Letter from Castro's Cuba
Nick Gillespie | June 6, 2007, 9:10am
Via Arts & Letters Daily comes this depressing report on Cuba from Bella Thomas in the British Prospect, who writes, "Those who must see Cuba before it "all gets washed away" by the Americans need not worry. The current impasse will outlast Fidel, and may outlast Raúl for a few years-to the great cost of the Cuban people, and the architecture and resources of this remarkable island."
[Cubans] are far poorer than their eastern European counterparts were in 1989: the average wage, at $20 a month, can barely feed a single person for a couple of weeks. You cannot spend any length of time in Havana without noticing the lack of food for the majority of Cubans. The mother of a friend, an old lady who lived in one tiny rotting room in a former brothel with her son, gets by selling matchboxes to her neighbours, having stolen them from the factory where she worked. Another acquaintance keeps pigs on her balcony and sells pork to a few locals. The luckier ones sell cigars or taxi rides to foreigners. An elite work in hotels.
When the Soviets pulled out, the government reluctantly turned to tourism to stave off bankruptcy. The business started in enclaves in a few prescribed zones, on the basis that foreign influences might be quarantined. But tourists were always going to be drawn to the city centres. And the presence of tourists has inevitably revealed to Cubans the depths of their poverty and repression. Tourism has enriched some Cubans and given others decent jobs, but it has also undermined the status of those in less lucrative but better qualified professions.
More here.
Our March cover story revealed "Fidel's Favorite Propagandist." In 2003, Damien Cave toured Cuba's disturbing gray market economy. Reason against the trade embargo, circa 2000.
joe | June 6, 2007, 10:28am | #
Ironchef,
That's not what the article says. It says that Cuba ranked higher in global rankings in 1957-58 than it does today. Which is to say, the European and east Asian countries that were still recovering from World War 2 fell behind Cuba briefly, and then re-emerged.
"Well, in 1958 Cuba had double Taiwan’s per capita income. Cuba had one much higher than Japan’s too, higher than Austria’s, than Italy’s – hell, higher than half of Europe’s"
"In fact, Cuba’s heath care has worsened relative to the rest of the world since 1958. To wit: Cuba’s infant mortality rate in 1957 was the lowest in Latin America and the 13th lowest in the world. This according to U.N statistics. Cuba ranked ahead of France, Belgium, West Germany, Israel, Japan, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal in this department."
See?
And the only reference to unionization is this: "In the 1950s Cuba’s workers were more unionized as a percentage of population than U.S. workers. Cuban labor got a higher percentage of the national GDP than Switzerland’s and France’s at the time." There is no comparison provided to contemporary Cuba.
In aboslute terms, the only figure provided that we can use for comparison is the 1958 literacy rate of 84%, which compares unfavorably with the modern rate of 99%.
Your argument needs to be about the rate of improvement being lower under Castro than it otherwise would have been, not that those measures have gotten worse in real terms. Otherwise, you end up making claims unsupported by the evidence, and undermine your position.
John | June 6, 2007, 4:29pm | #
There is nothing foolish about them Joe. You apparently just are smart enough to understand what I am saying.
1. the majority - the majority - of Cubans are willing to risk their lives to leave. "The bottom-line is that majority of Cubans are so poor they are willing to risk their lives to get off the island"
I don't write the newspapers Joe, I just read them. People risk their lives nearly every day to get off of that Island. The fact that people do and the fact that Castro rountinely sentences people to long prison terms for trying to leave puts lie to the old "but they have great healthcare and literacy" canard. Clearly, the healthcare isn't as good as it is made out to be or the place is so bad it doesn't matter or perhaps both. What is so hard about that for you to understand?
"the economic system in Cuba, as opposed to the political repression, explains the entirety of the desire to emigrate from there, "The bottom-line is that majority of Cubans are so poor they are willing to risk their lives to get off the island"
It doesn't explain all just most of it. If Cuba were a rich but oppressive country, a lot more people would be willing to stay or at least have enough to loose to make a prison sentence or death a deterrence. The average German wasn't trying to get out of Germany, even though the place was horribly oppressive. Of course oppression and poverty are tied together because one does contribute to the other. Again, I don't see what you find so hard to understand about that. Poverty clearly drives the migration. Oppression does to some degree but its mostly poverty.
a country 90 miles away from the United States, which is the subject of an American trade embargoe, can simply trade with the rest of the world, and make up the lost markets and suppliers without a major impact on its economy. "Cuba is free to trade with the rest of the world yet is still desparately poor. Given that, it is difficult to blame their poverty on the embargo or think that ending the embargo would end the regime. If Canadian and European captial won't end the regime, why will US captial do so?"
Again see my points above about poverty Joe. it is the communism that causes the poverty. If Cuba wasn't communist, it would be a lot less poor even if it still couldn't trade with the US.
I don't see what is so hard to understand about those things Joe. Maybe you are just not very bright.
