Let's Get Even More Depressed About Castro's Cuba: Hoisted from the Archives

Let't take the Wayback Machine back to 2003:

Let's Get Even More Depressed About Cuba: Archive Entry From Brad DeLong's Webjournal: Just because people begin their papers with quotes from Ludwig von Mises does not automatically mean that they are wrong: http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/asce/cuba8/30smith.pdf http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/asce/pdfs/volume12/perezlopez.pdf

The hideously depressing thing is that Cuba under Battista--Cuba in 1957--was a developed country. Cuba in 1957 had lower infant mortality than France, Belgium, West Germany, Israel, Japan, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Cuba in 1957 had doctors and nurses: as many doctors and nurses per capita as the Netherlands, and more than Britain or Finland. Cuba in 1957 had as many vehicles per capita as Uruguay, Italy, or Portugal. Cuba in 1957 had 45 TVs per 1000 people--fifth highest in the world. Cuba today has fewer telephones per capita than it had TVs in 1957.

You take a look at the standard Human Development Indicator variables--GDP per capita, infant mortality, education--and you try to throw together an HDI for Cuba in the late 1950s, and you come out in the range of Japan, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Israel. Today? Today the UN puts Cuba's HDI in the range of Lithuania, Trinidad, and Mexico. (And Carmelo Mesa-Lago thinks the UN's calculations are seriously flawed: that Cuba's right HDI peers today are places like China, Tunisia, Iran, and South Africa.)

Thus I don't understand lefties who talk about the achievements of the Cuban Revolution: "...to have better health care, housing, education, and general social relations than virtually all other comparably developed countries." Yes, Cuba today has a GDP per capita level roughly that of--is "comparably developed"--Bolivia or Honduras or Zimbabwe, but given where Cuba was in 1957 we ought to be talking about how it is as developed as Italy or Spain.

Comments

[Blueglasnost]

Needless to say, I completely concur with your analysis. But lefties are not that realistic these days... Of course, Cuba was far better off in 1957, for it had not suffered five decades of Communism as it has nowadays. Socialist economics, as History proved it before, always end up collapsing on account of restricted economic freedoms and lack of foreign investments or inflows of capital, Cuba is no different to my mind.

[anne]

"Of course, Cuba was far better off in 1957, for it had not suffered five decades of American sanctions as it has nowadays."

What really astonishes me is always forgetting about the collective punishment we have imposed on the Cuban people for the sake of hostility to the government. We are ever the punishers and ever bear no responsibility for punishing. Reminds me of our lack of responsibility for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths and millions of Iraqi homeless these lat 5 years. We are the never responsible punishers of millions for the sake of others' unfortunate governments.

Sort of like "we are the hollow men" or something. We are the punishers.

[Adrian]

As an incorrigible socialist, I wonder why some leftists, on the day after the revolution, abandon their commitment to freedom of speech, freedom of association, worker power and workplace democracy. I suppose that when progressives movements are demoralized and demobilized, they tend to look toward some imaginary utopia overseas. Cuba plays that role for some people.

[anne]

"Of course, Cuba was far better off in 1957, for it had not suffered five decades of American sanctions as it has nowadays."

What really astonishes me is always forgetting about the collective punishment we have imposed on the Cuban people for the sake of hostility to the government. We are ever the punishers and ever bear no responsibility for punishing. Reminds me of our lack of responsibility for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths and millions of Iraqi homeless these lat 5 years. We are the never responsible punishers of millions for the sake of others' unfortunate governments.

Sort of like "we are the hollow men" or something. We are the punishers.

[bacon]

> Just because people begin their papers with quotes from Ludwig von Mises does not automatically mean that they are wrong

No, it means that they are writing propaganda piece. You might as well stop reading at

We suspect, however, that in other areas, Cuba’s government-run schools fall short because of the strong ideological content present in the
instruction and the lack of alternatives available to parents. The Cuban government forbids religious or private schools. Pope John Paul II, during his first mass in Cuba in January, strongly criticized the Cuban
state’s “substitution of the role of parents” in education.

There is no "suspect" in scientific article. And reference to Pope's mass is a scientific authority only for card-carrying members of Opus Dei.

Why are you citing propaganda? No real scientific research to support your point?

[anne]

http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/784/

1925

The Hollow Men
T. S. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

[Martin]

While your basic point is clearly correct, I will raise a quibble/question. I vaguely recall reading on this blog (or on your website before the blog) years ago a post about how in the early 20th century a lot of Latin America was economically in the same ballpark as much of Europe, but that there has been huge divergence since World War II. If my recollection is correct, how does this affect comparisons between a hypothetical non-communist 2007 Cuba and countries such as Spain or Italy?

[anne]

"As an incorrigible socialist, I wonder why some leftists...."

Incorrigible deception.... Duh.

[Roger Albin]

A consistent weakness of this type of argument is the focus on economics and GDP. What if Castro's Cuba had achieved a high level of GDP and economic development? What if these numbers were comparable to those of Italy? Would that somehow mitigate the crimes of the Castro regime? The answer is obvious.

There are also problems with the comparators. Portugal was a country whose government deliberately avoided economic development to buttress its traditionalist, authoritarian regime. Spain in 1958 was still suffering from the Civil War and Franco's crackpot autarkic schemes. Remember, this is the country that received economic aid from Argentina in the early 50s. Japan and Italy were nations just beginning to recover from the devastation of WWII. Ireland was a desperately poor, agrarian country. Declaring 1958 Cuba to be on par with these countries isn't saying a lot.

[Bruce Webb]

http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/batista.htm

"On March 27 Batista's government was formally recognized by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Shortly after this recognition, Batista declared that, although he was completely loyal to Cuba's constitution of 1940, constitutional guarantees would have to be temporarily suspended, as well as the right to strike. In April, writes Hugh Thomas in The Cuban Revolution, "Batista proclaimed a new constitutional code of 275 articles, claiming that the 'democratic and progressive essence' of the 1940 Constitution was preserved in the new law."

Batista opened the way for large-scale gambling in Havana, and he reorganized the Cuban state so that he and his political appointees could harvest the nation's riches. He announced that his government would match, dollar for dollar, any hotel investment over $1 million, which would include a casino license, and Lansky became the center of the entire Cuban gambling operation.

Under Batista, Cuba became profitable for American business and organized crime. Havana became the "Latin Las Vegas," a playground of choice for wealthy gamblers, and very little was said about democracy, or the rights of the average Cuban. Opposition was swiftly and violently crushed, and many began to fear the new government.

(snip)
Having easily defeated the rebellion, and with Castro and most of the others in jail or dead, business was back to normal in Cuba. Mafia boss Meyer Lansky turned Havana into an international drug port, and Cuban officials continued to get rich even after a few years in government. Nightly, the "bagman" for Batista's wife collected 10 percent of the profits at Trafficante's casinos; the Sans Souci, and the casinos in the hotels Sevilla-Biltmore, Commodoro, Deauville and Capri. Batista's take from the Lansky casinos, the Hotel Nacional, the Montmartre Club and others, is said to be 30 percent. That was aside from his fair share of Cuba's general funds that should have been going to education, public health and city maintenance.

For a price, Batista handed contracts to dozens of U.S. corporations for massive construction projects, such as the Havana-Varadero highway, the Rancho Boyeros airport, train lines, the power company and a strange plan to dig a canal across Cuba."

(snip)
By late 1955 student riots and anti-Batista demonstration had become frequent. These were dealt with in the violent manner his military police had come to represent. Students attempting to march from the University of Havana were stopped and beaten by the police, and student leader José A. Echeverría had to be hospitalized. Another popular student leader was killed on December 10, leading to a funeral that became a gigantic political protest with a 5-minute nationwide work stoppage.

Instead of loosening his grip, Batista suspended constitutional guarantees and established tighter censorship of the media. His military police would patrol the streets and pick up anyone suspected of insurrection. By the end of 1955 they had grown more prone to violent acts of brutality and torture, with no fear of legal repercussions."

But by God they had cars. Whatever your view of Cuba prior to 1952 (and Batista was ruling things behind the scenes then) between 1952 and 1959 he had transformed Cuba into a totally currupt narco-state backed by a secret police apparatus every bit as feared as anything Castro had. Trying to reduce the Cuban Revolution to a handful of economic metrics is simply to ignore the entire history of US relations with the Caribbean and Central America where every right wing dictator however vicious was considered a friend of the US as long he didn't interfere with the economic interests of United Fruit or Alcoa.

Lots of countries made substantial advances under fascist regimes, until you take that income per capita measure and see how it translates into land ownership and income levels among rural, minority and indigenous populations. Typically the gradient is more than steep. Pointing out that your standard fascist regime tends to have a thriving upper middle class with lifestyles fully equivalent of those in the United States is to gloss over some of the historical reality. Chile under Pinochet was quite advanced, and not just in the art of tossing dissidents out the doors of airplanes.

Batista was a brutal dictator taking Cuba down a pretty dark path. We can quarrel endlessly about the scope of the viciousness as between Batista and Castro, but it is not like Castro took the equivalent of Switzerland and turned it into a police state. Cuba already was a police state, with the added attraction of having its economy largely dominated by the American Mob.

[Craig Nelson]

The effect of trade sanctions is not well discussed. When it's stated in a previous post that Cuba should have developed like northern Mexico, how can miles of maquiladoras huddled on the US border be ignored?

Jon Swift does a better job in "Castro Resigns! Sanctions Effective!".

http://jonswift.blogspot.com/

[harold]

I have a Cuban friend whose parents were forcibly separated by Castro for 20 years until their death and who has every reason to hate him. (My friend's mother was not allowed to leave Cuba to join the father in the US, on pain of dire consequences for her sister and other relatives left behind in Cuba.) Nevertheless, my friend, now seventy, agrees with Bruce Webb's assessment above and puts the blame for Castro's existence squarely on the USA's blind support of Batista's brutal repression of demonstrators and other crimes.

[harold]

Is Mr. Delong really so blinded by ideology that he does not realize how dishonest this argument is?

"Cuba in 1957 had as many vehicles per capita as Uruguay, Italy, or Portugal."

I was in Italy in 1956 and saw plenty of people there without shoes or gloves in the winter -- and it was cold in winter. I was 11 and I gave my own gloves away, feeling guilty because I realized there were people who were less insistent about asking for them who perhaps needed them even more than the young person I gave them to. The economic miracle had yet to happen and people were literally begging. I imagine Uruguay and Portugal were worse.

[Chris Brown]

Assuming the accuracy of the per capita statistics offered, I suspect there is a great difference between then and now in the distribution of such across the population.

The doctors, telephones, cars benefited the urban, upper income population while the rural, poor, largely of African extraction, did not enjoy the benefits of such.

[RW]

Sin Batista no hay Fidel.

[aeolius]

Er...
Am I the only one to remember the attempt by Castro to put atomic missiles into Cuba? It appears to me that the embargo was a substitute for a more direct military action following that threat. The latter was part of the Kennedy-Khrushchev agreement.
Although I do not agree with all of the terms of the embargo that was dictated by the ultra-right Miami Cuban crowd, a nation certainly has a right to embargo its goods as it chooses. And inviting the USSR to use Cuba as a A-missile site seems reasonable grounds for such an embargo

[John Quiggin]

This kind of deterioration was far from unique in Latin America. Argentina looked even better on many measures. And while Uruguay is mentioned in the post as being comparable with Italy in 1957, I don't think that comparison would stand up today.

Of course, "no worse than lots of other Latin American dictatorships, maybe including Batista" is not exactly an inspiring epitaph.

[urban legend]

It's kinda sad when you can't even set up a strawman argument that isn't undermined by a fundamental omission. What's the real agenda here?

[Measure for Measure]

Is harold really so blinded by ideology that he can't see how odd his argument is?

Taking him at his word, Italy and Cuba were both poor countries in 1957. Now Italy is rich while Cuba remains poor. Perhaps that may have something to do with Cuba's failed development policies.

I am heartened however, by some of the poster's praise of free trade on this page. I agree that the US should have ended its embargo in 1990. But I'll note that access to the Canadian and European markets didn't help Cuba all that much, given their centrally-directed economic policies.

[kusaka]

The story of collapse of Cuban economy is simply a story of sugar and oil. For example, see http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu/FACTS_Web/Cuba%20Facts%20Issue%2015%20July%202005.htm .

1954 Cuban exports are about 75% sugar, in 2004 (30% lower in absolute terms) they are about 15% sugar. 1954 Cuban imports are about 7% oil, in 2004 (increased by a half in absolute terms) - 20% oil. Food by the way was 15% in 1954 and 20% in 2004. Cuban exports in 1954 went mostly (about 70%) to US, obviously none goes into US in 2004.

The story from that is absolutely clear: Cuba was having it good by selling its sugar and to a lesser extent tobacco to US (under the infamous sugar quota system). Cuba misbehaved so US stopped buying it. Than Cuba struggled until raising oil prices dealt it a death blow. Now it basically lives on Venezuelan credits.

Of course, it was Castro's fault to annoy his main trading partner and creditor. However claiming that US embargo had limited effect is just facetious, nor can we extrapolate number of cars or telephones in Cuba in 1954 into 2004 - mono culture exporters can have it good for a while but it has nothing to do with long-term trends.

[Barkley Rosser]

Well, for starters, let me be clear that I do not and never have supported the dictatorial aspects of Castro's regime, nor his getting nuclear weapons, nor his use of command central planning. That said, Brad has really gotten himself way off on his economic analysis.

For one thing, it is not accurate to lump Cuba with Bolivia and Honduras in per capita income. Brad, did you not look at the numbers I posted before? Cuba is well ahead of Honduras and even your lovely Dominican Republic in real per capita income, according to the US State Department. It is much closer to, if a bit behind, Costa Rica.

So, in 1957 only Argentina and Venezuela were ahead of Cuba in real per capita income, and they were its relevant comparison group on socio-economic indicators. Yes, they are ahead of Cuba in real per capita income now, but they are both well behind Cuba in health and life indicators.

So, today

Life expectancy, 2007
Cuba 77.8
Argentina 76.3
Venezuela 73.3
(US 78.0
Puerto Rico 78.5)

Infant mortality 2007 (from CIA World Factbook)
Cuba 6.04
Argentina 14.29
Venezuela 22.52
(US 6.37
Puerto Rico 7.81)

So, Brad, please. Cuba is doing much better on some of
these things now than these countries it was supposedly
comparable to back in 1957.

An anti-Castro article by A.R. Cora, "Cuba: The Unnecessary
Revolution," http://www.neoliberalismo.com, repeats a lot of
the stuff about phones and cars you cited in your posting. It
also notes a huge urban-rural disparity in incomes, with only
7% of rural homes having electricity, and about a third of the
labor force overall unemployed.

Really, Brad, you can do better than this. Yes, I agree that
Cuba might have done better with a really well-managed social
democratic policy properly done. But, as we can see, nowhere
else in Latin America has done it either (and, please, do not
drag up Chile. Life expectancy there 76.96 and infant mortality
at 8.36, also worse than Cuba).

[senderista]

If the effect of American sanctions on Cuba's economic and quality-of life indicators cannot be ignored, neither can the effect of Soviet subsidies.

[senderista]

If the effect of American sanctions on Cuba's economic and quality-of life indicators cannot be ignored, neither can the effect of Soviet subsidies.

[Nu]

"But, as we can see, nowhere
else in Latin America has done it either (and, please, do not
drag up Chile. Life expectancy there 76.96 and infant mortality
at 8.36, also worse than Cuba)."

1. Costa Rica
2. Is "worse" really the word you want to use about the difference in Life Expectancy between Chile and Cuba ?

[Harold]

Measure for Measure,

You are the one who is blind.

Brad, in comparing pre-Castro Cuba to Portugal and Italy was not arguing that it was poor but that it was well off! I.E. that black is white and up is down.

It is an instance example of someone in the grip of dogma -- what Marx called "the fetish [religion] of capitalism." (Though from my point of view Marxism is likewise form of metaphysics.). I agree that had Cuba adopted laissez-faire capitalism it might have become like Andorra, a shoppers' paradise, but what of it?

[Barkley Rosser]

NJ,
Your head is located where? Chile has lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality (more babies dying) than Cuba. That is worse. Or do you not know what the numbers mean?

I focused on Argentina and Venezuela because Brad put them forward as the countries that Cuba was in a class with in 1957 and which it is supposedly way behind today. So, yes, Cuba is behind them real per capita income but is actually better than both of them on both life expectancy and infant mortality, substantially so on this latter stat.

In my comment on Brad's absurd "Gusanos" post, I listed the real per capita income data for Cuba and Costa Rica, the former at $4100 and the latter at $4590. CR is ahead, but they are close. In contrast, Honduras is at $1190 and the Dominican Republic is at $2370. These are the countries that for some incomprehensible reason Brad has been arguing that Cuba is in the same category with economically . I have no idea why a normally intelligent guy like him is suggesting such ridiculous nonsense.

Oh yes, and Costa Rica is also behind Cuba in both life expectancy at 75.8 and infant mortality at 9.25. So, NJ, just what is your point?

BTW, I cannot help but note the bizarre posting and commentary over on marginal revolution by the usually astute Tyler Cowen, also apparently losing his cool over this retirement of the definitely dictatorial Fidel Castro. He made a post arguing that people should travel to Cuba and the Dominican Republic and compare them on the ground. He never actually said that he has done this. In the end, not a single person stepped forward to say that they had. OTOH, we have now seen people here claiming that the poor in various other Latin American countries are noticeably worse off than in Cuba. I have not been in Cuba, so I do not know, but this whole business has come off as pretty silly, although lots of commentators on MR are convinced that all those nice health and life expectancy stats on Cuba must be lies or errors.

Brad, couldn't you just stick to criticizing Fidel for his repression and dictatorial tendencies without cooking up what is increasingly at best a half-baked story about Cuba's economy, especially given the continuing absence of any criticism from you of the assinine embargo by the US?

[DisAgree]

If Italy and Spain had been under embargo since 1962 with most of Europe, and limited to trading with Africa, Scandinavia, and Russia, then Professor DeLong's comparison with Cuba would have been fair.

[vt codger]

I'm not sure that faulting Cuba for not looking exactly like the US is entirely rational. And overall, Cuba has not done that badly under Castro. Where they have done well -- medical care and education -- they have done quite well and without a lot of resources. OTOH, I seems that they do not have all that much to show overall for the most recent 50 years of their ongoing dictatorship. What I think is more telling is that of all the countries that experimented with socialist command economies, only Cuba, Vietnam, China, and Tito's Yugoslavia seem to have had any positive results at all. Capitalism has a spotty record -- especially in Latin America and Africa which are paved with the wreckage of failed capitalist as well as failed socialist states. But at least it has some success stories. My question is whether there is some viable alternative to command economies run by unpleasant idealogues, and capitalist economies run by amazingly incompetent elites and their questionably responsible corporations? Surely there must be other paths.

[Nu]

On life expectancy the World Bank says Cuba: 76, Costa Rica 79, Chile 78. CIA World FactBook disagrees and says: Costa Rica: 77.21, Cuba 77.08 and Chile 76.96. I bet there are some difference stats out there but I doubt "worse" or "better" applies.
There is a noticeable difference in child mortality, I'll give that one to you. But GDP ? Most don't even have data for Cuba and when they do, the closest it gets is 50% more for Costa Rica.

[PeonInChief]

Ferhevensake, at least compare apples with apples here. Cuba's infant mortality was estimated in 1958--70% of the population was rural and there would have been no count of infant mortality there. After the revolution Cuba's infant mortality was counted, which means that the number was accurate.

We know this from the experience of Nicaragua, where they discovered, in the mid-1980s, that rural infant mortality was underestimated by 50%.

[James Killus]

When I first encountered the Cuban infant mortality statistics (quite a while ago, when there was an even greater difference from other parts of Latin America than there is now), I noticed that practically every scholarly work on the matter first began with a paragraph or two stipulating that Castro was, indeed, a Very Bad Person, a dictator even, who crushed Democracy or whatever. I wondered a little at the boilerplate, but suspected that I knew the reason for it.

The exchange here has largely confirmed my suspicions. One does not need to be a "lefty" to notice a trout in the milk.

[PeonInChief]

I am always amazed that people do not read the disclaimer on the WHO infant mortality statistics, that is, the statistics reported by a particular country may not be the same as those reported by the WHO because the WHO resolves differences in the countries' reporting systems to determine comparable figures. There's an entire cottage industry in Cuban infant mortality statistics criticism that (a) hasn't read the three lines and/or (b) assumes that no one else has read them.

[Harold]

Extremes of inequality and rigid social hierarchies are stressful and unhealthy no matter whether they occur in a "capitalist" or socialist economy.

[Monte Davis]

JamesK: to describe the characterization of Castro as a dictator as "boilerplate" is not to falsify or vitiate it. I repeat the question I asked before:

"Can you name any other nation, any other configuration of 20th-century history, in which anyone -- left, right, or middle -- would have much to say in defense of ONE MAN being head of state, party leader, chief minister, and commander-in-chief for FORTY-NINE FRICKING YEARS?"

Or if that's too hard, please offer a non-question-begging completion of:

"To have one man as head of state, party leader, chief minister, and commander-in-chief for 49 years was the only way to achieve [desirable egalitarian ends]
[solidarity against US pressure] [any other good thing you'd like to say about Cuba since 1959] because --- "

It's entirely possible to be sympathetic with the revolution, to believe the Bay of Pigs was stupid and the embargo is stupid, to regret the role of emigres in decades of Florida and DC politics (all of which I do) -- and still recognize a dictator as a dictator.

My newspaper prints the "boilerplate" times of sunrise and sunset every day... eppur si muove.

[ogmb]

Castro's regime was corrupt, incompetent, criminal and uncondonable. But to perpetuate the meme that "under Batista things weren't that bad" is essentially crap.

[beckya57]

Count me as a bit skeptical here. I'm no fan of Castro, but I question some of these assumptions, based on what my father told me about his trip to Cuba in 1956. (My father was a professor of Spanish and understood Hispanic culture very well.) The part I remember best was his account of walking across the public square in Havana at 7 am to get breakfast. He said he was accosted by 3 different prostitutes on that walk. That didn't impress him as a society in which people were doing well, and I have much the same reaction. Obviously there were a lot of people who weren't happy with Batista, or Castro wouldn't have gotten any support. There's no question that Castro was a bad leader, that Communism doesn't provide a good model for running a government, or that our policy towards Cuba has been insane and has had the dreadful effect of greatly increasing Castro's grip on the country. I'm just questioning whether 1957 Cuba was really that great a place to live for many of its people.

[John]

Let's not forget the impact of the discovery of corn syrup as a sweetener substitute for cane sugar in the late 1960s. It revolutionized a good chunk of American agriculture and hugely decreased worldwide demand for cane sugar, which doesn't grow all over the world (unlike corn). It was partially brought about by all the research that was going in to finding a substitute for cane sugar - highly desirable, due to the embargo on same being imported from Cuba. Thus, typical "embargoes don't matter" arguments don't entirely apply; by far Cuba's main export, sugar cane was very hard hit by the mid 70's. And with the US ban on travel, countries like Costa Rica, Mexico, etc. got to benefit from a whole lot of US tourism dollars, which Cuba never had access to - and the typical embargoes don't matter argument doesn't apply to tourism, either. Similarly with offshore manufacturing from the US as happens in Puerto Rico today - banned by the US government, not by Castro.

Economically, Cuba had it very rough as a result of the travel embargo and the corn syrup double whammies. Spain, Costa Rica, etc., did not.

Let's see some medians on those income and education figures pre- and post-1960, instead of "Batista walked into the bar and the average income went up to $40Million" means.

The argument that Castro was a "bad person" and the proof is that Spain's GDP went up more than Cuba's really seems bizarre to me. Let's agree that he was a bad person, but the economics are not nearly so clear. Sure, they would have been better off to some unknown degree under a more market economy - but they would have been better off with 50 years of US tourism and offshore manufacturing too, and if corn syrup had never been invented.

[PeonInChief]

That's just what the WHO does adjust for! The big problem with the WHO statistics is, in fact, the problem with countries that estimate their infant mortality. It's usually seriously underestimated.

And before using the CIA Factbook for Cuban statistics, please compare statistics on Cuba from the Factbook with the UN statistics. (We don't have the UN statistics for 2006 yet, which is unusual. They're usually published in September.)

[Barkley Rosser]

Nu,

Yes, there are considerable variations in data on GDP for Cuba. I provided numbers from the US State Department. North Korea is a communist dictatorship in which people are starving to death. China is one that has one of the highest GDP growth rates in the world and lends the US money. Cuba is somewhere in between.

Most recent sources have put the Cuba's GDP growth rate at about the average of Latin America for most of the past decade, except for the last few years when it has been receiving subsidies from Venezuela and the rate has been well above that average.

frankcross,

Yes, there are variations the life expectancy and infant mortality stats based on different assumptions. That is why I did not prior to this point repeat the claim from some recent sources that Cuba has the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America. Too much fuzziness in there. However, even making adjustments it easily beats Argentina and Venezuela, countries that Brad thinks it was in the same league as back in the 1950s, but is now pathetically behind.

Brad,

I fully agree that Castro should have loosened up and gone democratic a long time ago. I also agree that it is unclear exactly what the impact of the US embargo has been as balanced off against the Soviet subsidies. But, I think it is absolutely and unequivocally clear that Castro has used the embargo as an excuse not to move to democracy ever since it has been in place, which has been pretty much since shortly after he took power. How can you get all worked up denouncing Castro as a dictator without also denouncing the embargo he has used as an excuse to stay in power, please?

[anne]

Fidel Castro is a bad person, a very bad person, and because Castro is a bad person we have been punishing the rest of the Cuban people (even the good ones) for 50 years. We are the punishers. We destroyed Fallujah to save Fallujah, but Fallujah was still and is still destroyed with the lives of many of what were 250,000 and more residents. We are the punishers.

[anne]

We have been punishing Iraqis (even the good ones) for 5 years, and we just cannot stop punishing people (even the good ones) because that is what we do. We punish thousand or hundreds of thousands (even the good ones) for the sake of a bad person. So we launched more than 1,400 bombing raids in iraq last year, because we are the punishers and we must punish Iraqis (even the good ones) for the sake of a bad person (even though the person is dead, I think).

[anne]

I remember Arlo Guthrie jumping around yelling kill kill kill kill to show that he was fit for Vietnam, or was it unfit? We punished Vietnam too (even the good persons), because of a bad person, but I forget just who that was. We are the punishers. We punish Cubans for 50 years (even the good ones) and never have a moment's care. Iraq means nothing to us. Now let us look for Iraqi nuclear bombs.

[anne]

If I were Canadian, I would even now be going to Cuba to find a Cuban child to beat up just to show that I too could be an American (even though I really am). I wish I were a pretend Cuban child beating American, * just to punish Fidel Castro as the bounder deserves.

* No children were harmed during the writing of this comment, but there intent was there.

[anne]

Americans are the perfect punishers, always beyond remembering and where there is no memory there is no conscience (that's Darwin, Charles Darwin not Darwin Australia). We are the punishers, even now punishing Iraqis for being Iraqi (even the good ones). How many Iraqis (even the good ones) have we punished by invading and occupying Iraq because of a bad person? How many hundreds of thousands needlessly dead, how many millions needlessly homeless? But, we have learned nothing (especially becuase we have surged to victory) and we will continue punishing Cuban children till the bad person (no relation to the children) dies and every relative in turn.

I understand these things.

[anne]

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/c/carroll/lewis/alice/chapter3.html

1865

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
By Lewis Carroll

A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale

'You promised to tell me your history, you know,' said Alice, 'and why it is you hate—C and D,' she added in a whisper, half afraid that it would be offended again.

'Mine is a long and a sad tale!' said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing.

'It is a long tail, certainly,' said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse's tail; 'but why do you call it sad?' And she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so that her idea of the tale was something like this:—

     'Fury said to a
    mouse, That he
   met in the
  house,
 "Let us
  both go to
   law: I will
    prosecute
     you.—Come,
      I'll take no
       denial; We
      must have a
     trial: For
    really this
     morning I've
      nothing
       to do."
      Said the
     mouse to the
    cur, "Such
     a trial,
      dear Sir,
       With
        no jury
       or judge,
      would be
     wasting
    our
     breath."
      "I'll be
       judge, I'll
        be jury,"
         Said
          cunning
           old Fury:
          "I'll
           try the
            whole
             cause,
              and
             condemn
            you
           to
          death."'

[anne]

We are the punishers, the prosecutors and judge and jury all in the same and of course the punishers. We rolled tanks through the street of Fallujah firing as we rolled, the middle of an Iraqi city, and never gave a thought to the Iraqis who might have lived peacefully there for ever so long. We rubbled a city and paid no attention because was a land in which a bad person lived and when a bad person lives in a land we are entitled to holding the entire land responsible even those who obviously aren't.

What has all this to do with Cuban children? Nothing, which is why I want to turn Canadian and go to Cuba and best some children up or down or around as long as I am beating them. I am America, hear me roar (terrible metaphor, but I am too fierce to care and dare any of you to come get me. I have sticks, supposedly for beating Cuban children but of use otherwise.).

[piotr]

There are two separate issues.

One is the astounding hypocrisy of mantaining the embargo while supporting totally hideous characters like Duvalier.

The second issue is that Castro's dictatorship had its bright sides, but overall, it was a rather bad one. Not genocidal bad, not cleptocratic bad, just bad.

In particular, Castro was extremally distrustful of any private enterprise. Stuff like private gardens selling produce through private fruit and vegetable stands, or small manufacturing that would fill gaps in supplies of such simple goods like combs. Something that was allowed in Poland and East Germany,

In 1976 (or 7), when I was a student in Poland, I overheard an activist of our student organization enthusiastically describing his visit at some youth congress in Havana. "You could have a girl for a comb". Perhaps it was an exageration, but I can well imagine it happening. In a centrally planned economy, you can have shortages of surprising things if they slip the attention of the central planners. A year later my friend was in Moscow with a scientific visit as a grad student. According to him, he forgot nail clippers, which turned out to be unavailable in the capital of Communism. Neither were manicure scissors. At last, he used a shaving blade.

This seems micro-economics at the true micro: But I was actually pretty important. A Communist government can have as its priority satisfying the needs of the people, or exercising more total control over the people for the sake of "building new conciousness". Small scale independent activity was not creating an alternative ruling class of bissiness tycoons, but nevertheless allowed people to live (relatively) comfortably regardless of their evaluation by the state. You get, say, 10% of people who are relatively independent, while you want to repress, say, 1% for "dangerous though patters". Castro's priority was total control.

To his credit, as totalitarians go, Castro's methods were mild. But the whole concept sucks.

[anne]

Fidel Castro has been and is a bad person, I will swear to that on my Catholic Bible (my Irish grandfather would understand the irony), but the badness of Castro does not give me the right to punish generations of Cubans for a single badness or even several badnesses. So, the heck with all the phony moralizing, which is really immoralizing, and understand that for the sake of a bad person we have punished a country's people these 50 years.

Look at Iraq, think of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died in the wake of war and occupation for the sake of a bad person who is even dead, and understand how devoid of memory and conscience we can be and have been. I went to lessons, I go to Mass, I even go to Confession though I am far to nice to have anything to confess but must choose instead to lie, and I understand the wrongness of our punishing foreign policy these decades.

[anne]

Well for a comb, you say, for a comb...a comb, you say...a comb, red, a comb, hmmmmmm...like Jack Benny, I'm thinking, I'm thinking....

[anne]

If this were the Inquisition, I would be in big big big trouble.

[John Drake]

How is Cuba punished by the American embargo? What can't Cuba buy on the international market? They are free to trade with the whole world sans the US. Their problem is the lack of hard currency to buy goods, not the unwillingness of the US to sell them anything.

The embargo does prevent large scale American tourism to Cuba, but Canadians, Latin Americans, Asians and Europeans are free to travel there. Of course Cuban-Americans and Americans who support Cuba can't send money and that must hurt somewhat. But that's not trade, that's a subsidy. This whole argument that Cuba is poor because of the embargo just doesn't hold up.

[Barkley Rosser]

Nu and Brad,
Actually the lowest estimate around for real per capita GDP in Cuba is indeed about half of that in Costa Rica, or a bit more than $2000. That would put it about the same level as the Dominican Republic, which Tyler Cowen thinks is way ahead of Cuba. But this would still put it at about twice the levels found in Honduras, Bolivia, and Zimbabwe. So, Brad, I really do not know what you were thinking of or where you were getting your numbers when you lumped Cuba in with this latter group.

John Drake,

Your analysis is probably correct now, more or less, although transportation costs are real so there is some effect beyond those you note. As near as I can tell, the most serious effect was in the first decade of Castro's rule, which was also when the most negative effects of the command socialist system were being felt. That effect was due to the disappearance of the US market for Cuba's sugar. It appears that it was between 1957 and 1969 that Cuba dropped in relative real per capita income status, and that after that its growth performance has not been all that much different from most of the rest of Latin America.

anne,

The Fugs put out an album a bit over 40 years ago that had a song on it called "Kill for Peace," which had a line "Smash those gook creeps." Another song was "Burroughsian Time Grid," consisting of lines from the novels of William S. Burroughs, one of them being "Take your face off of my bayonet."

[Harold]

Our wonderful cold warriors killed five million Vietnamese men women and children. But it's not a war crime when we do it.

[CCBC]

Brad, are you saying that if Batista had remained in power that Cuba would now be the economic equal of Ireland, Japan, Spain, etc.? Because otherwise you are making silly comparisons.

[Monte Davis]

"How do you feel about LIFE appointments of Supreme Court Justices?" Mildly ambivalent: there's a trade-off between the downside of that and the value of judicial independence from term-to-term politics.

But that's embedded in a system with a lot of competing and countervailing power centers, including countless venues (like this blog) for challenge and criticism. Fidelismo offers neither.

[anne]

"How is Cuba punished by the American embargo?"

Idiocy, beyond idiocy.

[John Drake]

From the front page of Wednesday’s WSJ we see that Cuba’s 2006 imports amount to $9.51 billion and exports amount to $2.96 billion. Venezuela accounts for 26.6%, China 15.6%, and the US accounts for 4.3%, about equal to that of Italy, Canada, and Brazil. None of these other countries have a trade embargo, so it’s hard to see how the US embargo (which is not total) amounts to much of a strain on Cuba’s economy. For example one often hears that Cubans are forced to drive really old American cars because they can’t buy from Detroit. Why don’t they buy cars from Japan or Korea? Answer: they don’t have the hard currency because they don’t export much. Are we supposed to give Cuba foreign aid so they can buy stuff from China? Cuba’s problem is their maniac dictator Castro who ruined their economy.

[anne]

"Are we supposed to give Cuba foreign aid so they can buy stuff from China? Cuba’s problem is their maniac dictator Castro who ruined their economy."

Decades of an embargo against Cuba then have supposedly been to absolutely no avail but we continue with an embargo because imaginery foreign aid to Cuba would be spent on stuff from China. At least try to think. At least try, though I guess thinking is difficult.

The whole point of decade after decade of embargo has been to destroy the Cuban economy.

Foreign aid? Say what?

[I almost forgot. Fidel Castro is a very very very very very bad person, so punishing Cuban children is lovely because Castro is so very very very very very bad.]

[John Drake]

"The whole point of decade after decade of embargo has been to destroy the Cuban economy."

How has the US embargo destroyed the Cuban economy? What can't they buy on the world market? Why don't other countries invest in Cuba? Funny how countries like South Korea and Taiwan can properer at the doorstep of hostile behemoths, but Cuba can't.

Obviously the US embargoes Cuba for political reasons, not to take down their economy. They can do that all by themselves with no help from anyone.

[DavidW]

I would like to offer a compromise.

The revolution removed human and physical capital and made some people worse off. Cuba ceased being a good place for investment or industry.

I think most people, however, in Cuba were like most poor people in South America, mostly poor peasants or agricultural workers. It is/was probably much better to be in Cuba than another South American country if you were a poor peasant (except under land redistribution in Venezuela, and other places I will grant).

If you are self employed, or highly educated or can work in industry, you are probably better off in another place in South America.

However, it is important to point out that Batista industrialized with planning, force and coercion, just as surely as any other industrialization in any other part of the world! In this sense, Batista should be considered a socialist as well.

[DavidW]

I would like to offer a compromise.

The revolution removed human and physical capital and made some people worse off. Cuba ceased being a good place for investment or industry.

I think most people, however, in Cuba were like most poor people in South America, mostly poor peasants or agricultural workers. It is/was probably much better to be in Cuba than another South American country if you were a poor peasant (except under land redistribution in Venezuela, and other places I will grant).

If you are self employed, or highly educated or can work in industry, you are probably better off in another place in South America.

However, it is important to point out that Batista industrialized with planning, force and coercion, just as surely as any other industrialization in any other part of the world! In this sense, Batista should be considered a socialist as well.