3706. Human Nature and Socialism

By Kamran Nayeri, July 30, 2026

The question of human nature has long been posed. It has been a common feature of moral and political discourse among ordinary people, as well as among various religions, philosophers, political scientists, and sociologists (Roughley, 2023). From views that saw human nature in its social and natural life to views that saw man as a creature with moral responsibility, a wide range of views on human nature have been put forward in modern times by thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, David Hume, classical German philosophers, and others.

In the nineteenth century, socialism was envisioned as a political and economic system in which the means of production, distribution, and exchange are collectively owned and controlled rather than by private individuals. Clearly, such theories of socialism assume that it is compatible with human nature.  Yet they generally do not outline any, except to some degree in Marx’s theory.

Karl Marx’s theory of socialism is a much more sophisticated theory of the transition from an alienated capitalist society to a society of freely associated producers, in which all vestiges of alienation and exploitation would wither away.  In Theses on Feuerbach (1845), Marx defined human nature through a philosophical anthropology lens by stating that “the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in every single individual. In reality, it is the ensemble of social relations.” (Thesis 6) Thus, he argues against “contemplative materialism[1]” of Feuerbach in favor of a materialist (as against Hegel’s idealist) historical understanding of human nature. Therefore, Marx argues: “The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society[2]; the standpoint of the new is human society or social humanity.”

In this context, Marx affirmed his view that “the standpoint of the new [materialism] is human society or social humanity.” (Thesis 10) That is, human beings are inherently social beings whose nature, consciousness, needs, capacities, and freedom develop only through historically formed social relations.

This idea stood in opposition to the liberal view that isolated individuals are the basic units of human society. Instead, he argued that human essence is fundamentally social and historical.  

Historical materialism

In the same year, this idea of human nature became the cornerstone of their materialist conception of history in The German Ideology (Marx and Engels 1845).

Thus, they wrote:

“The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus, the first fact to be established is the physical organization of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature. Of course, we cannot here go either into the actual physical nature of man, or into the natural conditions in which man finds himself -- geological, hydrographical, climatic, and so on. The writing of history must always set out from these natural bases and their modification in the course of history through the action of men.” (my emphasis)

Let us underline what Marx and Engels argued in these sentences. Of course, how human individuals emerged, and their relationship with the rest of nature, are the first premises of all human history. However, in 1845, nobody, including Marx and Engels, had any idea of the natural history that led to the emergence of humanity.

The term "biology" was coined by scientists like Lamarck and Travisanos in the 18th century. In the 19th century, advances in microscopy and cell theory by scientists like Schleiden and Schwann established biology as a distinct discipline.  Darwin’s theory of evolution, outlined in On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, was published in 1859, linking all species throughout natural history. 

In the 20th century, Watson and Crick discovered DNA, further solidifying biology's status as a key scientific field. Anthropology emerged as a distinct discipline in the 19th century, influenced by Darwin’s theory. Franz Boas, often called the "father of American anthropology," formalized the field in the early 20th century.  The introduction of scientific methods and fieldwork techniques solidified anthropology's status as a science.  The field of archaeology was revolutionized by carbon dating, which was developed in the late 1940s by Willard Libby; the determination of the age of organic matter from the relative proportions of the carbon isotopes carbon-12 and carbon-14 it contains. The ratio between them changes as radioactive carbon-14 decays, which is not replaced by atmospheric exchange. Carbon. It was first widely used in the early 1950s, marking a milestone. The technique allowed for dating organic materials up to about 50,000 years old. It provided a scientific method to establish timelines for archaeological finds. Carbon dating helped confirm and refine historical chronology.

Fossil study and stratigraphy, a branch of geology concerned with rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification), contributed to further improvements in the dating of archeological sites.

Techniques like potassium-argon dating and uranium-series dating can date older materials.  DNA analysis provides insights into human evolution and migration patterns over time.

These contributed to a paradigm shift in dating methods used by archaeologists and anthropologists.

On this basis, we know that life emerged on Earth 3.5 to 4 billion years ago; the homo genus emerged 2.5 million years ago; and Homo sapiens emerged about 300,000 years ago. 

In contrast, in the mid-nineteenth century, Marx and Engels had access only to three thousand years of written history. Thus, they were quite correct to admit “we cannot here go either into the actual physical nature of man, or into the natural conditions in which man finds himself -- geological, hydrographical, climatic, and so on.” They lacked knowledge about humanity’s natural history, especially the 2.5 million years of our “prehistory” as hunter-gatherers. Therefore, they could not have developed a materialist conception of history because, in their own words, “The writing of history must always set out from these natural bases and their modification in the course of history through the action of men.”

Their theory of society and history, historical materialism, is, of necessity, limited to three thousand years of written social history of class societies (civilization).

Part 1. Marxism and human nature

Aware of this shortcoming, Engels sought to address it to some extent by writing The Origins of Family, Private Property, and the State (1884).  In this, he followed Marx’s notes on Lewis Henry Morgan’s Ancient Society or Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization (1877).  Morgan was an American anthropologist and social theorist who developed his theory of stages of human progress. Building on the data about kinship and social organization presented in his Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871), Morgan developed a three-stage theory of human progress, from savagery through barbarism to civilization. 

In his book, Engels attempts to show how Morgan’s theory of human progress was in line with historical materialism and that the development of social institutions ultimately reflects economic conditions. Morgan’s research on how the family evolved over time provided substantial evidence of this. Morgan’s insight was to discover that in prehistoric times, a “matriarchal gens,” a family structure that passed on the family's rights and privileges through the mother, existed, tracing it back to an original female ancestor. The mere existence of such a structure refutes the contemporary notion that marriage has always been a strictly monogamous arrangement with the father squarely in charge. This lends more support to the fight from a patriarchal society. The book then proceeds in chronological order, beginning with a broad overview of humanity’s progression through three phases of development that Engels, following Morgan’s example, terms “savagery,” “barbarism,” and “civilization.” Engels details a series of premodern family structures in which consanguinity, the sharing of a bloodline, was the central arrangement rather than monogamous marriage. Such systems also tended toward matriarchy, as maternity was far easier to prove than paternity. Thus, mothers were the most reliable conveyers of the bloodline from one generation to the next.

It was the ancient Greeks who were primarily responsible for the establishment of patriarchy, following an intense period of economic development that induced a handful of powerful families to concentrate wealth in their own hands, ultimately treating their own wives and children as property as well.[3] To preserve their wealth, the patriarchal societies created the state, formally a neutral entity that was, in fact, charged with preserving the status quo by which the few continued to enrich themselves at the expense of the many.

After a painstaking overview of the transition from matriarchy under the Iroquois in North America and the “barbarian” peoples of Europe to the patriarchy of Greece and Rome, which he borrowed from Morgan, Engels sees the last flash of hope in the German and Frankish tribes, which destroyed the Roman Empire and passed on a flicker of individual liberty, which ultimately allowed for the abolition of serfdom. As matters currently stand, capitalism has turned most people into producers of commodities, over which they exercise no meaningful control. “Civilization” itself, in Engels’s view, is a nice word for a condition of acute class warfare. Humanity must therefore reach into it’s past to reclaim freedom in its future.

In 1890, Engels further developed his ideas about human nature in the essay “The Role of Labor in the Transition from Ape to Man.”  He argued that evolution from ape to man resulted from the ape’s interaction with its environment, which not only changed the environment but also transformed the ape into man. As Levin and Lewontin (1980, p. 453), an ecologist and evolutionary geneticist respectively, put it: “He saw ‘environment’ not as a passive selective force external to the organism but rather as the product of human activity, the special feature of the human niche being productive labor and cooperation, which channeled the evolution of hand and brain.”

Levins and Lewontin’s approach to human nature

In The Dialectical Biologist (1985), Levins and Lewontin argue that human nature is not a fixed, genetically programmed blueprint, but a flexible, constantly evolving process created by the interaction between biology and society. They reject biological determinism, the idea that genes dictate human behavior, and cultural determinism, the idea that biology does not matter. Instead, they propose dialectical determinism to offer a holistic alternative.

Levins and Lewontin argued against E. O. Wilson's (1978) On Human Nature, which attempts to explain human nature and society through sociobiology. Wilson argues that evolution has left its traces on characteristics such as generosity, self-sacrifice, worship, and the use of sex for pleasure, and proposes a sociobiological explanation of homosexuality. He attempts to complete the Darwinian revolution by fusing biological thought into the social sciences and humanities. On Human Nature was a sequel to his earlier books The Insect Societies (1971) and Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975).[4]

Levins and Lewontin (1985, p. 254) wrote: “For Marxists the evolution of humans from prehumans and the inclusion of human history in natural history presupposed both continuity and discontinuities, qualitative change, but for most materialists’ evolution meant simply continuity.”

They stress the foundational quality of the conception of human nature.  

“No political theorist, not even the completely historicist Marx, has been able to dispense with the problem of human nature; on the contrary, all have found it fundamental to the construction of their worldview. After all, if we want to give a normative description of society, how can we say how society ought to be organized unless we claim to know what human beings are really like (ibid.).”

They then critique “reductionist” views of human nature, focusing on E. O. Wilson’s sociobiology.

“Since the individual is ontologically prior to the social organization, it is genetically determined human nature that gives shape to society. Wilson (1978) gives an explicit exposition of this theory. The biologically deterministic theory of human nature is logically consistent (ibid.).”  

They also criticize the liberal, anarchist, and “classical Marxist” responses to conservative theorists. 

“The most superficial disagreement with the conservative theory has come both from liberals and from the anarchist left. This position holds that there is indeed a biologically determined human nature and that a prescription for society can be written using knowledge of that innate nature, but that conservatives have simply got the details wrong. Whereas apologists for unrestrained competitive capitalism claim aggressiveness, entrepreneurial activity, male domination, territoriality, and xenophobia as the content of human nature, left anarchists give a contrary description, arguing as Kropotkin did in Mutual Aid that people are really cooperative and altruistic underneath but have been coerced into competition by an artificial world. These critics agree with the conservatives that a basic set of attributes is natural to human being as an entity as an entity in isolation but that these attributes may be suppressed by societies, that are either unnaturally competitive, as one’s taste runs.

“A more subtle version of the human nature argument flows from classical Marxism.  According to what little can be found in Marx on the subject, this theory holds that labor is the property that marks off the human species from all others, although it is not sufficient to specify the form of social relations. Human labor is marked by these features: it transforms the world of nature into a world of artifacts that serve human beings (ibid. pp. 254-55).”

Levins and Lewontin underscore that this transformation of nature is teleological: the end product is envisioned by humans and actualized through cooperative effort, using tools and implements, to arrive at the anticipated end product. They also note that some nonhumans behave similarly, citing Jane Goodall’s observations of chimpanzees. They also object to the universality of the classical Marxist claim that all humans always behave this way. They cite the Kalahari Bushmen, who alter nature minimally and, rather than production, plan consumption. The point is well taken only if we explicitly recognize the difference between hunter-gatherer cultures and the culture of civilized (class) societies. As I have discussed, it was with the rise of agriculture that hunter-gatherer animist views of the world were set aside, and anthropocentrism (a human-centered worldview) was adopted. I will return to this key issue later.

The second problem with the classical Marxist view[5] is that even if true, it is not very informative. “It cannot be used to project any actual features of human social organization, nor to say how that organization may or may not change (ibid, p. 265).”

“A radical alternative has been to deny the existence of human nature altogether, at least in any non-trivial sense. Human beings are simply what they make of themselves (ibid.).”

The existentialist Simon de Beauvoir in The Second Sex (1953) makes this argument using Marx. She wrote[6]:

“When we abolish the slavery of half humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the division

“of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form. ‘The direct, natural and necessary relation of human creatures is its relation of man to woman,” Marx has said. ‘The nature of this relation determines to what point man himself is to be considered as a generic being, as mankind; the relation of man to woman is the most natural relation human being to human being. By it is shown, therefore, to what point natural behavior of man becomes human, or at that point, the human being has become his nature.”[7]

Levins and Lewontin hold that the question of human nature is the wrong question because it partly “carries a vestige of Platonic idealism” (ibid. p. 257) and partly the analyst’s own point of view.

“The evident fact about human life is the incredible diversity in individual life histories and in social organization across space and time. The attempt to understand this diversity by looking for some underlying ideal uniformity called ‘human nature,’ of which the manifest variation is only a shadow, is reminiscent of the pre—Darwinian” idealism of biological thought (ibid.)

They also criticize the tabula rasa hypothesis, which holds that humans are born with a blank slate, unaffected by their biology. Proponents of the view include Aristotle, Ibn Sina (11th century), Ibn Tufail (12^th century), Agustina (13^th century), Descartes (17^th century), John Locke (17^th century), and Freud (19^th century).

Science has shown that we are not blank slates at birth and that biology matters in differentiated human life histories.

Moreover, there are universal needs in every species, including humans, such as the need for food. Warm-blooded animals like mammals and birds require much more food than cold-blooded animals like reptiles, as they must maintain a constant body temperature. Humans need specific nutrients, such as vitamin C, because our bodies can no longer produce them internally.  We respond to stress the same way other mammals do, such as increased adrenaline levels, higher blood pressure, and a faster heartbeat. As in other mammals, the regulation of breathing, blood circulation, digestion, and other functions is governed by hormone secretion and the autonomic nervous system's unconscious activities.

However, humans have complemented their bodies' innate needs with socially produced needs. We use clothing, shelter, and fuel to warm or cool our bodies.  Our body temperature now is also a function of our economic standing, as some of us cannot afford food, shelter, or fuel. Our ability to avoid and live in stressful situations is related to our social standing. And, so on.

Taking an example from Levins and Lewontin, a fundamental ecological problem confronting all organisms is how to cope with the uncertainty of their food supply. Cold-blooded animals live slowly, so their nutritional state depends on what they have eaten over the past few weeks or months. Mammals and birds live quickly. They eat, process, and use up food in a day or even in hours. So, they are more vulnerable to environmental variability. One way to deal with this is to store food as body fat.

People have invented ways to store food by curing, salting, smoking, cooking, or refrigerating it. People also redistribute food through their social networks by creating social ties and obligations, so today’s food can be tomorrow’s if supply problems arise. As food is widely monetized, it can be separated from its original purpose of providing nutritional value and, under certain conditions, become a source of insatiable appetite. Food as a commodity traded internationally creates new sources of uncertainty. Fluctuations in food prices become detached from local conditions. Thus, the price of bread would become more of a function of what happens to wheat production in Russia, Australia, Canada, the United States, and France. Further, food production becomes increasingly detached from its nutritional goals and more aligned with the profitability of the food-producing industry.  What people should eat has been biologically determined. What people can eat is an entirely different question.  Eating has become a social occasion that cements family or friendship bonds, but it has also become an opportunity for commercial exchange or for creating mutual social obligations. Hundred-dollar plate dinner invitations are not about feeding anyone nutrition, but about sustaining the body politic.

Critique of the Marxian view of human nature

If we take the above presentation of the Marxist view of human nature (assuming there is such a thing), let me summarize its key elements:

First, Marx did not have a well-defined theory of human nature. In his Theses on Feuerbach, he limited it to “the ensemble of the social relations.” While it is true that Marx considered human interaction with the rest of nature in his theory of society and history, historical materialism, he abstracted from nature:

“The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus, the first fact to be established is the physical organization of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature. Of course, we cannot here go either into the actual physical nature of man, or into the natural conditions in which man finds himself -- geological, hydrographical, climatic, and so on. The writing of history must always set out from these natural bases and their modification in the course of history through the action of men.”  

Levins and Lewontin (1985, p. 255) admit “little can be found in Marx on the subject,” that is, about human nature.  At the same time, they also admit the importance of a theory of human nature for socialism: “how can we say how society ought to be organized unless we claim to know what human beings are really like” (ibid., p. 254).

Thus, Marx’s theory of socialism has an inadequate theory of human nature, which is the basis for any theory of society. I have argued that Marx’s theories are anthropocentric, while the existential crises of the 21^st century are ecological-social (ecosocial) (Nayeri, 2021, 2023, Chapter 19).

 Second, Engels’ attempt to develop Marx’s thinking on human nature represents a significant step in the sense that he followed Marx’s notes on Morgan and developed them to locate the transition of the hunter-gatherers' social organization to civilization (class society) with the emergence of private property, family, and the state as markers of the transition.

Of course, in the late nineteenth century, little was known about our prehistory, including hunter-gatherers and the emergence and evolution of life on the planet.

Levins and Lewontin (ibid., p. 255) point to some of the limits to Engels’ hypothesis.

Third, Marxists, including Engels, and Levins and Lewontin, entirely miss the world-historic changes in human culture from ecocentrism to anthropocentrism. As others and I have argued, the transition from hunter-gathering to agriculture required alienation from nature and the need to dominate and control it systematically for their socioeconomic reproduction.

Fourth, as Levins and Lewontin note, the “orthodox Marxist view…even if true” is “not very informative. It cannot be used to project any actual feature of human social organization, nor to say how that organization may or may not change (ibid. p. 256).”

Finally, while I agree with Levins and Lewontin’s criticism of E. O. Wilson’s theory of human nature and sociobiology (more nuanced in his later writings, with his emphasis on epigenic influences) that he goes too far out on a limb trying to synthesize the humanities and social sciences into a theory of sociobiology, Marx and Marxists can be similarly accused of venturing too far out in their critique of political economy to develop a theory of society and history. As some of the key problems of our time are clearly specific to the present capitalist mode of production, others, such as religion and war, date back to prehistory but are now articulated within a capitalist world economy (Nayeri, 2015).  Furthermore, I know of no Marxist who has shown as much attention and care for the natural world as Wilson has. He was not only a world-class entomologist and a prominent biologist, but also a prolific author of many biological and biologically related books, and a conservationist. His Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life (2016), the last in a trilogy beginning with The Social Conquest of Earth (2012) and The Meaning of Human Existence (2014), is demanding that half the Earth’s land and ocean surface be set free of human intervention to allow wildlife to prosper. A very small-scale experiment of his ambitious idea was documented in the movie Wilding (2024), as the couple who owned it allowed all plants and animals to go wild (for a review of the movie, see here).

Part 2. Gregory Bateson’s Ecology of Mind

Gregory Bateson (1904 –1980) was an English American anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician, and cyberneticist whose work intersected with many other fields. “His contributions range from evolutionary theory to epistemology to clinical psychology and psychiatry to anthropology to learning and communication. His approach was decidedly multidisciplinary (Montuori, 2002).” 

Bateson got on the path to what he later called “ecology of mind” through his teaching:

“I have taught various branches of behavioral biology and cultural anthropology to American students ranging from college freshmen to psychiatric residents, in various schools and teaching hospitals, and I have encountered a very strange gap in their thinking that springs from a lack of certain tools of thought. This lack is rather equally distributed at all levels of education, among students of both sexes, and among humanities as well as scientists. Specifically, it is a lack of knowledge of the presuppositions not only of science but of everyday life (Bateson, 2002, p. 23).”

This interest led Bateson to develop a methodology for piecing together information gleaned from various fields into new patterns of knowledge. 

“At present, there is no existing science whose interest is the combining of pieces of information. But I shall argue that the evolutionary process must depend upon such double increments of information. Every evolutionary step is an addition of information to an already existing system. Because it is so, the combinations, harmonies, and discords between successive pieces and layers of information will present many problems of survival and determine many directions of change (Bateson, 2002, p. 19).”

Here, I will focus on Bateson’s concept of the ecology of mind, which evolved over time in his writing, as expressed especially in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972) and Mind and Nature (1979). Cybernetics and systems theory played a central role in his theory of ecology of mind.  Cybernetics is the study of systems, control, and communication in animals and machines. It explores feedback loops, which are essential for a system’s regulation and adaptation; examines the role of information flow in maintaining system stability and functionality; analyzes interactions among components within a system to understand emergent behaviors; and investigates the application of cybernetics across fields such as biology, engineering, and the social sciences.

Gregory Bateson’s core thesis is that the mind is not an isolated substance or faculty inside individuals’ brains, but a relational, cybernetic process distributed across organisms and their environments.

Mind is a process that emerges from networks of relationships among organisms and their environments. Human beings, other living beings, and ecosystems are linked through flows of information. The mind is a system of relationships; it is not a “thing” but a process. He defined a mental system as one in which differences are perceived. Differences are transformed into information. Information affects future behavior. Feedback loops connect the parts of the system. A forest, a family, an ecosystem, or even a society can therefore exhibit mental characteristics because they process information through interconnected feedback relationships. This means no organism can be understood apart from the ecological system in which it exists.

Information is "a difference that makes a difference." A difference becomes information when it affects a system's behavior. For example, changes in temperature affect a plant; a predator's movement affects prey; a spoken word affects a listener.

Mind, therefore, operates through the communication of differences rather than through material substances alone.

 Epistemological errors arise when we fragment this systemic whole into linear cause–and–effect chains or oppose the self and the world.

Bateson’s theory has resulted in debates about systems thinking, constructivist epistemology, and ecological ethics.

Bateson believed modern industrial civilization suffers from a profound epistemological error. Western thought often separates mind from nature, humans from ecosystems, and subject from object.

Bateson argued that these separations are largely illusions. Humans are components of larger ecological systems, not masters standing outside them. When people act as if they are separate from nature, they damage the ecological systems upon which they depend.

Feedback and self-regulation

Ecological systems survive through feedback loops. Examples include predator-prey relationships, body temperature regulation, family interactions, and ecosystem nutrient cycles. Healthy systems contain balancing feedback that prevents runaway growth or collapse.

Many social and ecological crises arise when these feedback mechanisms are disrupted.

For Bateson, species co-evolve within networks of relationships: Organisms shape environments. Environments shape organisms. Different species co-evolve together. Thus, evolution is fundamentally relational.

The sacred unity of life

In his later work, Bateson increasingly emphasized what he called the "pattern which connects," referring to the recurring relational structures found throughout living systems: Examples: cells and organisms; organisms and ecosystems; individuals and societies. He believed wisdom consists in recognizing these patterns rather than focusing only on isolated entities.

At the same time, Bateson’s view of the function of consciousness “in coupling between man and the homeostatic systems (self-regulating systems) surrounding him” is as follows:

“First, there is man’s habit of changing his environment rather than changing himself. …In evolutionary history, the great majority of steps have been changes within the organism itself; some steps have been of an intermediate kind in which the organism achieved [a] change of environment by [a] change of locale. In a few cases, organisms other than man have created modified microenvironments around themselves, e.g., the nests of Hymenoptera and birds, concentrated forests of conifers, fungal colonies, etc.

“In all such cases, the logic of evolutionary progress is toward ecosystems which sustain only the dominant, environment-controlling species, and its symbionts and parasites.

“Man, the outstanding modifier of environment, similarly achieves single-species ecosystems and parasites in his cities, but he goes one step further, establishing a special environment for his symbionts. These, likewise, become single-species ecosystems: fields of corn, cultures of bacteria, batteries of fowls, colonies of laboratory rats, and the like. “Secondly, the power ratio between purposive consciousness and the environment has rapidly changed in the last one hundred years, and the rate of change in the ratio is certainly rapidly increasing with technological advances. Conscious man, as a changer of the environment, is now fully able to wreck himself and the environment—with the very best conscious intentions. “Third, a peculiar sociological phenomenon has arisen in the last one hundred years, which perhaps threatens to isolate conscious purpose from many corrective processes which might come out of less conscious parts of the mind. The social scene is nowadays characterized by the existence of a large number of self-maximizing entities which, in law, have something like the status of ‘persons’-trusts, companies, political parties, unions, commercial and financial agencies, nations, and the like. In biological fact, these entities are precisely not persons and not even aggregates of whole persons. They are aggregates of parts of persons (Bateson, 2002, pp. 451-452).”

Batson then notes several factors “which may act as correctives.” They include love, by which he means “I-Thou” relationship, “between man and his society or ecosystem,” and the formation of “sensitivity groups,” arts, poetry, music, and the humanities, where “more of the mind is active than consciousness would admit.” He adds contact between “man and animals and between man and the natural world,” which “breeds, perhaps—sometimes—wisdom (ibid., p. 453). He includes religion, to which I will return.

Ecological implications

Bateson's ecological philosophy differs from both mechanistic materialism, which often treats nature as an object, and spiritual views that separate mind from the material world. Instead, he proposes a relational ontology in which the mind is immanent in ecological relationships. Human beings are part of larger living systems, and survival depends on maintaining the integrity of these systems.

The fundamental reality is not isolated things but relationships, patterns, and information flows. Human survival depends on recognizing that the true unit of life is the organism-in-its-ecosystem.

The survival unit

While Freudian psychology expanded the concept of the mind inwards to include the whole communication system within the body, the automatic, the habitual, and the vast range of unconscious processes, Bateson expands the mind outwards. Both these changes reduce the scope of the conscious self.

“We get a picture, then, of mind as synonymous with cybernetic system—the relevant total information-processing, trial-and-error completing unit. And we know that within Mind in the widest sense, there will be a hierarchy of subsystems, any one of which we call an individual mind. 

“But this picture is precisely the same as the picture which I arrived at in discussing the unit of evolution. I believe that this identity is the most important generalization which I have to offer you tonight…

“This identity between the unit of mind and the unit of evolutionary survival is of very great importance, not only theoretical but also ethical. (ibid., p. 466).” 

Let’s get back to religion for a moment, Bateson argues that if

“You put God outside and set him vis-à-vis his creation, and if you have the idea that you are created in his image, you will logically and naturally see yourself as outside against the things around you. And as you arrogate all mind to yourself, you will see the world as mindless and therefore not entitled to moral or ethical considerations. The environment will seem to be yours to exploit. Your survival unit will be you and your folks or conspecifics against the environment of other social units, other races, brutes, and vegetables.

“If this is your estimate of your relation to nature and you have advanced technology, your likelihood of survival will be that of a snowball in hell (ibid., p. 488, my emphasis).”

This is why Bateson has been influential in ecology, systems theory, cybernetics, family therapy, and environmental philosophy.

Critique of Bateson’s theory

From the perspective of a theory of human nature and socialism, it is evident that a cybernetic approach to human society operates at a higher degree of generality and lacks the specific theories of society and history that, for example, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx have.  However, he complements such theories of society and history with a grand overall view that offers significant advantages. To begin with, although Bateson does not explicitly discuss his ontology, it is evident that he held a philosophy of being, existence, and reality that is materialist and immanently relational. As I underscored in Part 1, even Marx’s historical materialism was constructed by limiting human nature, society, and history to social relations arising from modes of production and ensuing class struggles. Of course, Marx and Engels admitted this fundamental shortcoming but never returned to the task of placing humanity within nature, to which it is bound by natural history. A key exception is Marx’s concept of the metabolic rift, which originated in his critique of capitalist agriculture, which destroyed the metabolic relationship with the soil (Foster, 2000; Saito, 2017). However, contrary to claims of Foster and Saito, Marx never developed the idea in his theory of society and history, and his historical materialism and critique of political economy remained anthropocentric (Nayeri, 2023, Chapter 22; Nayeri, October 12, 2023). Marx accepted the ontology of nineteenth-century materialism but proposed it as dialectical materialism, thereby rejecting the prevalent mechanistic view.

At the same time, Marx’s theory entails no environmental ethics, while Bateson’s theory of ecology of mind does.

The task remains for the twenty-first-century ecological socialists to develop a theory of human nature cognizant of Bateson’s contributions.

References:

Aho, Kevin. “Existentialism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2023.

Brooks. Thom. “Hegel’s Social and Political Philosophy.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2025.

Engels, Friedrich. Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State. 1884.

Foster, John Bellamy. Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature. 2000.

Foster, John Bellamy, Brett Clark, Richard York. The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on Earth. 2010.

Levins, Richard, and Richard Lewontin. The Dialectical Biologist. 1985.

Manghi, Sergio. Forward: In Wider Perspective. In Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. 2002.

Morgan, Lewis Henry. Ancient Society or Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization. 1877.

Nayeri, Kamran. “Economics, Socialism and Ecology: A Critical Outline, Part 2,” Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism. October 29, 2013.

_____________. “An Ecological Socialist's Reflection on Edward O. Wilson's Sociobiology.” Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism. October 16, 2015.

_____________. “E. O. Wilson: The Sixth Extinction: Life and Death in the Biosphere.” December 12. 2016.

_____________. “The Case for Ecocentric Socialism.”  Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism. July 4, 2021.

_____________. “Was Marx an Ecosocialist?” Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism. October 12, 2023.

_____________. Whose Planet? Essays on Ecocentric Socialism. 2023.

 

Roughley, Neil, "Human Nature", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.). Wilson, E. O. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. 1975.

Saito, Kohei. Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature, and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy. 2017.

Wilson, E. O. On Human Nature. 1978.

___________. Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. 1999.

___________. The Social Conquest of the Earth. 2012.

___________. The Meaning of Human Existence. 2015.

___________. Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life. 2016.

Notes:

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[1] Contemplative materialism focuses on the relationship between thought and material reality, rejecting abstract idealism. Feuerbach believes that true human essence is found in our sensory experiences and social interactions.

He advocates for a philosophy that prioritizes human experience and empirical observation over metaphysical speculation. This approach aims to reconcile human nature with the material world, fostering a more grounded understanding of existence.

[2] The concept of civil society evolved over time.  Aristotle viewed the political community (polis) as the natural and highest form of human association. He did not sharply separate “state” from “society” as human beings were “political animals,” whose fulfillment came through participation in communal life.  Thus, in classical Western thought, civil society and political society were fused.  In modern thought, the two concepts have been separated.  John Locke argued that civil society emerged from a social contract: individuals agreed to establish government specifically to protect their pre-existing natural rights. This was a significant departure from the classical view because it placed individual rights prior to the state.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith held that the binding principle of civil society was a private morality, grounded in self-interest but ultimately serving collective ends.

Adam Ferguson went further, contributing directly to the literature on civil society and democratic political society through his influential work in Scottish Enlightenment philosophy, emphasizing voluntary associations as a counterbalance to state power.    G.W.F. Hegel provided the most decisive theoretical break by fundamentally redefining civil society, giving rise to a modern liberal understanding of it as a form of non-political society, distinct from the institutions of the modern nation-state. For Hegel, civil society was a “system of needs” situated between the family and the state (Brooks, 2025). It was the realm of economic activity, social interaction, and individual pursuit.

[3] In The German Ideology, that is how Marx and Engels describe women and children in the patriarchal family structure.

[4] Levins, Lewontin, and Wilson were all professors at Harvard University, with their labs and offices close to each other.

[5] Levins and Lewontin use “classical Marxist” view and “Orthodox Marxist” view interchangeably. They were part of the young radicals in the United States who were attracted to the pro-Moscow Communist Party, later disillusioned with it, and formed the radical Science for the People as a loosely organized political organization. The author joined this group in 2008. In the post-Occupy Wall Street action, some Generation Alpha, the first full generation not to have known a world without smartphones and social media, who became radicalized scientists, mathematicians, and engineers, formed the new generation of Science for the People. The earlier generations, who were mostly active in politics through the Science for the People online discussion list, gradually abandoned it due to age-related factors.   

[6] According to Jean Paul, the first principle of existentialism is that we exist for ourselves as self-making or self-defining beings, and we are always in the process of making or defining ourselves through the situated choices we make as our lives unfold. This means that man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterward, defines himself.” (Aho, 2023).

[7] The quotation is from Marx’s Philosophic Manuscripts, vol. 6, italics are in the original. 

3695. Cuba Approves Its Biggest Economic Overhaul Since the Revolution

By The Rio Times,  June 20, 2026 

National Assembly of People's Power

Key Facts

—The vote. Cuba’s parliament approved a package of one hundred and seventy-six economic measures on Thursday.

—The scale. Analysts call it the biggest shift in the island’s economic model since the 1959 revolution.

—The openings. The reforms allow private banks, freer foreign trade, and investment by Cubans living abroad.

—The model. Officials say they looked to China and Vietnam, communist states that run market economies.

—The crisis. Cuba’s economy may shrink by as much as fifteen per cent this year amid blackouts and fuel shortages.

—The catch. Economists warn the changes may achieve little while US sanctions remain in place.

After decades of guarding its state-run model, Cuba has formally approved a sweeping set of economic reforms that loosen the grip of the state and invite in private money — a striking turn for a government still insisting its politics will not change.

What the Cuban economic reforms approve

Cuba’s National Assembly on Thursday approved a package of one hundred and seventy-six measures aimed at overhauling the island’s struggling economy. The vote turned a plan first announced earlier this month into a binding policy.

The contents mark a real break with the past. For the first time in decades, the plan allows private banks, lets companies import and export without going through the state, permits the free hiring of staff, and opens the door to investment by Cubans living abroad.

It even clears the way for foreign fast-food chains to set up on the island. Taken together, the measures begin to dismantle pillars of the old system, including the state’s long-held monopoly over foreign trade.

At the heart of the plan is decentralization, a dry word for a real change. Local governments and state companies would be allowed to manage their own imports, exports and foreign currency, rather than waiting on every decision from Havana.

The diaspora is central to the bet. For the first time, Cubans living abroad would be able to invest in and help run private businesses back home, a potentially large pool of capital that Havana has kept locked out for decades.

Why these Cuban economic reforms matter now

The urgency is hard to overstate. Cuba is in its worst economic crisis in decades, with output forecast to shrink by anywhere from six to fifteen per cent this year on top of steep falls since 2020.

Daily life has become a grind of long blackouts, fuel shortages and scarce basic goods. A major blow was the loss of cheap Venezuelan oil, which dried up after the fall of Venezuela’s leader earlier this year.

Washington has added to the squeeze with fresh sanctions and a fuel blockade. Against that backdrop, a government long hostile to private capital has decided it has little choice but to open up.

A model borrowed from China and Vietnam

Cuban officials have been open about where they looked for inspiration. President Miguel Díaz-Canel said the reforms drew on the experience of China and Vietnam, two communist states that run market economies while keeping a single party in power.

That is precisely the balance Havana is trying to strike. Díaz-Canel was emphatic that the changes are economic, not political, telling lawmakers the reforms were a sovereign choice and not a response to pressure from Washington.

The package was fast-tracked through the system. It was announced in mid-June, endorsed days later by the Communist Party leadership with Raúl Castro present, and approved by the National Assembly on Thursday.

Why outsiders are skeptical

Independent economists have greeted the news cautiously. One Cuban economist described it as a case of belated pragmatism, arriving only after years of avoidable decline.

The bigger doubt is whether the reforms can work at all while US sanctions stand. Analysts note that foreign investors who do business with Cuba can be penalized in the American financial system, which blunts the appeal of the new openings.

For now, then, the package is best read as a statement of intent under duress. It signals how far Cuba’s crisis has pushed its leaders, even as the practical payoff depends on a thaw with Washington that remains far from certain.

There is also a credibility problem of Havana’s own making. Past reform drives, including a currency overhaul, fuelled inflation rather than fixing the economy, leaving Cubans wary of grand promises.

For foreign investors weighing the island, the calculus is therefore cautious. The openings are real on paper, but the rewards hinge on detailed rules that are still to be written and on a political opening between Havana and Washington that has yet to materialize.

Asked Questions

What did Cuba’s parliament approve?

On June 18, 2026, Cuba’s National Assembly approved a package of one hundred and seventy-six economic measures. They allow private banks, freer foreign trade, free hiring and investment by Cubans living abroad, in the biggest shift to the island’s model in decades.

Why is Cuba changing its economy now?

Cuba is in its worst crisis in decades, with the economy possibly shrinking by up to 15 percent this year amid blackouts and fuel shortages. The loss of cheap Venezuelan oil and tighter US sanctions have forced the government to open up.

Will the reforms work?

Analysts are skeptical. They warn that many measures may have little effect while US sanctions remain, because foreign investors who deal with Cuba risk penalties in the American financial system.

3694. Cuba's President Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel on Free Market Reforms: "Reality Demands Urgent and Necessary Changes"

By Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, Granma International, June 18, 2026

Speech delivered by Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, at the closing of the Extraordinary Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, at the Palace of the Revolution, on June 17, 2026, "Year of the Centennial of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz."

Comrades, members of the Party’s Central Committee;

Distinguished guests;

Compatriots:

This extraordinary plenary session is taking place at a decisive moment for Cuba. As proud heirs to the legacy of the Commander-in-Chief, we Cuban revolutionaries today face challenges of enormous magnitude that demand unity, ideological steadfastness, courage, boldness, and creative resilience.

We are guided by our leader, a prominent member of the vanguard of the Centennial Generation and a zealous guardian of the continuity of the socialist Revolution—which he played a decisive role in building from its foundations to the present day—Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, Hero of the Republic of Cuba, who has taught us every day the sacred value of unity.

The context is extraordinarily complex and challenging due to the relentless aggression of the intensified economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States government and the criminal intent behind the hostile actions of the current administration: first, the inclusion of Cuba on the infamous and spurious list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism, and other equally false accusations that seek to discredit the government’s authority and administration, while depriving the country of any source of foreign exchange.

This blockade has been further intensified by the Executive Orders of January 29 and May 1st, which reinforce the genocidal energy blockade and, through secondary sanctions, internationalize the blockade, taking financial, energy, and investment persecution to extremes of maximum pressure.

At the same time, political and ideological subversion is intensifying through media disinformation on social media to undermine the Revolution’s credibility—among both Cubans and foreigners—fostering social disorientation in a national and international context marked by profound transformations in the socioeconomic structure and global geopolitics, as a consequence of the unlimited powers of a hegemonic imperialist policy that seeks to shatter multilateralism, fuels neo-fascist movements, and exacerbates global tensions, constantly threatening international peace and security and attempting to break the indispensable unity of leftist forces.

The silent genocide being waged against Cuba is causing immeasurable damage and terrible hardships in our daily lives as a people, while its perpetrators brazenly lie to the world by denying the energy blockade and claiming that we are blocking the entry of million-dollar donations—donations they tout extensively but have delivered hardly anything of what was promised.

Cuba is resisting heroically and creatively, but for far too long it has suffered a barbaric, undeserved, and unbearable punishment, to which is now added the threat of military aggression as a new weapon against our collective resistance.

Cuba faces a cruel blockade and real, daily financial persecution that drives up the cost of every drop of fuel, every medicine, every food item, every part, and every piece of technology the country needs.

Reality demands urgent and necessary changes. And when life for the people becomes so difficult, the primary duty of the Communist Party and the revolutionary government is not to explain the crisis better, but to change whatever needs to be changed to overcome it.

What is required is a comprehensive and agile economic agenda, executable in the short term, that combines macroeconomic stabilization, incentives to stimulate and promote productive openness, legal certainty, the attraction of investment, intensive use of technology, and targeted and effective social protection.

Let us recall that at the closing of the 11th Plenary Session, we stated that the postponement of the Congress did not preclude the possibility of making the necessary changes, modifications, and adjustments, taking into account the powers of Party and government structures—such as the Plenary Sessions of the Central Committee when it comes to resolutions adopted by Party congresses.

To this end, intensive work has been carried out, based on the informative report and debate from the ANEC Congress, the public consultation on the Economic and Social Program for 2026, the opinions of economists and experts, the debates and contributions made by the Economic Commission of the Party’s Central Committee, the Economic and Social Policy Guidelines approved and updated at the 6th, 7th, and 8th Party Congresses, the proposals of the 11th Plenary Session of the Central Committee, and the work carried out by the commissions that have been preparing the documents for the postponed 9th Party Congress—for reasons that are well known—regarding the update of the Conceptualization of the Economic and Social Model, the Guidelines, and the National Plan for Economic and Social Development through 2030.

In addition, a study has been conducted on the experiences of socialist construction in other countries, such as China and Vietnam, and artificial intelligence has also been utilized to further the search for references and evaluate the proposals in relation to our current laws and regulations.

We are facing the enormous challenge of continuing to advance the process of socialist construction, defending the Revolution and its achievements, and perfecting our society, under the conditions of a country subjected to the cruelest, most genocidal, and longest-lasting economic, financial, energy, and commercial blockade imposed by the world’s most powerful nation. And to overcome this, the legacy we have is that of our Commander-in-Chief, Fidel Castro Ruz (Applause).

No one in the history of humanity has ever faced the challenge of socialism under the conditions that this country, this nation, and this people are currently facing! We will undoubtedly overcome this challenge through unity, courage, popular participation, and full conviction in our ability to achieve victory.

The transformations we are proposing are intended to advance the defense of socialism, to support and expand social justice, and to create economic wealth and distribute it equitably. Without wealth, there is nothing to distribute; we would be speaking of social justice in the abstract. Social justice as conceived by the Revolution—with its humanistic mission to help the most disadvantaged, generally through free welfare programs and projects—does not cost the people anything, but it does cost the State. And to carry it out, to deepen it, to sustain it, and to maintain it, the State needs wealth—and we must produce that wealth ourselves. If there is no wealth, there is no social justice, and everything else is a fairy tale—everything else is a fairy tale! Either we produce under these conditions, create wealth, and then distribute it with social justice and equity—not egalitarianism. That is the challenge!

We need to unleash the productive forces, to have more production rather than more restrictions, because it has been proven that control without supply merely drives operations into the informal market.

Equality and integration among economic actors are necessary in accordance with the National Plan for Economic and Social Development through 2030 and the territorial and local development strategies involving state-owned enterprises, MSMEs, cooperatives, agricultural producers, foreign and Cuban investors, residents and non-residents alike: all must act and contribute to the country’s socioeconomic development under clear rules.

We must export and produce to attract and bring in foreign currency and make productive use of it. Every unit of foreign currency that enters the country must be channeled to finance production, imports, investment, wages, and infrastructure.

Legal certainty must be guaranteed: contracts, usufruct rights, leases, concessions, surface rights, and licenses must offer temporal stability and protection against arbitrary changes. Without legal certainty, no one will invest, and no one will take risks.

We must promote digitalization with traceability: electronic invoicing, digital payments, public registries, and interoperable data as a foundation for reducing tax evasion and corruption.

Social protection must be prioritized: replacing inefficient blanket subsidies with direct support for vulnerable people. We must always ensure that each action does not increase social inequalities; on the contrary, they should be gradually reduced until they disappear.

We must act with selective and intelligent openness: attracting technology, financing, markets, and external knowledge, while protecting strategic sectors through regulation, not through stagnation.

A gradual and experimental approach is necessary: reform should be implemented in phases and through verifiable pilot programs, maintaining government leadership and adjusting course based on evidence to address and minimize potential economic and social costs.

Also essential are political unity to ensure the consistency and credibility of the measures; clear and precise communication of the decisions to be implemented, to gain support for the transformations; and the adoption of compensatory mechanisms to mitigate economic and social impacts.

We must work with agility, consistency, and quality—and above all, with control. What has been approved must be implemented properly.

In this scenario, it is necessary to make progress on at least five fronts simultaneously:

Macroeconomic stabilization and the recovery of foreign revenue.

The transformation of the Economic and Social Model.

The stimulation and recovery of the agricultural sector.

The strengthening of accounting and cost management.

Anticipating and mitigating the social costs associated with the necessary transformations of the Economic and Social Model.

And these five aspects are very well developed in the report presented by ANEC at its last congress.

The Commander-in-Chief taught us that in times of crisis we could not give up on either development or critical thinking, that no obstacle is insurmountable, and that there is always an opportunity to grow. And along that path, the Army General showed us that it is possible, that it was possible, and that it will always be possible.

The people understand the causes of many of the difficulties we face, but they also need concrete answers, timely decisions, and results that are felt in their daily lives.

There are obstacles that do not come from outside or from blockades. There is sluggishness, bureaucracy, regulations that hold back those who want to produce, and decisions we have put off. What depends on us, we must change ourselves—and we must change it now.

We owe our homeland to the resistance, but today resistance alone is not enough. This time demands that we transform, produce more, remove more barriers, listen more, make better decisions, and be accountable.

What we intend to set in motion is an emergency economic and social agenda, comprising measures that are part of our Government Program and policies approved by the Party, along with decisions that can no longer wait. Some will not enjoy unanimous consensus, but they cannot be postponed. And each will have a specific person in charge, a defined deadline, a metric to measure its implementation, and public accountability to the nation.

What works will be expanded. What does not work will be corrected without delay. Anyone with a responsibility will have to be held accountable for it, and when someone cannot meet the demands of this moment, they must responsibly make way for someone who can do it better.

We will face this process as the challenge of the generations that today share the defense of the Homeland, the Revolution, and Socialism.

Regarding the Economic Management System, I want to emphasize that the most important point is that, if we adopt these transformations, central planning would not serve to manage the economy, but rather to create an appropriate institutional and regulatory environment so that enterprises and workers are encouraged to produce goods and provide quality services efficiently, as well as to introduce innovations into their management for these purposes.

And we must definitely ensure that the Plan is built from the ground up with the participation of workers.

We will continue restructuring the government apparatus, the state, the Party, and our institutions. We will integrate structures where necessary, review duplicated functions, reduce unnecessary steps, and continuously optimize the way the country is governed and served. These structures must be more dynamic, more proactive, and less bureaucratic.

One of the most important and urgent tasks is to boost the country’s development from the ground up, starting with the municipalities.

We cannot delay any further in empowering municipal governments and ensuring they have and exercise all possible authority to develop.

No economic change will be sufficient if socialist state-owned enterprises—which will remain the fundamental pillar of the economy—do not have the genuine capacity to manage, innovate, and be accountable for their results.

It is necessary to reform the management of state-owned enterprises based on real autonomy, economic and financial evaluation, the separation of state and business functions, and the application of the "comply or explain" principle to prevent regulations from becoming an obstacle when a more beneficial and demonstrable solution exists.

To that end, we will move forward in two directions: greater real autonomy for enterprises and more professional management of state assets through the National Institute of Business Assets, which is tasked with representing the owner of the means of production, evaluating results, demanding efficiency, and better separating the business function from the regulatory function of the ministries.

Autonomy does not mean a lack of control; it implies a framework of accountability. It means being able to make timely decisions, form better partnerships, invest more effectively, pay better wages, and be accountable for results to the people and to the State.

We need to strengthen state-owned enterprises, not replace them with administrative mechanisms that paralyze them. To this end, we must complete the separation between state and business functions, evaluate performance using economic and financial tools, and grant real autonomy to manage material, financial, and human resources—with subsequent oversight, transparency, and accountability.

There is no sovereignty with empty plates. The Cuban people’s food will be treated for what it is: a matter of national security.

And idle land in Cuba must be eliminated. Every piece of land that is currently overgrown with marabou—when it should be producing food—will require a clear solution: either it is put to productive use or it is handed over to those willing to do so.

We will expand the granting of land in usufruct to those who are willing and able to produce: producers, cooperatives, micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), and other forms of association—without ever renouncing national sovereignty or regressing to the dependent country we left behind with the Revolution.

We will recognize the right of those who work the land to invest in what they need to make it productive, and we will allow those who commit to real results to import seeds, fertilizer, parts, and equipment directly. But one principle must be clear: that land will continue to belong to the people; and if it does not produce, if it does not serve the country, if it does not fulfill its social function, it will have to pass into the hands of those who can indeed make it productive.

We cannot continue to demand that Cuban farmers produce more food with fewer tools and at prices below their costs; they must have effective mechanisms for direct access to foreign currency, such as selling to exporters—as is the case with tourism—or on the foreign exchange market.

We must make the land an opportunity rather than a burden; ensure that those who sow see the fruits of their labor; enable those who produce to live better lives; and provide those who invest in the countryside with security, support, and a future.

Cuba needs its farmers, their work, and their trust. When the Cuban countryside becomes a path to prosperity for those who work it, the country will be stronger, more just, and more sovereign.

With regard to foreign trade, exports, logistics, and value chains, we must authorize direct imports and exports for state-owned and non-state-owned enterprises—whether they are productive, export-oriented, or import-substituting—while maintaining technical and fiscal requirements but eliminating mandatory intermediation.

Regarding debt renegotiation, we must carry out a debt-for-assets swap process, focused primarily on exchanging national assets for debt, without permanently relinquishing ownership of those assets. Through this mechanism, we can secure financing and other benefits without losing ownership rights over the assets.

We must also explore other mechanisms, such as "debt-for-nature" or "debt-for-social-development" swaps, the issuance of bonds tied to the Sustainable Development Goals, and others.

We will comprehensively review the list of activities prohibited to the private sector, guided by a clear principle: to replace, whenever possible, prohibitions with responsible regulation. The country needs to establish legal pathways for these activities, with clear rules and appropriate controls.

We will also make the scope of the corporate purpose of MSMEs and other economic actors more flexible and significantly alleviate the bureaucratic burden currently faced by many entrepreneurs; furthermore, we must streamline the creation of economic partnerships between state and non-state management models.

Foreign investment is also trapped in a web of obstacles that hinder its necessary growth. We must not only tell foreign investors where to invest, but also allow them to take the initiative to invest in the economic sector of their choice, as well as to directly hire their workers without state intermediaries at all times.

We must authorize foreign direct investment in the national private sector, including MSMEs, with clear rules on ownership, repatriation, reinvestment, and dispute resolution.

We must facilitate investment models with different modalities and involving all stakeholders on the part of Cubans living in Cuba. And to Cubans living abroad who wish to invest, donate, import technology, open a market, or launch a project in their homeland, we will offer a clear, stable, and respectful framework, without them being viewed with suspicion for wanting to help their own people or contribute to the development of the land where they were born. To anyone who wants to build a future with Cuba, without seeking to impose anything on it, we say with our hearts on our sleeves: this is your home, and our door is open to you, because at this moment, this homeland cannot afford to lose a single good Cuban (Applause).

A power outage isn’t just a matter of megawatts or a generation shortfall. A power outage is the child who couldn’t study for a test, the food that went bad in the refrigerator, the elderly person who spends the night awake, restless, and sweltering. It’s the hospital operating at full capacity, the doctor’s office that can’t store medication, the worker who loses a day’s pay, and the business that has to close. That is why energy is not a technical issue; it is a human, economic, and national issue.

We will accelerate the integration of solar energy into the national economy, as we have been doing. To achieve this, we will facilitate the direct entry of foreign companies that supply panels, batteries, inverters, and related solutions, reducing the number of intermediaries that drive up costs for the population and for the country.

Import tariffs on solar technologies, storage systems, and energy-saving equipment have already been eliminated. Now we will also move forward with eliminating taxes on their sale and on services related to their installation and maintenance.

In addition, we will create credit and financing mechanisms so that these solutions are not accessible only to a few, but can gradually reach households, micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), medical clinics, educational centers, nursing homes, and other essential services for the population. And in this effort, our Cuban companies and technicians—both state-owned and private—will be at the center, installing, maintaining, repairing, integrating, and creating jobs. Cuban companies can specialize in the installation, integration, operation, and support of these technologies.

We will promote electric transportation powered by renewable energy sources. Any electric vehicle intended for public, private, or light-duty freight transport that demonstrates it operates entirely or primarily on solar energy will be eligible for special incentives, tariff exemptions, elimination of sales taxes, and facilitation of imports of chargers, batteries, parts, and related solutions.

We will also promote the installation of solar panels throughout the country with foreign, private, cooperative, and state investment, prioritizing urban routes, tourist hubs, productive zones, and essential services. Along with this, we will establish an expedited process for granting licenses for transportation operators, electric taxis, or associated mobility services, under clear rules, technical oversight, road safety standards, and transparent pricing.

The top priority, above all else, is the people who cannot wait for the economy to improve, because there are hardships that know no deadlines. True social justice is not built on artificial prices that eventually lead to shortages, long lines, low wages, and an illegal market.

Social justice is built on real foundations: incomes with purchasing power, direct protection for those who need it most, and a national economy capable of producing more. There are no shortcuts; these are not new ideas, but decisions that the country discussed and approved years ago. The mistake was not in proposing them, but in postponing them—and that period of delay must come to an end.

The basic food basket will be guaranteed to retirees, families with chronically ill children, and vulnerable populations. Targeted programs will be developed to promote social transformation in the poorest neighborhoods. The state-owned and private business sectors must be given a greater role and incentives to get involved in solving prioritized local problems, such as soup kitchens, sanitation, and shelters for children without family support, among others. These decisions will entail new, concrete tasks: delivering pension payments to retirees near their homes so they do not have to wait in line for hours under the sun; sponsoring soup kitchens, nursing homes, senior centers, and children’s centers; creating solidarity quotas and cost-based pricing for those who truly need it; and digitizing everything so that it is clear who contributes, who receives, and what results are achieved.

For years, we operated under a system of wage controls, price regulations, and a government that subsidized a huge portion of the country’s economic life. That formula had its rationale, its context, its results, and its time; but it no longer addresses the complex reality we face today. The prices families face have become far too disconnected from the income of workers and retirees, and we cannot continue to act as if that gap did not exist.

We will also open new avenues for secure access to medications.

Regarding fiscal, tax, monetary, and financial restructuring policies, we propose that the primary objective for reducing the fiscal deficit lies in increasing production—which is the basis for tax revenue—and cutting unnecessary budget expenditures. That is why we will also correct a policy that failed to deliver the expected results.

Price caps, in practice, failed to curb inflation. They often led to product shortages, a shift toward the black market, higher prices, lower tax revenue, and an impossible race between actual prices and administrative decisions that were always late or remained rigid in the face of changing economic realities, thereby limiting all those who wish to conduct their economic activities legally and transparently. For this reason, we will not continue to impose blanket price caps, as the Prime Minister explained. We must correct distortions in the tax system that currently drive up the costs of production chains and ultimately get passed on to the final price.

We will move toward a creditable value-added tax (VAT) progressively supported by electronic invoicing to avoid cascading taxation. But these decisions can only be implemented alongside more direct and effective social protection, with a shift from subsidizing products to subsidizing people, and with efforts to restore the purchasing power of wages and pensions. It is not a matter of leaving anyone to fend for themselves in the market; it is a matter of providing better protection, increasing production, regulating intelligently, and managing with realism.

We need a financial system that supports the economy, serves the needs of the various economic actors, reduces lines, facilitates payments, ensures transparency in transactions, and turns savings, credit, and investment into concrete tools for development.

We must thoroughly modernize the country’s banking and financial system. To do so, Cuba needs banks that are more agile, more digital, closer to the people, and more useful to those who produce, export, import, invest, or start businesses.

We will open up opportunities—under strict regulation—for private and foreign financial institutions; new mechanisms for credit, productive financing, the development of financial markets, and payment services, in which state, cooperative, and private actors can participate. The goal is to ensure that collecting a pension, receiving a remittance from abroad, paying for a service, applying for a loan, financing a harvest, purchasing equipment, or moving money to support production is not an obstacle course.

We will allow offshore accounts, foreign-currency payments between companies, and auditable international transactions for entities that import, export, or provide global services.

This is not about weakening the role of the state, but rather about expanding and modernizing the country’s capacity to finance production, support those who generate goods and services, regulate the flow of money, and provide better service to our people.

We will turn digital transformation, software, and artificial intelligence into cross-cutting tools to develop agriculture, the energy sector, healthcare, education, foreign trade, banking, e-commerce, logistics, tourism, and tax enforcement.

Specific proposals related to software, artificial intelligence, the knowledge economy, and the digital economy must be presented as cross-cutting infrastructure to boost national productivity. This is not merely about exporting software, but about digitizing payments, taxes, foreign trade, agriculture, healthcare, energy, logistics, government, and statistics.

With regard to tourism and the real estate sector, new business models must be implemented, with the participation of all economic actors. We must develop a productive, regulated real estate market that includes: leasing of idle state-owned properties; rental of buildings, commercial spaces, warehouses, offices, tourist facilities, workshops, and industrial spaces; concessions; rights of use for real estate; and transparent bidding processes open to state, private, cooperative, or mixed-ownership entities.

We have discussed fuel imports and all the opportunities that have been opened up to the private sector, but now the goal is to achieve this with reasonable, transparent, and non-exploitative profit margins.

As for vehicle imports, we must eliminate all import barriers, prioritize the import of electric vehicles, and, of course, develop solar panel manufacturing facilities.

I know there is concern—and rightly so—about the partial dollarization of the economy, inflation, and the lack of many products priced in local currency. We are not going to ignore this problem. The business models we are authorizing in foreign currency must directly and verifiably contribute to an increase in foreign exchange revenue that allows for the sustainability of offerings in local currency.

We must impose stricter requirements on the use of digital payment platforms. We must expand approvals for wholesale and retail trade, eliminating intermediaries, and, without a doubt, we must implement electronic invoicing.

We must eliminate wage barriers that prevent the retention of talent and a highly skilled workforce in the productive, export, technology, energy, and agro-industrial sectors, and allow for variable compensation in CUP and foreign currency linked to verifiable results in exports, import savings, increased productivity, innovation, energy availability, or foreign sales.

With regard to digital government, public data, and smart monitoring, we must implement mandatory and phased electronic invoicing for medium and large taxpayers; then move on to micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and self-employed workers, using simple tools adapted to actual connectivity.

We must modernize the National Statistical System and the ONEI through digital data collection from companies and entities, publication via public service applications using artificial intelligence, and the protection of sensitive data.

We must use artificial intelligence to simplify procedures, process scanned documents, detect errors, validate files, authenticate documents, and reduce administrative burdens.

We must improve the quality of services provided to the public by designing new approaches to each issue.

And we must seriously address a problem that affects the daily lives of millions of Cubans: solid waste collection. We will launch local projects to improve the collection, treatment, and disposal of solid waste, in which—responsibly—those who place the greatest burden on the system must also contribute more to sustaining it.

But this solution will not be solely state-led; it will incorporate foreign investment into the non-state sector, the business system, communities, and creative initiatives that help restore cleanliness, order, and health to our cities and communities.

Comrades:

Cuba does not need further delays; it needs solutions. It is not a matter of creating more offices or holding more meetings, but of achieving concrete results.

To govern is to solve problems, remove obstacles, provide support, and ensure that decisions translate into real improvements; because creating in Cuba, investing in Cuba, working in Cuba, and staying in Cuba also depend on the country’s ability to blaze new trails, organize intelligently, and support those who want to contribute.

Alongside economic opportunities, we will also promote concrete spaces where young people can take action within their communities.

The Community Youth Network must be a pathway for young people to find places to receive training, find employment, serve their community, and turn an idea into a real project. This network must coordinate useful initiatives in neighborhoods: revitalizing public spaces, supporting vulnerable people, cultural and sports activities, training in trades and technologies, community communication, productive projects, local employment, and support for at-risk youth.

This is not about creating yet another structure or bringing young people together merely to receive guidance; it is about giving them skills, tools, knowledge, responsibilities, and real opportunities to transform the places where they live—because staying in Cuba must also mean having a place where they can be useful, grow, learn, lead, and build a future starting from their neighborhood, school, workplace, and municipality.

We know our country; we know where the obstacles lie, where corruption lurks, where there is excessive red tape, and where a sense of shame and dignity is lacking.

Every measure we announce will have designated leaders, deadlines, and performance indicators. We will report on what is progressing, what is not being met, and what needs to be corrected.

There will be matters that, to protect them from those who wish to sabotage them, we will have to handle with discretion. Martí has already taught us that some things must remain hidden in order to be achieved; but discretion will never be an excuse to hide anything from the people.

As a people, we are not going to come together merely to resist; we are going to come together to create, to produce, to decide, to hold others accountable, to prosper, and to transform, because what we are starting today is not something a government does— this is something we all do together—or it won’t be done at all: with the farmer who returns to the fields to plant, with the small and medium-sized business that dares to take risks, with the technician who installs the first solar panel, with the teacher, with the doctor, with the young person who decides to stay and invest in their homeland, with the Cuban living abroad who reaches out, with you, with me, with everyone.

We will not deny the problems; we will not defend bureaucracy; we will not close the door on talent; we will not abandon the vulnerable; and we will never allow the suffering of this people—caused by the perverse imperialist blockade—to be used against the sovereignty of our homeland (Applause).

Nothing will be impossible if we embrace the challenge as an opportunity and history as inspiration!

Céspedes, Agramonte, Maceo, Gómez, Martí, Mella, Villena, Guiteras, Che, Camilo, Almeida, Fidel, and Raúl—all our heroes—faced moments that were just as difficult, or even more so, for their time, than those faced today by the new revolutionary generation, and all emerged from those challenges with honor and glory—even those who fell in combat without living to see victory—because they bequeathed to us lessons in courage that endure to this day, as was demonstrated on January 3 of this year when 32 Cuban combatants fell while confronting elite troops vastly superior in numbers and resources.

No revolution has had it easy, and ours has had the audacity to survive six decades of a blockade, genocidal laws, hybrid warfare, and a series of unilateral coercive measures that no other nation has endured—nor could it endure—for so long.

On the centennial of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro’s birth and the 95th birthday of Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, the best tribute we can pay to the admirable work of our two historic leaders is to defend it and preserve its essence of social justice, amid the storm of predatory wars, threats of invasion, and processes of neocolonization that, like the Seven-League Giant, are sweeping across the sky, devouring worlds in these times.

We are all called to action, and together we will prevail.

Long live Free Cuba! (Shouts of: "Long live!")

Long live the heroic Cuban people! (Shouts of: "Long live!")

Long live the sovereignty of the Cuban nation! (Shouts of: "Long live!")

Socialism or Death!

Fatherland or Death!

We will prevail! (Shouts of: "We will prevail!")

(Applause.)