Since the announcement of the retirement of Fidel Castro as Cuban president, there have been a series of postings and perfervid threads on both Brad Delong and Marginal Revolution, going on about what terrible shape the Cuban economy supposedly is in, along with denunciations of the political repression carried out by Fidel (I am in agreement with most of those latter denunciations). I have not visited Cuba myself, but there has been much debate, both over the varying published figures, and also among people who claim to have visited Cuba (which includes MR's Tyler Cowen, but does not appear to include Brad DeLong, whose arguments have seemed especially off the wall and out of line with most reports). Even the critics grant at least some quality of education and health care, although they often claim the official stats are inaccruately positive and that the health care system is deteriorating.
Among the matters of debate has been the effect of the US economic embargo on Cuba. Many state it is huge; others say it is not and bring up the past subsidies from the USSR and current ones from Venezuela. I do not intend to adjudicate that or any of the other issues here. Rather I wish to comment on a particularly hypocritical collection of views that some of the more inflamed commentators have put forward. So, we see people who a) strongly support free trade, b) strongly support keeping the embargo in place, c) strongly argue that the embargo has no (or few) negative effects on the Cuban economy, and d) never notice that the political repression that they (and I) are unhappy about has for nearly a half a century received its strongest propagandistic justification from the fact that this embargo has been in place for all this time, even as the US trades with the likes of China and Vietnam.
12 comments:
Brad De Long is always vicious against anyone on the left (e.g., s on Paul /Sweezy's death, whereas the NYT was respectful); in fact, he becomes imbalanced.
With all the bull shit that goes on in the world, with all the penny ante dictators that our government has been all too happy to support over the past 60 years and more, given our fawning over the wonders of manufacturing in China and its growth as an economic power while it is one of the most vile totalitarian regimes, what the hell is so bad about what goes on in Cuba? Yes, Castro is and has been all these many years a totalitarian ruler. So what's the big to do about that in this day and age? How is he different than our good buddies in Egypt, Pakistan, this astan and that astan? Is even half of the world democratically governed? But we don't like Castro. Sure, Fulgencio Batista was such a nice guy and the Cuban people were so well off during his "administration." I'd venture the guess that if relations with Cuba had been some what normal all these years we would have had a
far more significant effect on their system of government and their economy. That's one of the side effects of interaction. The participants influence one another. Basic psychology that our governments have been too stupid to understand.
I have been wondering what is so bad about Cuba, compared with most of the world's countries. I tend to trust the UN data on health and literacy, which make Cuba look good; and some international environmental organization -- the World Wildlife Fund? -- says Cuba is the world's only sustainable economy, which I find very interesting.
Things were definately bad there after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the loss of Soviet oil. Agriculture and transportation were badly hurt, and average caloric intake went down. However, there are now studies coming out that argue that Cuban health improved during this period, because people were eating less and exercising more. Something for us to look forward to, as oil peaks.
Brad DeLong gets really weird when he deals with anything or anyone to the left of him. In my opinion, he becomes irrational, and this is painful to watch in a guy who is a bright academic.
I did some Googling on "Cuban economy." The Cubans apparently see themselves as still recovering from the collapse of the USSR and the end of Soviet support; and there are still serious problems, per the articles I skimmed -- decay of infrastructure and lack of dairy products, due to inability to import animal feed.
I'm not sure how much difference the embargo makes now, after fifty years. It must have hurt a lot at first.
It's odd that free traders would support the embargo.
"It's odd that free traders would support the embargo."
eleanor, From that comment I suspect that you've misunderstood the concept of "free trade." Let me enlighten you. The most vociferous defender of free trade construes it to be defined as an economic policy that leaves him free to behave in any manner he deems suitable to reach his own selfish economic ends, or obtuse political strategy.
I have been to Cuba and I can tell you that a lot of good things were accomplished by the revolution and Castro. They were definitely hurt by the collapse of the Soviet Union and have had a hard time recovering from that. Unfortunately, their increasing reliance on tourism is undoing a lot of the good that was achieved, in terms of equality, both income and racial equality. The people themselves seem to be tiring of the system they live under and are hoping for change, but are very nervous about what will happen (and fearful of America and Cuban Americans). The US is keeping alive the hopes of the old Cuban elite and the United Fruit Co. that what they consider to be their property will be returned to them. I wonder what the US position will be if Cuba starts to open up. If they don't change their position, I don't see how there can be any real change. Going back to the old colonial system is completely unacceptable. How does the US govt expect anything to change if they insist that the UFC and Bacardi "own" most of the agricultural land in the country?
I agree, Barkley. During the embargo against Iraq, I do not recall half the animus free traders have for protectionism--as if involuntary autarky were profoundly different from voluntary autarky.
The term "free trade" is misleading. A more accurate term would be "corporate controlled trade." Policies which restrict the ability of people to get their views acted on by their elected representatives are anti-freedom. Rules which obstruct environmental, labor, and consumer activism are anti-freedom.
"Free trade" is plutocratic and authoritarian.
It is important to look beyond the corporate propaganda and see things for what they actually are.
Well, just to offer some contrast to the above commentators, personally I'm a free trader, and yes, I think the embargo was/is an idiotic policy. For both political and economic reasons as Barkley hints at.
Having grown up in a Cuba style socialist country, and seen first hand how things are organized in these - including what is shown and paraded around in front of visiting foreigners - I'm extremely skeptical of the whole 'well, I've been to Cuba and it looked ok to me' line of argument though. It's worth remembering that before the actual collapse of the Berlin Wall most people thought - based on "visiting" and UN statistics - that East Germany had somewhere between 60% and 80% of West German standard of living. Of course it was much lower than that in reality.
I am commenting from Italy right now.
yns,
Productivity in East Germany was in reality about 1\3 of West Germany. But quality of life in terms of life expectancy and infant mortality and so forth was not too far behind.
As you should well know, those measures and living standards and real GDPs collapsed in most of the former Soviet bloc after the fall of communism, and happiness levels also went down. Now, many of those countries have since bounced back and are doing better, especially those in Mitteleuropa. But portions of the former Soviet Union itself have still not gotten back to where they were before.
This is of course a warning suggested by some here. Details of how a transition would go in Cuba are very important, and it is quite possible that conditions will worsen for the majority of the population economically, at least in the short run, if things are not handled well, i.e. too much favoritism to the corrupt Miami gusano crowd.
Barkley
test
From David Horowitz' "From Yalta to Vietnam: American Foreign Policy in the Cold War" (Ch.12):
"Whan Castro came to power...Cuba was in the throes of a social disaster, the direct result of decades of corrupt tyrannical regimes under US tutelage. Six hundred thousand Cubans were unemployed, as many proportionally as were unemployed in the US during the great depresssion. Half the population did not have electricity, and three and a half million Cubans lived in huts, shacks and slums without sanitary facilities. In the cities, rents represented almost one third of family incomes. Almost 40 per cent of the population was illiterate; 100,000 persons suffered from tuberculosis and 95 per cent of the children in rural areas were affected by parasites. Only 1.5 per cent of the landowners controlled 46 per cent of the total area of the nation, while 85 per cent of the small farmers paid out almost a third of their incomes in rent".
Is this the sort of situation which "good relations" with the US would bring back to Cuba?
Post a Comment