, y convertirla en participación accionaria sobre las mismas empresas que ya dirigía. La propiedad sigue siendo, en el papel, del pueblo; quien decide sobre ella sigue siendo, en los hechos, quien ya decidía antes de la reforma. Hay consenso en que el modelo de estatismo burocrático agotó sus posibilidades. Cuba necesita empresas más dinámicas, mayor autonomía de gestión y nuevos espacios para la iniciativa económica, pero ¿autonomía para quién y bajo qué controles? Las medidas proponen fortalecer a las empresas y a los nuevos actores económicos, pero apenas hablan de democratizar las decisiones sobre la riqueza que producen. Estamos descentralizando empresas, pero no necesariamente poder. Eso también modifica la lógica del proyecto socialista. Durante décadas, con muchas contradicciones, la igualdad fue el punto de partida del modelo. Como afirmó el propio Díaz-Canel, hoy la secuencia parece invertirse: primero acumular, después redistribuir. El crecimiento deja de estar subordinado a la justicia social; la justicia social pasa a depender del crecimiento. Esto es un cambio de filosofía económica. El mercado puede ser un instrumento útil para desarrollar una economía socialista. Lo que no puede hacer es sustituir la política. Si las nuevas oportunidades de acumulación no van acompañadas de transparencia, regulación democrática y control social, el riesgo es que terminemos sustituyendo una burocracia poco eficiente por una nueva élite económica estrechamente vinculada al poder estatal. El Programa Nacional de Valoración de Activos, sin un sistema judicial independiente ni transparencia sobre quién compra qué, puede convertir a gerentes y cuadros militares en accionistas legales de las mismas empresas que hoy administran a nombre del Estado. Esto es, con matices, lo que ocurrió en buena parte de la transición postsoviética. Por eso el debate no debería reducirse a Estado o mercado. La discusión de fondo es si estas reformas ampliarán la socialización del poder económico o si abrirán el camino a una nueva estructura de privilegios. ¿Qué impactos se avizoran a la estructura socioclasista que se viene configurando en los últimos años? Estas reformas, en caso de implementarse, cambiarán toda la sociedad. Y, sobre todo, cambiarán las relaciones de clase. Durante décadas, el socialismo cubano consiguió construir una sociedad mucho más igualitaria que la existente antes de 1959. Esa igualdad relativa comenzó a erosionarse desde los años noventa con las remesas, el turismo y la expansión del sector privado. Lo nuevo es que ahora la diferenciación social deja de ser una consecuencia de la crisis para convertirse en un componente estable del modelo. Habrá más empresarios, empresas más grandes y mayor concentración de riqueza. Claro que toda economía necesita actores capaces de invertir, innovar y asumir riesgos. La cuestión es quiénes serán esos empresarios, si emergen del trabajo productivo y de la innovación, o bien de la conversión de privilegios burocráticos en propiedad privada. Ese riesgo existe porque la frontera entre administrar recursos públicos y apropiarse de las oportunidades que genera la reforma puede volverse cada vez más difusa. La eliminación del tope de cien trabajadores para las mipymes y la posibilidad de que una misma persona sea titular de varias empresas sientan las bases para una acumulación de capital. La conversión de empresas estatales en sociedades por acciones, con particulares comprando participaciones, es el mecanismo concreto de esa concentración. Todavía no sabemos si esas acciones las comprará el emprendedor que arriesgó capital propio o el directivo que ya administraba la empresa antes de que se convirtiera en sociedad. Al mismo tiempo, también cambiará el mundo del trabajo. El universo, hasta hace algunos años relativamente homogéneo, del empleo estatal dará paso a trabajadores con condiciones muy distintas según el sector, el acceso a divisas, las remesas o el vínculo con empresas privadas y extranjeras. El llamado «muro de la divisa» puede consolidarse, esta vez por diseño, como la principal línea de fractura de la sociedad cubana. Esa desigualdad tendrá además color, territorio y apellido, porque quienes dispongan de capital inicial, familiares en el exterior o mejores redes económicas partirán con ventajas evidentes frente a quienes dependan exclusivamente de un salario en pesos. En el territorio se ve con mayor crudeza, ya que descentralizar hacia municipios sin base industrial ni atractivo turístico distribuirá más déficit que autonomía. Las diferencias sociales tenderán a reproducirse de generación en generación si el Estado renuncia a intervenir sobre ellas. Otro cambio igual de importante es el tránsito de políticas universales hacia subsidios focalizados, tantas veces anunciada, que modifica la relación entre ciudadanía y Estado. Ahora se propone una plataforma que clasifica a las personas como «vulnerables» para decidir quién recibe ayuda y quién no. Los trabajadores de las empresas rentables se integrarán, de algún modo, al nuevo circuito de la economía; los de las llamadas empresas «zombis» quedarán expuestos a la quiebra o la liquidación. La igualdad deja de entenderse como un derecho y la «vulnerabilidad» —es decir, la pobreza— pasa a administrarse como una condición permanente. El riesgo es que el Estado deje de prevenir la desigualdad para limitarse a gestionar sus consecuencias. El problema no es solo cuánto crecerá la desigualdad, sino qué tipo de poder producirá. Como es sabido, cuando la riqueza se concentra, también tiende a concentrarse la capacidad de influir sobre las decisiones públicas. Por eso no basta con preguntarse si se consolidará una nueva burguesía. La pregunta decisiva es si Cuba contará con instituciones suficientemente democráticas para impedir que el poder económico termine capturando también el poder político. Las reformas redistribuyen mucho más que ingresos; redistribuyen poder. Y será esa nueva distribución del poder, más que las propias medidas económicas, la que terminará definiendo la Cuba que viene. ¿Por qué dices que modelo propuesto hace suponer la desigualdad como parte de su estructura y condición para su funcionamiento? No es porque el Gobierno haya decidido que la desigualdad sea un objetivo, sino porque el nuevo modelo termina convirtiéndola en una condición para dinamizar la economía. Ese es, probablemente, el cambio más profundo que introducen estas reformas y que, digan lo que digan, se aparta de los documentos rectores aprobados anteriormente. Se puede seguir, medida por medida, cómo la inversión de la lógica que organizaba la producción según principios de distribución igualitaria queda incorporada al diseño técnico. La fijación salarial, ahora descentralizada y supeditada a la «capacidad económico-financiera» de cada empresa, condena a los trabajadores de los sectores menos rentables a la precariedad mientras habilita salarios liberados en el sector dinámico. Los procedimientos de quiebra, con indemnizaciones de apenas tres a seis meses, convierten la inseguridad laboral en un mecanismo más de disciplina de mercado, incluso dentro del propio sector estatal. Y la dolarización parcial estratifica el consumo hasta en servicios que antes eran gratuitos, se cobra a quien tiene, y se sostiene apenas una protección precaria para el resto. Estos mecanismos son piezas de un mismo diseño que necesita la desigualdad para funcionar, porque es ella la que genera el incentivo de mercado que el Estado ya no puede generar por sí mismo. Ahora bien, el riesgo de que la riqueza provenga del acceso privilegiado a información, a relaciones políticas o al control de recursos públicos existe en Cuba porque la reforma amplía las oportunidades de acumulación sin proponer mecanismos de transparencia y control social. Esta apertura puede terminar consolidando una oligarquía nacida desde el propio Estado. Y ese riesgo, una vez materializado, es muy difícil de revertir, en cuanto esa nueva burguesía consolida activos —vía el Programa Nacional de Valoración de Activos, vía la compra de acciones—, deshacer esa concentración exige un costo político que ningún actor con poder de veto va a estar dispuesto a asumir. La desigualdad, dicho de otro modo, no se disuelve con el crecimiento, tiende a fijarse. Por eso me preocupa que el debate se reduzca a cuánto crecerá el PIB o cuánta inversión llegará al país. Una economía puede crecer y, al mismo tiempo, perder cohesión social. Puede aumentar la productividad y reducir la capacidad de la sociedad para controlar democráticamente la riqueza que produce. La cuestión decisiva no es cuánto mercado admite una economía, sino quién gobierna ese mercado. Si la riqueza termina concentrando también el poder político, el problema ya no será únicamente la desigualdad; será la formación de un nuevo bloque dominante. Si dentro de diez años Cuba es un país más próspero, pero también más oligárquico, habremos cambiado el modelo económico sin resolver el problema histórico de nuestro maltrecho socialismo. ¿Serán viables estas reformas económicas sin ajustes al ordenamiento político? Tengo muchas dudas. No porque toda reforma económica exija automáticamente un cambio del sistema político, sino porque ninguna transformación de esta magnitud puede sostenerse sin democratizar el ejercicio del poder. Y cuando hablo de democratización me refiero a quién controla las decisiones económicas fundamentales y mediante qué instituciones la sociedad puede supervisarlas. Las reformas proyectan enormes cuotas de poder hacia empresas, bancos, inversionistas y nuevos actores privados. Eso puede ser necesario para reactivar la economía. Lo que resulta difícil de comprender es por qué esa descentralización no viene acompañada de una ampliación equivalente del control ciudadano. Estamos creando empresas más autónomas, pero no necesariamente más democráticas. Ese ha sido, precisamente, uno de los grandes problemas del socialismo cubano. Durante demasiado tiempo confundimos propiedad estatal con propiedad social. Pero una empresa no pertenece realmente a la sociedad porque aparezca así en un documento. Pertenece a la sociedad cuando quienes producen su riqueza y quienes dependen de ella pueden conocer cómo funciona, participar en sus decisiones y exigir cuentas a quienes la administran. La democratización económica no es un lujo para tiempos mejores; es una condición para que la reforma siga siendo socialista. Eso supone, más que hacer eficientes las empresas, transparencia sobre el uso de los recursos públicos, rendición de cuentas, instituciones capaces de prevenir conflictos de interés y espacios reales donde trabajadores y ciudadanos puedan intervenir en las grandes decisiones económicas. De lo contrario, la autonomía empresarial puede convertirse simplemente en autonomía frente a la sociedad. Hay otro aspecto igualmente importante. Si las reformas crean nuevos empresarios, nuevas relaciones laborales y nuevas formas de propiedad, también deberían fortalecer la capacidad de organización de los trabajadores. Un país que transforma profundamente su economía sin ampliar la participación del trabajo corre el riesgo de desequilibrar aún más la relación entre capital y sociedad. Todo esto resulta todavía más importante bajo las condiciones excepcionales que impone el bloqueo estadounidense. Precisamente porque Cuba enfrenta una presión externa extraordinaria necesita fortalecer su cohesión interna. La Sherritt, después de más de tres décadas operando en Moa, se retiró por sanciones que amenazaron cortarle el acceso al sistema bancario internacional, y terminó en una venta forzada, en condiciones de liquidación, a un fondo vinculado a un exasesor de la administración Trump. Conviene no perder de vista que, si bien Cuba necesita divisas para que la banca privada y el mercado cambiario funcionen, quien controla ese flujo de capital condiciona cualquier alivio a una transformación política que el Gobierno ha declarado fuera de la mesa. Solo en el discurso se puede desacoplar al mercado del sistema. Pero esa cohesión interna, que solía descansar en la legitimidad histórica de nuestro proyecto social, necesita construirse ahora sobre nuevas formas de participación, transparencia y confianza pública, porque el margen para el error se ha vuelto muy estrecho. Si al desmontar los subsidios universales no existe un Fondo de Protección Social ya capitalizado y operativo, la brecha entre el ajuste y la ayuda directa puede alimentar el mismo malestar social que estalló en julio de 2021. Las reformas solo tendrán estabilidad si la mayoría siente que participa de sus beneficios, pero también de sus decisiones. Otra vez, el desafío consiste en impedir que la modernización de la economía desemboque en una nueva concentración del poder, ahora bajo formas de mercado. Si el horizonte sigue siendo el socialismo —virtualmente ausente de las medidas anunciadas—, entonces la democratización política y económica no puede llegar después de la reforma. Tiene que ser parte de la reforma desde el primer día. ¿Qué modelos, fórmulas o concepciones consideras debieron ser tenidas en cuenta? Creo que la discusión ha estado mal planteada desde el principio. Se nos ha hecho creer que solo existen dos caminos, o conservar un estatismo burocrático fracasado o avanzar hacia una economía cada vez más gobernada por el mercado. Pero el problema nunca ha sido elegir entre Estado y mercado; es decidir quién ejerce el poder sobre la economía. Si algo ha demostrado la experiencia cubana es que la propiedad estatal, por sí sola, no garantiza el socialismo. Una empresa puede ser formalmente pública y funcionar de espaldas a la sociedad. Del mismo modo, admitir espacios de mercado no implica necesariamente abandonar un horizonte socialista. Lo decisivo es si la riqueza es sometida al control democrático o termina convirtiéndose en patrimonio de una minoría, sea burocrática o privada. Por ejemplo, si las empresas estatales van a ganar autonomía, también deberían ganar participación de los trabajadores y mecanismos efectivos de rendición de cuentas. Si el sector privado va a crecer, el Estado debe impedir que el éxito económico se convierta en poder político mediante impuestos progresivos, regulaciones antimonopólicas y reglas estrictas contra los conflictos de interés. Si la inversión extranjera será más importante, la sociedad tiene derecho a conocer cuáles son las prioridades nacionales que esa inversión debe servir. En otras palabras, sin contrapesos democráticos, el mercado deja de ser un instrumento para desarrollar el país y se convierte en un mecanismo para concentrar riqueza e influencia. También habría apostado mucho más por las formas de propiedad verdaderamente sociales, como cooperativas, empresas cogestionadas por sus trabajadores, iniciativas de desarrollo local y espacios donde las comunidades participen en las decisiones sobre la riqueza que producen. Pienso, en concreto, en redes de bancos cooperativos y fondos municipales de desarrollo, gestionados localmente, capaces de captar remesas y reinvertirlas en la propia comunidad en lugar de canalizarlas hacia la acumulación privada de unos pocos actores. No porque estas experiencias vayan a sustituir al Estado o al mercado, sino porque distribuyen poder. Y, al final, de eso trata el socialismo, de impedir que el poder económico quede concentrado en pocas manos. Hay además una lección que Cuba no debería perder de vista. Todas las transiciones económicas producen nuevas clases sociales. Aunque esto no pueda evitarse, sí se debería impedir que una nueva élite económica capture gradualmente al Estado. Ese riesgo es aún mayor en un país donde una parte importante de la economía ha estado históricamente administrada por estructuras estatales y empresariales muy concentradas. La transparencia, el control de las instituciones de gobierno a todos los niveles, la prensa pública y la participación ciudadana se vuelven entonces mecanismos para proteger el carácter público de la riqueza nacional. Por supuesto, ninguna de estas discusiones puede hacerse ignorando el bloqueo estadounidense. Cuba necesita crecer bajo condiciones extraordinariamente adversas y tiene derecho a buscar los instrumentos económicos que le permitan sobrevivir. Pero precisamente porque enfrenta esa presión externa, es aún más importante preservar aquello que históricamente distinguió al proyecto socialista, la idea de que el desarrollo debía estar al servicio de la mayoría y no de una nueva minoría privilegiada. En definitiva, creo que el verdadero debate no es si Cuba debe parecerse más a China, a Vietnam o a cualquier otro modelo. Cómo construir una economía capaz de generar riqueza sin renunciar a democratizar el poder sigue siendo, a mi juicio, la tarea pendiente. Porque el futuro del socialismo cubano no dependerá únicamente de cuánto crezca la economía. Dependerá de si quienes producen la riqueza participan también en las decisiones sobre su destino. Si las reformas solo modernizan los mecanismos de acumulación, pero dejan intactas o incluso profundizan las relaciones de poder existentes, habrán cambiado la economía sin transformar aquello que, desde una perspectiva socialista, realmente importa: quién gobierna la riqueza colectiva y en nombre de quién se gobierna.

 

3718. Cuba's Market Reforms: Who Will Govern the Market?

By Wilder Pérez Varona and Ariel Dacal Diaz, Links, July 30, 2026

Editor's note: First published at La Joven Cuba. Translation by LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal.

Despite consensus on Cuba’s economy needing reform, the measures announced on June 25 have raised more questions than answers. They come amid a crisis combining a drop in production, a collapsing energy sector and a migration exodus, worsened by the tightening US blockade. Under these circumstances, it is impossible not to ask who will be able to accumulate wealth, what will happen to workers in the least profitable sectors, how bureaucratic privileges will be stopped from mutating into oligarchic forms, and what role the market will play.

Can this package of reforms be viewed as a simple technical adjustment to get out of this distressing crisis?

To contribute to the debate, Ariel Dacal Díaz spoke with Cuban researcher Wilder Pérez Varona, a PhD in philosophy, writer and researcher, who has analysed the reshaping of the political imagination in Cuba, particularly within the digital ecosystem. He is a postdoctoral researcher at Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) from the National University of Quilmes.

Wilder examines how the reform will redefine power relations, the social structure starting to take shape behind the rhetoric of “perfecting socialism”, and whether this can be sustained without transforming the political system.

Cuba is facing the most comprehensive package of reforms in the past 30 years. Are these merely technical or economic measures?

The approved package of 176 measures contains highly technical provisions — exchange rates, joint-stock companies, bankruptcy procedures — but its nature is decidedly political. These measures will not merely change the economy, but who controls the country’s wealth for decades to come.

It is true they stem from an emergency. Cuba is facing an almost unprecedented productive, energy and demographic crisis, which has been worsened by the tightening US blockade. Today, Washington restricts trade, tries to block access to loans, discourages foreign investment and hinders fuel supply — it is a deliberate strategy to close off any scope for economic recovery.

But recognising the blockade’s impact does not mean assuming that the reforms are politically neutral. Any economic reform redistributes power. The problem is not merely how to produce more, but deciding who benefits from that wealth.

The most significant change is not more market, but the redefined relationship between ownership and power. A company can still call itself socialist while workers and citizens no longer have a real say in its affairs, thereby rendering social ownership a legal fiction.

GAESA [a Cuban conglomerate owned by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces] is the clearest example. Beyond recent news regarding the release of assets, under these reforms it could retain its management forms and convert companies it already runs into shareholdings. On paper, ownership will remain with the people; in practice it will be the same people making decisions as before the reform.

There is consensus that the bureaucratic statist model has run its course. Cuba needs more dynamic companies, greater managerial autonomy and new scope for economic initiative. But autonomy for whom and under what controls?

The measures seek to strengthen enterprises and new economic actors, but say little about democratising decisions regarding the wealth they generate. We are decentralising enterprises, but not necessarily power.

This also alters the socialist project’s logic. For decades, despite many contradictions, equality was the model’s starting point. As [Cuban president Miguel] Díaz-Canel stated, this sequence is apparently being reversed: first accumulate, then redistribute. Growth is no longer subordinate to social justice; social justice now depends on growth.

This represents a shift in economic philosophy. The market can be a useful tool for developing a socialist economy, but it cannot substitute for politics. If new opportunities for accumulation are not accompanied by transparency, democratic regulation and social control, we risk replacing an inefficient bureaucracy with a new economic elite closely linked to state power. The National Asset Valuation Program, without an independent judiciary or transparency regarding who is buying what, could turn managers and military officials into legal shareholders of the very companies they currently manage on the state’s behalf. This is, albeit with some nuances, largely what happened in the post-Soviet transition.

That is why the debate should not be reduced to a choice between the state and market. The fundamental question is whether these reforms will further socialise economic power or pave the way for a new structure of privileges.

What impacts can we anticipate on the socio-class structure that has taken shape in recent years?

These reforms, if implemented, will transform society as a whole. Above all, they will alter class relations.

For decades, Cuban socialism built a society that was far more egalitarian than what existed before 1959. That relative equality began to erode from the 1990s onwards, with remittances, tourism and an expanding private sector. Now, that social differentiation has ceased to be a consequence of the crisis and is instead becoming a stable component of the model.

There will be more entrepreneurs, larger companies and greater wealth concentration. Of course, every economy needs actors capable of investing, innovating and taking risks. The question is who these entrepreneurs will be: will they emerge as a result of productive labour and innovation, or from converting bureaucratic privileges into private property? The risk is that the line between managing public resources and appropriating opportunities generated by the reform may become increasingly blurred. The removal of the 100-worker cap for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (mipyes) and the possibility for individuals to own several companies lay the foundations for capital accumulation. The conversion of state-owned enterprises into joint-stock companies, with private individuals buying shares, is the specific mechanism driving this concentration. We do not know yet whether these shares will be bought by entrepreneurs willing to risk their own capital or by managers already running the company.

At the same time, the world of labour will also change. State employees, which until a few years ago were relatively homogeneous, will be replaced by a workforce with vastly different conditions depending on the sector, access to foreign currency, remittances or links to private and foreign companies. The so-called “muro de la divisa” (foreign currency wall) may become entrenched as the main faultline in Cuban society, this time by design.

Inequality will also be defined by race, region and family background, because those with start-up capital, relatives abroad or better economic networks will have clear advantages over those depending exclusively on a salary paid in pesos. This is seen most starkly at the regional level, as decentralisation to municipalities lacking an industrial base or tourist appeal will mainly redistribute deficits rather than autonomy. Social differences will be reproduced from generation to generation if the state does not intervene to address them.

An equally important change is the often-announced shift from universal policies to targeted subsidies, altering the relationship between citizens and the state. A proposed new framework classifies people as “vulnerable” in order to decide who receives support. Workers in profitable companies will somehow be integrated into the new economic circuits; those in so-called “zombie” companies will be left exposed to bankruptcy or liquidation. Equality is no longer understood as a right, and “vulnerability” – that is, poverty – will be treated as a permanent reality. The risk is that the state will stop preventing inequality and instead confine itself to managing its consequences.

The problem is not merely growing inequality, but the kind of power this will generate. As is well known, when wealth becomes concentrated, the ability to influence public decisions also tends to become concentrated.

So, it is not enough to ask whether a new capitalist class will consolidate itself. The crucial question is whether Cuba will have sufficiently democratic institutions to prevent economic power from ultimately capturing political power. The reforms redistribute much more than just income; they redistribute power. This new distribution of power, rather than the economic measures themselves, will ultimately define Cuba’s future.

Why do you say that the proposed model presupposes inequality as a permanent condition of its functioning?

It is not because the government has decided inequality is an objective, but because the new model ultimately makes it a prerequisite for boosting the economy.

This is probably the most profound change these reforms introduce, which, whatever anyone says, departs from previously approved guiding documents.

We can trace, measure by measure, how the logic of organised production according to principles of egalitarian distribution is being reversed in the technical design. The setting of wages has now been decentralised and is subject to each company’s “economic and financial capacity”. This will condemn workers in less profitable sectors to precariousness while allowing for unregulated wages in the dynamic sector. Bankruptcy procedures, with severance pay of barely three to six months’ wages, will turn job insecurity into yet another mechanism of market discipline, even within the state sector. Partial dollarisation creates a stratified system of consumption, even for previously free services; those who can afford it are charged, while there is only a precarious level of protection for the rest. These mechanisms are parts of a single design that requires inequality to function, because inequality generates the market incentive that the state can no longer generate alone.

The risk that wealth may stem from privileged access to information, political connections or control over public resources exists because the reform expands opportunities for accumulation without proposing mechanisms for transparency and social control. This opening up may consolidate an oligarchy born from the state itself. Once that risk becomes real, it is very hard to return as this new capitalist class consolidates its assets — through the National Asset Valuation Program or share purchases. Reversing this concentration would entail a political cost that no actor with veto power will be willing to bear. Inequality, to put it another way, does not dissipate with growth; but tends to become entrenched.

That is why I am worried the debate is reduced to how much GDP grows or how much investment flows into the country. An economy can grow while also losing social cohesion. It can increase productivity while reducing society’s ability to exercise democratic control over the wealth produced.

The crucial question is not how much market an economy can accommodate, but who governs that market. If concentrating wealth ends up also concentrating political power, the problem will no longer be merely inequality, but the formation of a new dominant bloc.

If, in 10 years’ time, Cuba is a more prosperous country but also more oligarchic, we will have changed the economic model without resolving the historical problem of our ailing socialism.

Will these economic reforms be viable without adjustments to the political system?

I have serious doubts. Not because every economic reform automatically requires changing the political system, but because no transformation of this magnitude can be sustained without democratising power. By democratisation, I mean who controls the fundamental economic decisions and the institutions through which society oversees them.

The reform transfers enormous power to companies, banks, investors and new private actors. That may be needed to revive the economy. What is difficult to grasp is why this decentralisation is not accompanied by a corresponding expansion of public oversight.

We are creating more autonomous enterprises, but not necessarily more democratic ones.

This has, precisely, been one of Cuban socialism’s major problems. For too long, we have confused state ownership with social ownership. But a company does not truly belong to society simply because a document says so. It belongs to society when those who produce its wealth and those who depend on it understand how it operates, participate in its decision-making, and hold its managers accountable.

Economic democratization is not a luxury reserved for better times, but a prerequisite to remain socialist. This means more than just making enterprises efficient; it needs transparency over the use of public resources, accountability, institutions capable of preventing conflicts of interest, and genuine forums where workers and citizens can have a say in major economic decisions. Otherwise, company autonomy may simply mean autonomy from society.

There is another equally important aspect. If the reform creates new entrepreneurs, new labour relations and new forms of ownership, they must strengthen workers’ organising capacity. A country that profoundly transforms its economy without expanding labour’s participation risks further unbalancing the relationship between capital and society.

All this is even more important given the exceptional conditions imposed by the US blockade. Precisely because Cuba faces extraordinary external pressure, it needs to strengthen internal cohesion. Sherritt [a major Canadian mining and energy company], after more than three decades operating in Moa, withdrew due to sanctions that threatened to block its access to the international banking system. It ended up carrying out a forced sale, under liquidation terms, to a fund linked to a former Trump administration adviser. It is worth remembering that, while Cuba needs foreign currency for the private banking sector and the foreign exchange market to function, whoever controls that flow of capital makes any relief conditional on a political transformation that the government has declared off the table. The market can only be decoupled from the system in a rhetorical sense.

But that internal cohesion, which used to rest on the historical legitimacy of our social project, needs to be built on new forms of participation, transparency and public trust. The margin for error has become very narrow. If, when universal subsidies are phased out, there is no Social Protection Fund already operating, the gap between austerity and direct aid could fuel the same social unrest that erupted in July 2021.

The reform will only bring stability if the majority feels that they not only share in their benefits, but also in making the decisions.

Once again, the challenge lies in preventing the economy’s modernisation from leading to a renewed concentration of power, this time under market-based forms. If socialism remains the long-term goal — despite being virtually absent from the measures announced — then political and economic democratisation cannot come after the reform. They must be part of the reform from day one.

What models, formulas or concepts do you think should have been considered?

The debate has been framed incorrectly from the start. We have been led to believe that there are only two paths: either preserve a failed bureaucratic statism or move to an economy increasingly governed by the market. But the problem has never been a choice between the state and market; it is a question of deciding who exercises power over the economy.

If the Cuban experience has demonstrated anything, it is that state ownership, in itself, does not guarantee socialism. A company can be formally state-owned yet operate with its back turned to society. Similarly, allowing for markets does not necessarily mean abandoning a socialist vision. What matters is whether wealth is subject to democratic control or ends up becoming the property of a minority, whether bureaucratic or private.

For example, if state-owned enterprises are granted autonomy, they should also secure worker participation and effective mechanisms for accountability. If the private sector grows, the state must prevent economic success from turning into political power through progressive taxation, anti-monopoly regulations and strict rules against conflicts of interest. If foreign investment plays a greater role, society has the right to know which national priorities that investment intends to serve.

In other words, without democratic checks and balances, the market ceases to be a tool for the country’s development and becomes a mechanism for concentrating wealth and influence.

I would also have placed far greater emphasis on genuinely social forms of ownership, such as cooperatives, worker-managed enterprises, local development initiatives and spaces where communities have a say over the wealth they generate. I am thinking, specifically, of networks of cooperative banks and locally managed municipal development funds, capable of channeling remittances and reinvesting them in the community, rather than channeling them towards private wealth accumulated by a handful of actors. Not because these initiatives replace the state or market, but because they distribute power. Ultimately, that is what socialism is all about: stopping economic power being concentrated in a few hands.

There is also a lesson that Cuba should not lose sight of. All economic transitions give rise to new social classes. While this may be unavoidable, steps should be taken to prevent a new economic elite gradually taking over the state. That risk is even greater in a country where a significant part of the economy has historically been managed by highly concentrated state and corporate structures. Transparency, oversight of government institutions at all levels, a free media and citizen participation are mechanisms for safeguarding the public nature of the nation’s wealth.

Of course, none of these discussions can take place while ignoring the US blockade. Cuba needs to grow under extraordinarily adverse conditions and has the right to seek the economic tools it needs to survive. But precisely because it faces this external pressure, it is even more important to preserve what historically distinguishes the socialist project: the idea that development should serve the majority and not a new privileged minority.

Ultimately, I believe that the real debate is not whether Cuba should resemble China, Vietnam or any other model. The task at hand is how to build an economy capable of generating wealth without abandoning the democratisation of power.

The future of Cuban socialism will not depend solely on how much the economy grows. It will depend on whether those who produce wealth also have a say in decisions about its use. If reforms merely modernise mechanisms of accumulation, but leave existing power relations intact or even reinforce them, they will have changed the economy without transforming what, from a socialist perspective, really matters: who governs the collective wealth and on whose behalf.

3717. Tech whistleblowers Warn AI Could Wipe Out Humanity

By Gabby Cansliff, The Guardian, September 11, 2026

Another day, another horseman of the apocalypse galloping over the horizon. Lately we have heard from so many AI doomers – tech whistleblowers popping up to warn that their work is probably going to kill us – that we’re becoming almost blase about it. Humanity wiped out within a decade? Well, only if another world war or the climate crisis doesn’t get us first. Since it’s never clear whether the tech threat is real, or just a twisted form of hype from an industry that drums up investment by making their products sound more powerful than they really are, most of us settle for trying not to think about it too hard.

But something about the AI researcher Jacob Coxon’s very public resignation from the cutting-edge American lab Anthropic, via a post on X arguing that he can’t keep working for companies “gambling with our lives”, has cut through where bigger names have not. Most chillingly, he claimed that colleagues still at Anthropic aren’t staying because they think he’s wrong about the dangers of pursuing self-improving super intelligence – the holy grail of machines that are not just smarter than humans but capable of building their own even more powerful successors, evolving independently of humans – but because they’re afraid of ceding the field to people with fewer scruples. His colleagues, Coxon said, talk routinely about the “endgame” or the “crunch time”, meaning that what they do in the next year or two will decide the fate of humanity. Whether that’s true or simply self-aggrandising techbro delusion, what he describes is an industry now practically begging to be saved from itself.

The frisson of alarm over AI running through Westminster this week was real, sharpened by news of Anthropic – which pitches itself as being more safety-conscious than its rivals OpenAI – declining for the first time to submit a new model for scrutiny by Britain’s AI safety watchdog. We are now entering a far more disruptive era of AI, dominated not by relatively basic chatbots but by agents designed to undertake tasks on humans’ behalf, making their own decisions about how to complete them. Unfortunately, it turns out even basic life admin requires the kind of fine judgments that come instinctively to humans but seem remarkably hard to codify for machines.

Take the over-zealous agent tasked recently by its Australian client with booking him into a pilates class, which responded to finding the class full by hacking the gym’s website and booting other people off the waiting list. Now imagine it blundering into something more life-threatening than a gym class. When Coxon says his industry hasn’t fixed problems with alignment, and when OpenAI’s chief scientist warned last week that no lab had solved them well enough to carry on scaling this fast much longer, what they’re talking about is this failure to replicate in machines the values and assumptions humans apply to decisions without even really knowing they’re doing it – including the sense of how far it’s justifiable to go in getting what you want.

A series of reported escapes by agents supposedly confined to OpenAI’s lab for testing, some of which contrived to access the internet behind their human supervisors’ backs and conduct real-world cyber-attacks, has meanwhile raised serious questions over the industry’s ability even to experiment safely. (Unnervingly, Coxon says newer models seem to know when they’re being tested, making it easier for them to deceive researchers.)

And agents don’t have to acquire anything like super intelligence to threaten human life: think how easily a cyber-attack on air traffic control, or NHS data systems, or even water purification systems could cause mass fatalities.

What’s happening in some frontier AI labs now is arguably the equivalent of the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb, but this time led by private companies in a mad dash for wealth and market dominance, not scientists under an elected government’s command. Britons meanwhile got more say in sugar taxes on junk food than we’re getting over regulating something theoretically capable of rendering us extinct.

Given time, of course, it might prove possible to replicate in machines the vast ecosystem of social ties, moral codes, intensive parenting and state policing that humans have developed to stop us behaving like sociopaths. (Only this week, Google’s DeepMind reported an experiment where 100 agents were given a maths problem and told not to cheat: though a minority promptly did cheat, a larger group either snitched on them to the humans or helped devise technical fixes.) But time is the one thing nobody dares to give themselves in the middle of an arms race, which is why it’s high time for governments to act. We need an international agreement to press pause, not on AI research as a whole, but on the riskiest projects, until we better understand whether it will ever be possible to mitigate the dangers or control the results. Since it’s hard to imagine Donald Trump voluntarily sacrificing US geopolitical or commercial advantage over China for the good of humanity, leadership may have to come for now not from above but below, where industry insiders spooked by their own work are making common cause with the rest of us.

More Americans are now concerned than excited about AI, according to polling this summer from the Pew Research Center – and unusually it’s the young who are most hostile, afraid it will not only take their jobs but make it harder to form relationships or think creatively. (That’s what growing up on social media seemingly does for trust in tech.) Even big business seems increasingly sceptical, with almost two-thirds of international executives surveyed by the consultants McKinsey this summer reporting no measurable impact on earnings from using the admittedly basic AI tools now available to them.

Warnings about an AI bubble triggering another 2008-style global financial crash haven’t helped, while plans to build giant, energy-guzzling datacentres are meeting angry local resistance on both sides of the Atlantic from people who can’t see what’s in it for them. Pressing pause on potential Armageddon looks in the circumstances less like the Luddite option, and more like a smart way for tech companies to avoid a full-on backlash that will sweep away the good with the bad.

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3716. Isiah Berlin: What Is Philosophy and Why It Matters

Manufacturing Intellect, 1976

Bryan Magee—world-renowned author and professor—and Sir Isaiah Berlin, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and biographer of Karl Marx, answer fundamental questions such as "What is philosophy?" "Why does it matter?" and "Why should anybody be interested in it today?"

3715. Learning from Beavers: A Case Study of the Colorado River Crisis

By Kamran Nayeri, September 4, 2026

Anthropogenic crisis of the Colorado River

The anthropocentric industrial capitalist civilization has created existential crises: catastrophic global warming and catastrophic climate change, the Sixth Extinction, recurrent pandemics, and the nuclear holocaust.

In this essay, I will show how beavers, as social mammals that alter the environment to suit their lives, enhance or improve ecosystems. To support this claim, I will examine the anthropogenic crisis of the Colorado River. The Colorado River, which is five million years old, has been running with less and less water over the last few decades. Originating in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, the river is an important water source for seven U.S. states and two Mexican states before it eventually pours into the Gulf of California in Mexico.

Below are the major interventions in the Colorado River and how the crisis developed.

·       1922: The Colorado River Agreement is signed, which sets the amount of water taken from the river for the neighboring states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Under a 1944 treaty between the United States and Mexico, the United States pledged that 1,837 million acre-feet of water from the Colorado River would be Mexico's share.

·       1930s: Major dam construction projects, including the Hoover Dam, were completed, which significantly altered river flow and water distribution.

·       2000s: Prolonged drought due to global warming and climate change led to a drop in water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, both created after the river dams were built. Currently, Lake Mead is at 28.5% capacity, and Lake Powell is at 26.2% capacity.

·       2012: The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation reported that the Colorado River is running short of water. 

·       2021: The U.S. government declared water shortages for the first time, prompting forced water cuts in Arizona and Nevada.

·       2023: Heavy rainfall is forecast, providing temporary relief, but experts warn that several more rainy years are needed for the water shortage crisis to fully recover.

·       2026: Water scarcity continues, as the ongoing negotiations between states to share water and protect it in the current dire situation continue. Phoenix, a city of 1.6 million people built in the heart of the Arizona desert, is on a short list of cities that may be deprived of Colorado River water.

The anthropogenic crisis of the oceans

Of course, the crises caused by anthropocentric industrial capitalist civilization threaten life on the planet everywhere.  Take, for example, the oceans' crisis. Human activities have now altered 66% of the marine environment. 35.5% of assessed marine fish stocks are overfished. Eleven million tons of plastic enter the oceans each year, almost one million tons per month.  Industrial fishing, greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, industrial agro-runoff carrying fertilizer, organic matter containing phosphorus and nitrogen, plastics, transportation, coastal development, mining, and chemical pollution all interact and cause cumulative population and ecological losses. One particularly striking historical indicator is the decline of global fisheries: the proportion of fish stocks considered biologically sustainable has fallen from 90% in 1974 to about 64.5% in 2021.

Compare this behavior of humans, who consider themselves god’s greatest creation, with the life of beavers in relation to the rest of nature.  

Who are the Beavers? 

North American beavers have a stout body, a yellow-brown to almost black coat, and a wide, smooth, scaly tail. They have curtained hind legs and forefinger paws. The beaver’s stout body allows it to retain heat.

North American beavers are the largest rodents in North America and the second largest in the world (South American capybaras are the heaviest). They weigh between 16 and 30 kilograms, and the heaviest beaver on record weighed 50 kilograms. They are 1 to 1.2 meters long and 0.3 to 0.5 meters high. The shape of the beaver's tail varies, but it is generally about 5 centimeters thick at the base and narrows to about 0.6 centimeters at the tip.

Beavers have long, orange front teeth. These teeth grow continuously throughout their life and wear down with daily use. These teeth sharpen on their own and can cut off a part of a tree the size of a person's finger with a bite. If the front teeth are too long, they can prevent the beaver's mouth from closing, which can lead to starvation and death. Beavers' front teeth look dark orange due to the large amount of iron in the enamel, which is the hard outer layer of teeth. Iron strengthens tooth enamel and helps prevent teeth from breaking or cracking when a beaver chews.

Beavers move regularly between aquatic and terrestrial environments. Their small, agile front legs are well adapted for working on land. They walk on five toes, grasp wood with their front paws,  and their claws are suitable for digging. The hind legs are larger, with fur that is suitable for swimming, and are fur-free except for the dorsal surface.

The hind legs also have a finger to clean, the second toe on the inside, with a unique double nail. Beavers are very meticulous groomers. They use the sorting finger as a comb to prevent their soft, thin fur from knotting and to maintain its waterproof, insulating properties. These flexible toes also kill thorns and parasites.

On land, the beaver moves very slowly, making it vulnerable to predators. But in the water, the beaver swims up to 10 kilometers per hour. Its large lungs allow it to stay underwater for up to 15 minutes while swimming more than half a kilometer.

Their whiskers help to distinguish objects around the beaver's face and head, which are especially useful in narrow passages and dark waters. The blue dog's eyes have a thin, transparent membrane called the nictitating membrane, which covers the eyeball underwater.  Beavers' vision is only good at close range. His outer ears are small, round, and have valves that close when immersed, and the beaver has a developed sense of hearing.

The shape of the tail is an individual and family feature, ranging from short and wide to long and slender. It is almost hairless and is covered with black scales. There is a clear border between fur and scales.  The tail acts as a rudder in swimming, supports balance when working on the ground, and warns of danger by frequently crossing the water's surface when it hits the water. Beavers also store fat in their tail and eat more fat in the fall so that they can survive on the fat stored in their tail if food is not available in the winter. The vertebrae on the back of the beaver extend to the tail and almost to the end.

Beavers are found throughout North America except for the deserts of California and Nevada, and parts of Utah and Arizona. They live in nearby ponds, lakes, rivers, swamps, streams, and wetlands.

Beavers are one of the few animals that change their habitat as needed; they build wooden dams woven with reeds, branches, and saplings, then cover them with mud.  These dams reduce river erosion by creating ponds where water flows slowly. These ponds support a wide range of small aquatic organisms and provide water and food for much larger animals. By building these dams, beavers create new habitats that support a diverse ecosystem.

Beavers also build dome-shaped huts known as lodges, which are 2 meters or more high and can reach 12 meters in width. A cabin can have one or more underwater entrances, and Beavers live in a lodge above the waterline. These lodges are often built off the coast, forming islands.  The lodge chamber may be 1.2 meters wide and 0.6 meters high, with walls about one-third of a meter thick that  are insulated and ventilated by a small hole in the ceiling called a "chimney." They usually cover the floor with wood chips to absorb excess moisture and provide a suitable substrate. Beavers spend the summer and autumn building dams and collecting and storing food for the winter.

North American beavers typically live 10 to 12 years. The oldest recorded beaver has lived to be 30 years.

Beavers communicate with each other by wagging their tails on the surface of the water.

Beavers scent-mark the boundaries of their enclosures by spreading castoreum secreted from their anus. This pungent, concentrated liquid is produced for olfactory marking and leaves a lasting odor. This fat sac is also secreted to keep the beaver's fur dry. The oil varies slightly between the sexes and is used in reproductive communication.

Inside the lodge, beavers use a variety of sounds (although their voice boxes are rudimentary) and body postures to communicate with family members. At the Smithsonian National Zoo,  beavers can be heard barking when they are upset

Beavers are herbivores that eat leaves, woody stems, and aquatic plants. Their main building materials are also their favorite foods: spruce, willow, birch, and maple.

In cold climates, beavers spend the winter in the cabin of their hut, feeding on the branches they store on the muddy bottom of the pond. The water acts like a refrigerator, keeping the stems cool and maintaining their nutritional value. Beavers hold their food with their front paws and eat like corn on the cob.

Beavers are mainly nocturnal. However, in areas where ponds freeze during the winter season, beavers may stay in their habitats or under the ice and feed on their fat reserves.

In the residence and underwater, light radiation remains constant and low for 24 hours, so sunrise and sunset are not visible. In the absence of "solar signs," the beaver's activity is not in sync with the solar day. The circadian rhythm, or regular cycle of the day, is disrupted, and the beaver's "days" become longer, ranging in length from 26 to 29 hours. At the zoo, the beaver wakes up around 4 p.m.

Social structure

Beavers form strong family bonds. They are social animals, and each group includes a couple, this year's young, and offspring from the previous year. There may be one or more new adults who are 2 years old or older from previous breeding seasons. These new adults usually do not reproduce.

In the winter, these family groups live together in their hut and share a food pantry. Their family life is very stable and is based on a hierarchy with one-year-old and newborn children following their parents. Physical violence is rare, and sounds, gestures, and postures are used inside the lodge to express their place in the group hierarchy.

It is generally believed that beavers mate for a lifetime.  They breed in the winter, from January to late February, and females give birth in the spring.

The babies are born weighing about half a kilogram; their eyes open, and their bodies are completely covered in fur. They go into the water inside their residence within half an hour after birth. Within a week, they become skilled swimmers.

Babies usually suckle and suckle with their mother for the first few weeks, and their weight increases significantly. Females have four nipples and sometimes sit upright to breastfeed the offspring. Evidence suggests the nipples are divided equally among the babies, which may explain the high survival rate. All babies are breastfed for about six weeks, and then the whole family brings them solid food.

On land, mothers often carry the cubs on their broad tails, sometimes even walking upright and holding them in their paws. In the water, the cubs may rest on the mother's back. The cubs help maintain the lodge and raise the next generation. 

The role of beavers in the ecosystem

Beavers are one of the most powerful freshwater ecosystem-shaping agents in North America and Europe. By building dams, digging canals, and cutting down trees, they turn streams into meandering wetlands that store water, filter pollutants, protect wildlife, and even prevent wildfire from spreading.

Before European colonization, an estimated 60 to 400 million beavers lived in North American waterways (Young, November 2025). Intensive fur trapping by European American mountain men and settlers in the 19th century drastically reduced the beaver population in the Colorado River basin, driven by the high demand for fur in the global fur trade (Young, December 2025). Hunters in the 1820s and 1830s targeted tributary streams such as the Little Colorado River and exploited abundant beaver colonies to produce waterproof fur that fueled hat production in Europe and the eastern United States. This commercial exploitation, which culminated in the mid-19th century, pushed many of the Southwest's watersheds to the brink of extinction, as populations could not recover from incessant harvesting. Habitat changes intensified trapping pressure, as expanding agriculture, mining, and settlement in the arid Southwest disrupted marginal ecosystems essential to beaver survival. Land-use changes, including river canalization, clearing vegetation for agriculture and resource extraction, habitat fragmentation, and the decline of food sources such as willow and aspen, exacerbated the effects of over-trapping. This combined influx caused widespread wetland loss and destroyed river areas, turning vibrant water systems into dug canals and dry floodplains that lasted into the 20th century. Without beavers engineering ponds and slowing water flow, soil erosion intensified, biodiversity declined sharply, and the basin's water-holding capacity shrank, leaving a legacy of ecological simplification.

 Today, only 9 to 12 million beavers remain, representing an 80 to 98 percent decline from their historical populations. This decline has had a chain effect on ecosystems across the continent.

How beavers shape waterways

Beavers are often called "ecosystem engineers" because they physically regenerate the environments in which they live. A family of beavers can dam a stream, flood a canyon, and create a whole new wetland that didn't exist before. These dams slow water flow, spread it across the plain, and raise surrounding groundwater levels. At the source of the streams to which the beavers have been transported, about 243 cubic meters of water were stored in the first year due to the construction of dams 100 meters from the river.  This is enough to visibly change the hydrology of a small valley.

But what is happening underground is less visible. Beavers' dams direct water deep into the soil and regenerate groundwater. In a scientific study, the displaced beavers raised groundwater levels by up to one-third of a cubic meter and stored almost 2.4 times the groundwater of each dam. This is especially important in arid regions that rely on groundwater from wells because it maintains vegetation in the summer and prevents rivers from drying out. Dams also lower river temperatures, which helps cold-water fish species and slows evaporation in the warmer months.

Water treatment

Beavers’ ponds act like slow treatment systems for polluted water. When a stream accumulates behind a dam, sediments settle, and calm, low-oxygen conditions at the bottom of the pond create natural chemical processes that break down excess organic matter. This is especially valuable in agricultural areas where runoff carries nitrate and phosphate from fertilizers.

Research on beaver ponds in agricultural watersheds shows they can remove 5% to 45% of the nitrate load, depending on the season and pond conditions. In a study comparing upstream and downstream water quality in the beaver enclosure, nitrate concentrations decreased by 43% and phosphate concentrations by 51%. In the summer, when biological activity peaked, these reductions were even greater: 47% for nitrate and 61% for phosphate. Even in winter, ponds removed 37% nitrate and 38% phosphate. Compared with a nearby agricultural stream without a water dog, reductions were dramatic: 64% less nitrate and 86% less phosphate.

This treatment capacity is essentially free while municipalities spend millions of dollars to treat built wetlands.

Enhancing ecosystem diversity

Beavers create wetlands for far more species than streams and forests that are replaced. Open beaver ponds combine muddy edges, standing dead trees, and dense growth, forming a series of microhabitats that attract everything from insects to large mammals  (Larsen et al., 2021; Wu et al., 2019).

Recent comparisons between beaver-built wetlands and man-made ponds found that beaver ponds attracted more than twice as many floating flies and 45% more butterflies than nearby artificial ponds. On a typical night, beaver ponds hosted an average of 5 species of bats versus 4 species in other parts of the same river, showing a 22% increase in diversity. These differences likely stem from the structural complexity of beaver wetlands. The combination of standing dead wood, live shrubs, aquatic plants, and varied water depths creates feeding and nesting opportunities that a simple pond cannot match.

Beaver ponds also provide vital habitat for amphibians, waterfowl, and songbirds. Flooded trees create nesting holes for woodpeckers and owls. The warm, calm shallow waters are ideal for frogs and salamanders to mate. The lush vegetation on the edges of the ponds also attracts deer, reindeer, and other herbivores to drink and feed.

A complicated relationship with salmon

The relationship between beavers and fish is one of the more complex parts of their ecological story. In many environments, beaver ponds increase fish populations. The slow, deep water provides shelter from predators, and the organic matter that accumulates in the ponds feeds the insect larvae that the young fish eat. Studies have documented higher fish densities, faster growth rates, and better survival of juvenile salmon in beaver-pond habitats than in open streams.

But this relationship is not always positive. In large river floodplains with extensive tributary channels, beavers' dams can fragment habitat by blocking fish passage between the ponds and the main river. Research on two rivers in Alaska showed this clearly. In one river where beavers built many dams in tributary channels, juvenile salmon density in beaver-created ponds was 3 to 12 times lower than in habitats connected to the spring stream and the main channel. The researchers estimated that without dams, the floodplain of that river could raise nearly three times as much salmon and produce almost twice as much fish biomass.

Context matters. In small, degraded streams with limited habitat complexity, beaver activity usually helps fish by deepening ponds, cooling the water, and adding structure. In floodplains that are already well connected, a large number of dams can fragment the system and reduce total fish production. This is why fisheries managers sometimes evaluate waterfowl and salmon interactions on a river-to-river basis and do not enforce general rules.

Fire resistance

In the western United States, which is prone to wildfires, beavers have been known to be unexpected agents of preventing wildfires. By raising groundwater levels, moistening soil in floodplains, and preserving green vegetation in dry summers, beaver dams create bands of moisture in arid landscapes (Murray, 2025;

Studies of wildfires in the western United States showed that in the Rocky Mountains region, Beaver Ponds reduced the intensity of burning in areas around floodplains of large fires. The mechanism is simple: moist soil and lush vegetation, such as dry grass and dead shrubs, don't burn. Beaver wetlands essentially create fire barriers along river paths.

This effect has practical implications for the community. Networks of moist, fire-resistant habitats created by beavers can slow the spread of flames and give firefighters more time to arrive. Some fire prevention managers in the western U.S. are now considering relocating the beavers or constructing similar dams  (man-made structures that resemble water dog dams) as a low-cost strategy to increase fire resistance in landscapes.

Why beaver population decline matters

The loss of 80 to 98 percent of North America's beaver population means the disappearance of millions of dams, ponds, and small wetlands that had shaped the continent's hydrology for thousands of years. Streams that once ran through vast, humid floodplains. Wetlands dried up. Groundwater levels dropped.  The ecological transformations that beavers offered for free, from water storage to nutrient treatment and habitat creation, disappeared along with them.

Restoring the beaver population won't solve all of the watershed's problems, but evidence suggests that even a small number of beavers can tangibly improve water storage, water quality, biodiversity, and fire resistance within a year of human-assisted reintroduction

Human-assisted restoration efforts in the Colorado River basin include relocation programs that relocate beavers from areas that generate conflict or have been relocated to areas that are less occupied and suitable for regeneration (Sadiq, 2025). These initiatives aim to leverage beavers' natural dam-building to improve riparian habitats, conserve water in drought-prone areas, and support ecosystem recovery throughout the arid watershed. A notable example is the 2019 transfer project led by Utah State University researchers, which relocated beavers to tributaries such as the Price River to restore degraded waterways by promoting wetland formation and sediment absorption. In Colorado, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Administration has pursued strategies to strengthen populations in strategic areas, moving from lethal control to relocation where possible to maximize habitat benefits. These programs often involve collaboration between state wildlife agencies such as Colorado Parks and Wildlife and conservation organizations such as the Colorado Beaver Working Group, which coordinates efforts to expand the Blue Dog's presence in the basin's historically appropriate but currently uninhabited areas. By targeting places where blue dog engineering can improve water infiltration and biodiversity, these restorations complement broader restoration goals amid ongoing water scarcity.

Conclusion

The key difference between human activity in human-centered industrial capitalist civilization and beaver activity is that while human activities tend to destroy ecosystems, the beaver community builds its environment in ways that enhance ecosystems and biodiversity. Both behaviors are the result of species evolution. For 2.5 million years, the genus Homo, our ancestors, interacted with the rest of nature largely like hunter-gatherers. Even our species, Homo sapiens, which appeared about 300,000 years ago, behaved similarly because we were also hunter-gatherers who saw ourselves as inseparable from nature and lived by a culture of ecocentrism. However, with the advent of agriculture in the Holocene, groups of early farmers emerged and began to domesticate plants and animals to create an artificial ecosystem called the farm. This required a radical cultural shift from ecocentrism to anthropocentrism. The farm required farmers to dominate and control plants and animals for their benefit, and it also saw wild nature as a threat that had to be cleaned up when needed. Mother Nature became a source of wealth that could be exploited whenever it wanted. The Beavers Society teaches us that it is possible and better to return to ecocentrism and love of nature and culture versus having a culture.

References:

Clements, Charlie D.  and Dan N. Harmon. “Beavers and Riparian Habitats.” The Progressive Rancher. March 8, 2023.

Ebbs, Stephenie. “How Beavers Could Help the Colorado River Survive Future Droughts.” ABC News. April 20, 2023.

Larsen,  Annegret, Joshua R. Larsen, Stuart N. Lane. “Dam Builders and Their Works: Beaver Influences on the Structure and Function of River Corridor Hydrology, Geomorphology, Biogeochemistry and Ecosystems.” Earth-Science Reviews.  July 2021.

Murray, James. “How Did the Loss of Beavers Affect the Environment?” The Institute for Environmental Research and Education.  August 27, 2025.

Pobis, Madison. “How Reintroducing Beavers Can Build Watershed Resilience.” Woods Institute of Environment, Stanford University. 

Sadiq, Muhammad. “The Story of a Town Saved by Beavers.” Animals Around the Globe. April 16, 2025.  

Singhai, Swasti. “As the Second-Largest Reservoir in the Nation Drops, So Does Tourism.” USA Today. August 31, 2026.

Wan, Luwen. “How Reintroducing Beavers Can Enhance Ecological Health.” Stanford Report. August 11, 2025.

Wu, Haipeng, Jin Chen, Jijun Xu, Guangming Zeng, Lianhai Sang, Qiang Liu, Zhengjie Yin,  Juan Dai, Dacong Yin, Jie Liang, and Shujing Ye. “Effects of Dam Construction on Biodiversity: A Review.” ScienceDirect. June 2019.

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