Here is one menagerie, with Brad DeLong parrying ably. A simple checklist would start with the question of whether an apologist has visited both the Dominican Republic and Cuba. And a non-communist Cuba could have done much better than the DR. It is a fascinating place for visitors, but right now the quality of life in Cuba isn’t close to that of the DR or for that matter Honduras, the second-biggest Latino mess in the hemisphere. While we’re at it, let’s not forget northern Mexico or even central Mexico. It’s time to stop apologizing for communist dictatorships; are you really so taken with the idea of confiscating property as to overlook decades of tyranny, impoverishment, and human misery? Yes I am familiar with the UN social indicators; I say you need to visit each of these countries, preferably speaking Spanish, and then report back to me.
Cuba had the best tobacco in the world. And they could have a monopoly on legit Ché t-shirts, perhaps with the Adidas logo. There is no excuse for that country to not be super wealthy. There’s lots of demand for such goods outside the United States.
As much as I dislike Castro, the seeds of his tyranny were planted by the USofA.
http://econ.ucalgary.ca/fac-files/rs/Nov27CTARPaper.pdf
Why can’t we agree that YES Cuba could be better if the revolution had not happened BUT it could also be worse.
Latin America is pretty much a basket case in this area. Not as bad as say Africa, but still a basket case in the area of development.
Castro did bad things, and some good things. The USA did help plant the seeds that lead to him being in power, but i think embargo has lead to things being worse not better.
After the USSR fell we had a great opportunity to lift the embargo and hopefully help bring about a better life for everyone in Cuba. We missed that chance, and it looks like we are going to miss another one now.
Given their common starting points (brutal and corrupt U.S.-backed dictator) the better comparison for Cuba without Castro is with Haiti.
Tyler is 100 percent right about Cuba, but now that Fidel is ailing and almost out of the picture, I wonder if the Cubans would be better off with a Chinese-style gov’t: that is, a political dictatorship that allowed foreign investment and repected property rights. My fear is that a free Cuba would be unable to govern itself, making it a “tragic choice” between freedom and corruption on the one hand and economic efficiency and Chinese-style Communist rule on the other
It’s difficult not to argue that a good amount of the poverty in Cuba today is due to the trade embargo with the US. Some of the people that are lobbying the hardest right now to ease the embargo are farmers who want to start exporting food there. Regardless of politics, cheaper food will improve the lives of the average Cuban, as I’m sure opening the US market to Cuban goods will dramatically improve the Cuban business sector (tourism alone should be a boom).
Correlation does not imply causation, and as much as we may disagree with authoritarian regimes in principle, that does not mean they are the cause of economic distress, nor that democracy brings wealth. Sure Milton Friedman would say that in the long-run one leads to the other, but I’m yet to be convinced Cuba’s economic woes are due entirely to their government. The fact that they can’t trade with the largest economy in the world, 90 miles from their border, has to have something to do with it.
Given Cuba’s relatively advanced state of development at the time, if they had stayed a US ally, they would have most likely become a “Tiger.” They would have had explosive growth and would have transitioned from authoritarianism to democracy, a la South Korea and Taiwan. That really is the most likely counterfactual.
The cost of Castro’s murderous buffoonery is thus much greater than most here have assumed.
I think if you really want to make a case for any Latin American leftists, you’ll need to stick to the Sandanistas (who are the only communist group I know of that actually brought about a country that has peaceful democratic transtions of power), and maybe Omar Torrijos.
But other than that, the “commies suck” formula is the one to go with.
These comments are just terrible. What has gone in Cuba for the past fifty years is very sad. I am by know means sticking up for the U.S or the previous Cuban administration but arguing that Castro was anything other than a total failure is just plain ideology. Take off the rose colored glasses, look closely at Cuba’s poverty and lack of development. It’s easy to argue on Castro’s behalf sitting in an air conditioned room, with a laptop, and sipping Starbucks but if you look closely at that country the message is not positive. Command and control economies do not work very well, if at all.
I just dont understand why anyone on the left would ever take the time to try and admonish him. Castro’s revolution was a failure and there is ample evidence to feel certain in that opinion. Rationing, shortages, and decaying infrastructure are the norm in that country. Bravo to Castro for making some strides in health care and illustrating to the world how to achieve better health care outcomes with extremely constrained resources, however, this does not excuse the grotesque lack of development in that country over the past fifty years.
If you go to http://www.flickr.com and search for Havana Cuba you see pictures from a variety of people from different perspectives.
Just as it took until after the Soviet Union fell to see the full picture there, so it will take until after communism falls in Cuba to see the full picture there – despite the relatively more free access we already have.
I doubt that the health care situation is as rosy as current statistics predict, and the human rights violations and poverty are almost certainly worse than we know.
Cuba was on track to high growth through tourism when Castro came to power. He would not have allowed that to continue even if the US was willing. He has been able to trade with Europe, but trade (evil capitalist invention that it is and unnecessary under pure socialism) can only get an economy so far if it is monopoly government trading by an economy without markets or prices.
A fair analysis of the system after the regime falls will show that it only succeeded to the extent that markets (black) have slipped through the loopholes in the laws.
There are a lot of countries where people risk their lives to get into them – all the European Union, the USA, India and China for starters. I think there are just two left where people risk their lives to escape from the country – North Korea under the Kim Il family and Cuba under the Castro family. On the island of Cuba, Guatanamo Bay contains a jail. The rest of Cuba simply is a jail, even if a more spacious and less repellent one.
John Pertz’s remarks are 100% right on.
If you want to see the fruits of Castro’s rule it is very simple to do. Take a vacation to Jamaica and while there hop on a Jamaican puddle jumper flight to Cuba. (Usually it cost more than the flight to Jamaica.) Cuba wants hard currency including US dollars so they do not stamp your passport and welcome US visitors. Then I suggest you travel away from the official tourists areas and visit where the areas where the Cubans live who work in those tourists areas. 97% plus literacy? Yes but 97% literacy can’t put enough food on the table. There isn’t enough food available in Cuba to feed the people. The entire country is broke and falling apart. The sugar industry is in shambles, the highways, buildings, transportation, you name it and it is falling apart. The vaunted medical system is another cruel joke on the people. Every Cuban has easy access to doctors & clinics; but the clinics rarely have medicine or functioning equipment. If you do go bring lots of useful over the counter drugs like aspirin, acetaminophen, and diaper ointment. If you do the Cuban people will gladly spend time telling you about how wonderful life is in their socialist paradise.
One other thing, please don’t give me the US trade embargo crap; the entire
Like TC, I cannot understand why so many on the American left are so eager to defend the Castro government. He hit upon what I think is one of the three reasons: their approval for confiscating property. Another is Castro’s anti-Americanism. And the third was mentioned above: the regime’s stated objective of achieving equality (“good intentions”), which is related to the confiscation of property.
It amazes me that these things make many people defend the regime’s tyranny and wrecking of the Cuban economy.
According to wikipedia, 4.3% of imports are from the U.S., although that may be the food and medicine that is allowed. Is there anything Cubans can’t buy because of the embargo? And what’s stopping a foreign company from buying U.S. goods and selling them to Cuba?
“The alternative explanation is that the US embargo was the cause.” – Allan
I find it difficult to understand how refusal to trade by one country (while others continued to be willing to trade) should be able to destroy an entire economy which would otherwise have flourished, particularly when the country itself refuses tourism and markets as part of the plan to flourish.
Are you seriously arguing that Castro’s refusal to allow tourism and markets would not have destroyed the economy, if only one additional country would have been willing to trade with him?
You know, I hate Castro, and I hate lefties, and all that. But Delong’s tone in the post linked above, and in many other places, is immature and snotty. Snide remarks and selective quoting will not aid in anybody’s understanding of the issue.
Indeed, the reason I like you, Tyler, so much, is your consistently respectful and dispassionate commentary, disagree with it as I do at times, which Delong is hard-pressed to match.
Policy towards Cuba is just a glaring example of our crazy policymakers, with apologies to those suffering from psychological disorders.
We hate a government, and as always, we take it out on their people. We know communism will fail or convert to capitalism once we stop martyring it’s people, and yet we stay irrationally committed to barbarous trade sanctions, making sure to punish Americans who try to visit or do business with Cubans. Of course Cuba’s government hurts its people, but why do we punish them for it?
In the Coase Posner blog they explain what is wrong with the UN index. By the way the index is based on government provided information .Like the argentinain one that fired the head of the statistic office for reporting the true inflation or cChina that years ago did more or less the same, they were shot down, for reporting the famine
Feedom trump every other thing.Cuban are alleged well educated and healthy SLAVES
I have never been to Cuba, so am in no position to respond to Tyler’s question.
I have seen some pretty bad poverty in lots of places in Latin America, however.
So far, only one person here has definitely stated that they have been to Cuba,
Aaron Fix, who says that Tyler is wrong in his comparison of Northern Mexico
with Cuba. Maquechoix implies that he has done what he says others should do,
and appears to say that things are bad in Cuba, although he does not make direct
comparisons with Honduras or Dominican Republic as Tyler suggests.
Which does raise for me Noumenon’s question. Tyler, have you been to both
Cuba and DR yourself and made the comparison? If so, fine.
As for all the people who have not been there but are ranting about how terrible
it is, you are not much better than the people praising it who have not been
there either (and, yes, I am aware of a lot of bad things there that one does
not need to visit to know of, especially the lack of democracy and civil rights,
so please skip the lectures on that stuff; we have already seen them here).
With respect to the comments above on Cuban healthcare: in December American turncoat Philip Agee entered a Havana hospital for treatment of an ulcer, which conceivably included surgery. In early January Agee dies of peritonitis. Now, if a celebrity like Agee dies of a disease we typically associate with a botched medical procedure (and if the cause was the ulcer should have a >90% recovery rate) how complete is the healthcare being received by the typical Cuban worker?
“Is there anything Cubans can’t buy because of the embargo? And what’s stopping a foreign company from buying U.S. goods and selling them to Cuba?”
I missed part of this when I cut & pasted: One other thing, please don’t give me the US trade embargo crap; the entire rest of the world is free to trade anything & everything and does trade with Cuba.
I should also point out that Castro pretty much kept foreigners out of until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Missing the subsidy of several billions from the Soviets and needing hard currency policies changed and tourists have been welcomed and catered to ever since.
Yeah, there may be lots of dentists in Cuba, but before you go to one make sure he has something to give you for pain or a working X-ray machine or film. Well, actually that isn’t correct if you stay at a major hotel you can find a dentist that has all of the above. If you are a Cuban good luck!
macquechoux,
Oh, and over on brad delong someone named Chris Brown claims to live in a well-off Mexican
city and visit Cuba regularly. He says one does not see people with bad or missing teeth in
Cuba very much, especially in contrast with what one sees in the city he lives in in Mexico.
So, maybe the problems you cite about dentists lacking equipment and so on are not such a big
deal, or no worse than what one finds in other Latin American countries.
Of course this Chris Brown may just be another lying comsymp, especially since he admits to
having visited Cuba regularly. Obviously all the people commenting here who have never been
away from tapping on their laptop in a Starbucks know better, although we have been given to
believe that you have made that puddle jumper trip from Jamaica to ascertain the true facts…
find it difficult to understand how refusal to trade by one country (while others continued to be willing to trade) should be able to destroy an entire economy which would otherwise have flourished, particularly when the country itself refuses tourism and markets as part of the plan to flourish. http://dating-bride.com
How can you discuss Cuba while ignoring the race dimension ? Cuba under Battista was a fairly segregated society de facto – whites controlled most of the wealth and were well educated, blacks worked on the plantations and were illiterate. Absent the revolution, Cuba would probably look a lot like Brazil. There is no question that the revolution was a disaster for the middle class, but on the whole it could be argued it did provide benefits for the poor black population – access to better education, housing and healthcare far more quickly than would have been the case on a normal development path. If Castro could have liberalized the economy in the 1980s and tapped into the potential of the new educated young population he had created, he might be viewed today net-net as a success. As it is, the last 20 years have squandered most of that potential. Still, how many poor Cubans would really trade places even today with a poor Dominican or a poor Jamaican? Physical safety must count for something when comparing balance sheets.
Maquechoux,
Your observations are interesting and thoughtful. Again, I have never been to Cuba,
although I have been to other parts of Latin America. I watch a lot of numbers
pretty closely, and I am well aware that communist dictatorships have been known to
misrepresent their data.
This may still be going on, but if the numbers are at all believable, it is probably
not true anymore that things are goin downhill in Cuba. The reported GDP numbers had
them in sharp decline for several years after the fall of the Soviet Union. Then they
stabilized at near the average Latin American growth rate of around 2.5%, not great but
not decline either. In the last few years that rate has gone up sharply, over 7% most
recently, although arguably that has been at least partly due to subsidies from Venezuela.
One thing I find curious about this debate is how anyone can defend the embargo by the US against Cuba. We trade with China and plenty of other countries that are at least as politically bad as Cuba. Of course we all understand the politics here, but can anyone deny that our embargo has provided Castro with his biggest excuse for not democratizing that anyone could give him?
“If Castro could have liberalized the economy in the 1980s and tapped into the potential of the new educated young population he had created, he might be viewed today net-net as a success. As it is, the last 20 years have squandered most of that potential.”
Yes, and if my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a trolley car. Counterfactuals like this are worthless. Castro could not have liberalized and kept his job. There was a lot of enthusiasm for the revolution at the beginning (among those who didn’t flee) but after 30 yrs that was all lost.
My older brother lives in Mexico and speaks fluent Spanish. He and his wife travelled to Cuba in November. He found conditions to be much worse than the poorest parts of Mexico that he’d seen. The people are scratching along and live in fear of saying the wrong thing to the wrong people. I’ve had a long time dream of going to Cuba. He told me not to bother.
—It’s difficult not to argue that a good amount of the poverty in Cuba today is due to the trade embargo with the US.–
What equine fecal material! As a good communist dictator, Fidel drove the Cuban economy into the ground. For the entire 50 years, he could trade with the whole wide world. He had decades of cash support from the USSR (Hey! what happened to that communist country anyway?). And he had lefty tourists from the globe (and the US — admit it!) visiting and spending hard money –and still could only give his citizens 5 pounds of rice and 10 oz of beans per month — and chicken parts.
Finance munk – learn the very clear lesson! Communism fails! It fails! All the poor subjects of communism are equal- equally destitute and miserabel. Ask the starving North Koreans!
—-How can you discuss Cuba while ignoring the race dimension ? Cuba under Battista was a fairly segregated society de facto – whites controlled most of the wealth and were well educated, blacks worked on the plantations and were illiterate.
And yet…….Ruben Fulgencio Batista ZaldÃvar was born in Cuba’s Oriente Province on January 16 1901. His parents, who lived and worked in a sugar plantation, were said to be of mixed race; Negro, white, Indian, and (it was popularly believed) Chinese. Perhaps it was racism that led to Castro being worshiped by the lefty journalists of the day — he was the white savior?
All you Castro worshipping lefties should also have to explain away this..
NEW YORK (Reuters) — Cuban President Fidel Castro was furious when Forbes magazine estimated his fortune at $550 million last year. This year, the magazine upped its estimate of the communist leader’s wealth to a cool $900 million.
Castro, who says his net worth is nil, is likely the beneficiary of up to $900 million, based on his control of state-owned companies, the U.S. financial magazine said in its annual tally of “Kings, Queens & Dictators” fortunes Thursday.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/2006-05-04-castro_x.htm
What a hero! He meant to do so much for his people!!!! Oooohhhhh
Talking about GNP is swell, but doesn’t at all address the distribution of wealth. Carlos Slim is the richest person in the world, yet millions of Mexicans live in abject poverty.
GNP is hardly a measure of the general well being of folks. Die and the GNP goes up, come down with terminal cancer and the GNP rises, wreck your car and the GNP rises, and etc.
The only countries in Latin American and the Caribbean which lead Cuba in the “Human Development Index”, according to the United Nations Development Program’s “Human Development Report 2007/2008″, are Barbados (#31 in the world), Chile (#40), Uruguay (#46), Costa Rica (#48), and the Bahamas (#49). Cuba is at #51 and Mexico is at #52.
For comparisons, Brazil ranks #70, the Dominican Republic is at #79, Venezuela at #74, Grenada #82, Paraguay #95, and Honduras #115.
Enrique,
“…I wonder if the Cubans would be better off with a Chinese-style gov’t: that is, a political dictatorship that allowed foreign investment…”
Obviously you are unaware of the fact that there has been substantial foreign investment in Cuba since the “Special Period”, particularly by Spanish, Italian, Canadian concerns. Cuban enterprises may be owned 49% by foreign concerns when such ownership is approved by the Cuban government.
It’s always good to have a bit of knowledge of which one opines.
John Thacker and anyone else making the “per capita income” argument. Get real. The statistic means nothing, except that there are some really rich people in the country.
Carlos Slim is the richest person in the world, worth $49 billion last I checked, and yet there are millions of Mexicans living in abject poverty.
I’ll take the UN’s or WHO’s word over Mr. Cowen’s any day. Anyone who suggests, such as Cowen has, that the UN and WHO base their index ranking upon information only submitted by the countries ranked is an ideologue pushing a point of view or really misinformed.
All these posters who defend Caudillo Fidel should move to Cuba and then see how they could connect to the Internet and defend Caudillo Fidel. According to World Bank Development Indicators, Cuba ranked last in Latin America and 171st out of 210 countries in Internet access/1,000 inhabitants. Lack of “consumption” is a great spiritual value, as long as defenders of Caudillo Fidel have THEIR consumption.
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