Tyler Cowen on Visualizing Poverty

Cuba, he says, is desperately poor, but does not look desperately poor:

Marginal Revolution: How poor does Cuba look?: The question is why anyone might think Cuba is doing OK, relative to northern Mexico. Megan McArdle offers (more than) two points:

3) Deep poverty is much more picturesque.... Poor countries have their old colonial buildings still standing, because no one had the money (or the reason) to tear them down.... The countryside is dotted with adorable houses made out of natural materials and natives wearing colorful traditional garb.... Middle income countries are smoggy, and almost everything looks like a cheaper, shabbier version of what you get in the US... cinderblock buildings... hideous tin roofs... boxy modern buildings that look something like our housing projects. The genteel decay that looks gothic and intriguing on an old Victorian mansion just looks seedy when it's eating away at badly poured concrete. Affluent Americans underestimate the utility value of things like having personal space, or an automobile.

4) Cuba was relatively wealthy in 1959; it therefore has more of the markers, like old majestic buildings, that we associate with wealth.

I found the most evident signs of Cuban poverty to be the unceasing supply of articulate and sometimes weakly sobbing mendicants, none of whom sounded like con men, all of whom needed money to buy food and clothes for their families. The most shocking part is what small sums of money they would ask for.... Yes in Cuba there is good access to doctors but anesthesia is in short supply and the health care system stopped improving long ago.

If you want to understand northern Mexico, get out of the Tijuana tourist strip and visit Hermosillo. Count the number of new housing developments, and then count how many of them are inhabited by fairly dark-skinned, previously dirt poor, Mexican mestizos. Put that number over the number of buildings in Havana that do not have serious maintenance problems and see if you can divide by zero.

It's quite possible that a lower middle class Mexican eats better food than you do, but there is no chance of that for anyone in Cuba except the top elite. Powdered milk is a luxury there.

I've long thought that Prague looks much richer than it is, and that the ugly northern Virginia or Houston looks poorer than it is. Where else looks deceivingly rich or poor?

Comments

[derek]

If you measure everything in dollars, what would convince you not to measure everything in dollars?

[IMU]

Well, I don't know. I would think a lack of dangerous kidnapping cartels and drug gangs probably makes Cuba seem better off.

"Rich," "happiness" and "quality of life" are often used interchangably to confusing effect.

None of this is to defend Castro per se. Cubans have real problems with even the simplest of staples. The highest educated, most intelligent young people in the country are tour guides for foreigners, because the tips you get in hard currency are more valuable than any salary you would make teaching at a University.

But availability of health care (even if anesthetics are not always available when need) and a relatively safe society DO affect quality of life.

[Paul]

You have a formatting problem, where it looks like the paragraph starting with "I found the most evident signs of Cuban poverty" was written by Mr. DeLong, rather than by Mr. Cowen.

[Mr Punch]

Perceptions of wealth/poverty are affected by people as well as by the physical setting. Beggars in large numbers are always, to me, a sign of poverty, perhaps leaking through into relatively prosperous areas. Prague seems wealthy because it's gorgeous, but also because it's full of young people who "read" as university students.

[ferd]

All corporate failures aren't due to a decline in morale, right? Sometimes you just make a few bad calls, and you're toast. Put a few incompetent or unlucky managers in charge of the few divisions within the Soviet economy, and all you need is a few bad calls to ruin the whole deal.

[ferd]

Oops, wrong thread.

[ABP]

Now the anti-communists argue that Cuba seeming well off is false consciousness...what is going on here?

Everyone stop! Tyler Cowen has visited Hermosillo, and can therefore speak authoritatively on the comparative well being of peoples all over the Americas. Would that everyone was so gifted.

[kusaka]

> I found the most evident signs of Cuban poverty to be the unceasing supply of articulate and sometimes weakly sobbing mendicants, none of whom sounded like con men, all of whom needed money to buy food and clothes for their families. The most shocking part is what small sums of money they would ask for....

Thats what I see every day on the Market in SF. Surely United States economy is now completely shut down by that capitalist experiment.

[Chris Brown]

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.

I have numerous times in recent yeas visited the backwaters of Cuba and stayed in Casas Particular (Pons, San Juan y Martinez, Bauta, or Playa Baracoa anyone?) and have lived and traveled throughout Mexico, including quite a number of pueblos with a few hundred inhabitants, for going on three years.

Cuba is a poor nation, but the poorness is relatively equally distributed. Though those who work in the tourist industry or who have casas particular or paladars and the recipients of remittances are somewhat better off. In Mexico, on the other hand, like in most of Latin American, wealth, or the lack thereof, is not at all equally distributed.

To suggest that "Deep poverty is much more picturesque than moderate poverty. Poor countries have their old colonial buildings still standing, because no one had the money (or the reason) to tear them down and put up something bigger." is to reveal one's complete ignorance of the subject.

I suggest a more accurate measure of well being is the number of folks missing teeth, life expectancy, child mortality, and etc. For such are an indication of the level of basic nutrition and medical care. In such respect, Cuba far exceeds Mexico, even within the relatively prosperous, large city in which I live.

[ideogenetic]

Don't U.S. economic sanctions (and associated dollar imperialism) deserve most of the credit for Cuba's poverty?

Case Studies in Sanctions and Terrorism
The Peterson Institute for International Economics
http://www.iie.com/research/topics/sanctions/cuba.cfm

[harold]

I have never been to Cuba and see no reason to doubt that people there are very poor.

However, from my own experience is untrue that places that are very poor are picturesque. I have found places that are very poor usually are very run down and in obvious disrepair. There is garbage lying about, flies, and often human and animal feces. Also scores of ill-dressed, uncared for children and sick and deformed old people are in evidence. Often, too, the people are sullen and unfriendly. Even the animals look mangey.

For example, you could see a huge difference in crossing the Basque country from France to Spain. The architecture was identical on both sides but on the French side of the border everything was clean and freshly painted (a dark blood red color is preferred). On the Spanish side everything was faded, shabby and falling apart. I assumed what I was seeing was the result of different government policies over the years.

[Chris Brown]

ideogenetic,

"Don't U.S. economic sanctions (and associated dollar imperialism) deserve most of the credit for Cuba's poverty?"

I believe the USA embargo deserves credit for that fact that Fidel Castro remained in power for almost 50 years, as it has provided Castro with a boogie man to present to the Cuban people in justifying continued state control of the economy and political apparatus.

I believe the state of the Cuban economy (which, by the way, has been growing relatively robustly in the years since the "Special Period", after the Soviet collapse, forced "es estado" to open the economy to foreign investment) is the fault of the idealistic notion that an economic system can deny the selfish motivations of individuals.

State control of the economy, based upon the ideal that through state control wealth can be equitably distributed, just doesn't work. Cubans, almost all of whom work in state enterprises and are paid the equivalent of about $50 USA per month, help themselves to bonuses by taking boxes of cigars, bags of cement, bottles of rum, and etc. out the back door for sale upon the black market. The theft, thus, results in higher consumer prices for the products that make it to the front door. A good friend in Playa Baracoa, making improvements to his home, would wait for a truck full of bags of cement to come down the street rather than buy from the state enterprise, and he is retired from the military.

The Cuban people are well educated, very healthy, and quite inventive. Just look at all of the 1940 and 1950 vintage automobiles belching clouds of black smoke from the Eastern Block diesel motors with which they have been retrofitted. A friend in Playa Baracoa has a 1950s Hillman, into which there has been installed the complete running gear of a Russian made Lada and the steering system from a Korean made Tico. Also I rode in a 1950s Dodge with a rear end from an Eastern Block manufactured tractor and an Eastern block motor.

There is an entrepreneurial spirit in Cuba if unleashed, I think, would result in amazing economic growth.

I think Raul Castro will serve as president for a few years, usher in gradual reforms, and then relinquish power to a younger generation of leaders, who I think will usher in further reforms. I base my belief on conversations with Cuban friends. If interested you may read my reports here:
http://www.expatriateruminations.com/Blog/2007/07/30/july-26th/

and here:
http://www.expatriateruminations.com/Blog/2007/07/31/cuban-economy-2/

[Bloix]

Deep poverty is a man old at 50 sleeping on the floor of a mudbrick hut while a single chicken scrabbles in the dirt. It's row after row of two-story cinderblock shacks clinging to a hillside, without glass in the windows in the freezing nights, no electricity, no running water, unpaved alleys for streets, nothing but people in rags in the doorways. It's a family digging for potatoes with sticks in a stony field. It's a mother filling a water jug 100 yards downstream from a latrine. It's a filthy child eating a half a roll from a garbage can. It's a twenty-year old woman lying on a mat, coughing her lungs out from tuberculosis. It's a cardboard coffin eighteen inches long. Deep poverty is hideous. No one who has ever seen it could call it picturesque.

My God, the callous arrogance of ignorance.

[Don Pedro]

I wrote some reflections based on my own travel to all three places at Economists for Obama:
http://econ4obama.blogspot.com

[Don Pedro]

I wrote some reflections based on my own travel to all three places at Economists for Obama:
http://econ4obama.blogspot.com

[johne]

I am a Spanish-speaking court interpreter. Sometimes my clients are Cuban. Even jail guards have mentioned to me on occasion that the Cubans seem much better educated than the inmates they are used to from other parts of Latin America.

[Chris Brown]

By the way, 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.

[Barkley Rosser]

Chris,

Oh, but if you read the commentary over on marginal revolution you will learn that all of the data that Human Development Index is based on comes from the Cuban government and is therefore total lies.

This leaves us with the war of the anecdotes, your reports of visits versus those from Tyler Cowen.

[anne]

"Yes in Cuba there is good access to doctors but anesthesia is in short supply and the health care system stopped improving long ago."

Tyler Cowen knows everything, everywhere about everything, but I would still like to know how exactly he knows both of these things. I would also like to know were this shown to be true whether the cause or a cause might be in the least the decades of American economic sanctions. Which reminds me, was Cowen in Cuba with permission of the State Department?

Where is the evidence for either assertion?

[anne]

"I found the most evident signs of Cuban poverty to be the unceasing supply of articulate and sometimes weakly sobbing mendicants, none of whom sounded like con men, all of whom needed money to buy food and clothes for their families. The most shocking part is what small sums of money they would ask for...."

Why in all my travels through difficult areas have I never been approached by weakly sobbing mendicants, none of whom sounded like weakly sobbing con men? Why do these sentences sound so strange to me? Do Cuban men wander the streets begging, weakly sobbing along? Possibly, but these sentences are strange sounding. Even the term mendicants bothers me for some reason.

[Chris Brown]

Barkley,

I'll take the UN's word for it, before that of Mr. Cowen. To suggest that the UN or the WHO establishes their index ranking based upon information submitted by the countries ranked should in itself discredit anyone making such an assertion.

[anne]

Why in the accounts of medical school students going to school in Cuba are there no accounts of weakly sobbing mendicants or weakly sobbing patients lacking anesthesia or medical education that is not sufficient to allow passing national boards in America or elsewhere leaving weakly sobbing students?

[Chris Brown]

anne,

Cubans, like Mexicans and I suppose other poor folks, are all in business, selling products or services.

Having spent lots of time in Cuba I can tell you that "weakly sobbing mendicants" line is BS. There are more beggars on the streets within six blocks of my apartment in Centro Xalapa, Veracruz Mexico than I have encountered in my five visits to Cuba (from 2 weeks to a month at a time) within the last four years.

Walking on the street in Havana, or other larger city in Cuba, you will be approached by folks selling cigars, rum, and all sorts of other stuff, including their bodies; but other than kids asking for a few pesos, I can remember encountering only one "mendicant" in Havana, a fellow obviously ill.

Cowen appears to me to be more concerned with the turning a phrase than in presenting facts.

[anne]

The problem is why is there absolutely never ever a lone thought that the interminable American punishing of Cubans for the sake of a bad, bad President could have anything at all to do with Cuba's plight? Why is America so right to have punished Cuban children for 50 years for the sake of Cuba's President? Could we be in the least responsible for the weak sobbing non-con men mendicants seeking out economists in passing who evidently have boarded the wrong flight from Mexico City?

[anne]

Thank you, Chris Brown.

I am trying to be nice as peach fuzz, but I keep thinking about weakly sobbing seemingly non-con men mendicants.

[anne]

I know that Fidel Castro has been a bad dictator, even the worst of all dictating dictators, but I do not understand 50 years of American sanctions broken only now and then by passing economists. Why have we punished Cubans who only wished powdered milk from powdered goats having grazed on powdered grass for 50 years?

[Eco]

You should not forget the prostitution, of men, of women... in the own words of Fidel... "our prositutes have college degrees"... I think this is the best portrait of the destruction wrought by Fidel over "his" country.

[Bloix]

"none of whom sounded like con men"

Con men tend not to sound like con men. A con man who sounds like a con man is a failure at being a con man.

The presence of adult male beggars is the result of the irrationality of the dual economy - the state-controlled peso economy for native Cubans and the free-market dollar economy for tourists and foreign investors. As one tourist wrote, "I spent - to an average Cuban- what would be the American equivalent of U.S.$12,000 for a single nite in a cheap hotel." http://www.rhondanelson.com/cuba2003/cubahome.htm#money The artificially low prices and wages in the peso economy create an enormous incentive for ordinary people to try to gain access to small amounts of foreign currency which can be used in dollar stores or for black market transactions. This leads to begging and prostitution directed at tourists. It's not a sign of extreme poverty.

[Chris Brown]

anne,

"even the worst of all dictating dictators"

I think you are overstating the case. Worse than Saudi Arabia? Worse than Pakistan? Worse than Pinochet? and etc.

I would venture to guess that there have more folks executed in Texas since January 1, 1959 than have been in Cuba. Just a guess, but I'd bet on it.

If one goes to the trouble (which most of the commenters here and at Cowen's site have not) of researching the matter one will find that of the 75, or so, folks tried and imprisoned in 2004 (I think, it may have been 2003)one would discover that they had taken money from the USA "Interest Section" (the USA excuse for an Embassy in a ten story building in Havana)to foment discord. They were all accorded a public trial, most convicted and sentenced to prison, and many since released before their serving their complete sentences.

In the USA if one acts as an agent of a foreign government without registering such fact one is committing a crime. Why should nay other nation be held to another standard.

[Chris Brown]

Bloix,

Just so you know, a night in Havana a casa particular runs from $30 to $35 per night, usually with breakfast included, and in other cities it's less.

Last July I rented an entire two bedroom home on the water in Playa Baracoa for $30 per night.

Most folks who visit Cuba stay in the official tourist enclaves which are, as you point out, quite expensive.

What you say about the two currency economy, however, is correct. It is a ridiculous system which the Cuban government announced recently was to be ended.

One often encounters Cuban peso stores and convertible peso stores right next to each other. The Cuban peso stores sell rum, beer, soda pop, tobacco, and very few other items. The convertible peso stores are fully stocked.

[Chris Brown]

Eco,

Here in Xalapa, Veracruz Mexico, prostitutes advertise in the Diario (the daily newsparer). Many of the ads even include a per ejaculation and per orifice price list.

I think what you need to understand is that neither Mexico nor Cuba are primarily protestant (Calvinist) influenced nations, though Protestanism is on the rise throughout Latin America.

[Liam]

Chris Brown,

http://www.cpj.org/Briefings/2003/cubacrackdown/journ_imprisoned.html

http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR250142003?open&of=ENG-CUB

It took me about a minute searching to come up with two articles on human rights in Cuba. Additionally, your brief summary of the trial of 75 men:

http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2004/03/17/cuba8126.htm

is crass, and having placed a conference call with one of the wives of these men also an offensively uninformed statement. It is unwise to use unfounded , obviously inaccurate justifications in attacking another person for what you say are unfounded, inaccurate statements. Cowen's comments at least had some observational evidence, even if they may have been misleading.

[Nick]

The signs of urban poverty abound in Cuba - I had friends asking me for my pants and shoes, and occasion to see the types of apartments they lived in, never mind the "jineteros" (a term that encompasses both prostitution, con-men, and any kind of entrepreneur - or what a more sympathetic economist would call the 'informal sector'). Begging, I would agree, is comparatively rare, especially compared to places like New Delhi or even Berkeley, CA. Having also spent some time in Mejicanos, a slum of San Salvador, I can also say that the biggest difference is not the material standard of consumption (housing, clothing, and food standards seem quite similar) but the amount of violence and health status of residents.

But what is harder to find is the kind of rural destitution most frequently associated with World Vision commercials for Africa, but also occasionally with parts of Asia or Latin America. One of the most surprising things about Cuba is how relatively well-off are its rural residents. The rural infrastructure - quality of roads, electrification, etc. seem very advanced compared to my limited experiences in other developing countries. The two biggest failures of the Cuban system in my experience, from a purely material standpoint are food and adequate housing, but these do not seem to be as big of a factor for rural residents.

Another thing that might go in the other direction of Tyler Cowen's piece, at least for people who have visited Cuba and Mexico for a long enough period, is the tendency for Cubans to befriend foreigners and give them a glimpse into their homes. Thus while it may be true that the exteriors of some Cuban buildings are nicer than Mexican buildings with nicer (and especially larger) interiors, first world visitors to these countries (who don't spend all their time in Cancun or Varadero) are much more likely to see the interiors of the Cuban buildings and judge comparative poverty accordingly. Cubans are also not reticent to talk about their personal economic situations when they think it will generate sympathy, something I have not experienced as much in other developing countries.

[anne]

Bloix, thank you for an explanation; along with other the fine explanations. I have never been in Cuba, but have heard recently of the rural development in the course of a lecture on rural bird habitats in Cuba.

[Chris Brown]

liam,

They all call themselves journalists, but they were not. Additionally, the three executions were of three folks who "hijacked a Cuban ferry with several dozen passengers on board".

Here is the Cuban foreign minister's rather meticulous explanation of the evidence gathered against the 70 some "journalists" arrested and and their trials. You'll be interested to know that the dumb ass James Cason, who Bush appointed to head the USA Interest Section was such an incompetent that amongst the "dissidents" he recruited, and gave free access to the Interest Section building, were Cuban government agents. USA intelligence agencies could learn a lot from the Cuban intelligence agenices.

http://www.redandgreen.org/Cuba/Threats/Press_Roque/conf-roque_eng01.html

Oh, and by the way, go look at Amnesty International's critque of the USA.

Look, I don't condone the rounding up of the 70 some "dissidents" (as AI put it), nor do I condone capital punishment anywhere.

My point is simply that there are lots of knee jerking comments here, and Cowen's site, by folks, including Cowen, who are doing nothing more than parroting the propaganda of the USA government. And we who live in a glass house should not be throwing stones.

I would be happy to debate the matter with Cowen anywhere.

While you're doing your research, do a search for the Cuban Five.

[Chris Brown]

Nick,

My experience validates what yo have stated. I have found that Cubans are not reluctant to complain about their government or their economic state.

I think your point about rural conditions is important in that all of the talk of "per capita income" and GNP prior to the revolution in Cuba neglects to address the state of the rural population prior to the revolution.

Since China has bee mentioned a few times here, may I point out that since the Chinese revolution its resources have been put into military and manufacturing production. In Cuba resources have been invested in education, health care and other human needs. Consequently, today China ranks at 81 on the Human Development Index, while Cuba ranks 51.

[Bloix]

Back to the beggars: My understanding is that a Cuban can buy 25 pesos for one dollar. The minimum wage is 225 pesos per month, and highly skilled professionals earn about twice that. So a room for $30 a night is the equivalent of three month's income for a minimum wage earner - about $3300 at the US minimum wage of $5.85 - and about 6 week's income for a physician - about $11,500 assuming a US physician's annual salary of $100,000.

Put another way, the minimum wage is about 6 US cents an hour, and a doctor earns 12 cents an hour. So a beggar who asks for a quarter is asking for what he could earn in four to eight hours of work.

And a beggar whose story persuades two bar-hopping tourists an evening to give him a dollar each can live as well as a doctor. Not that a Cuban doctor lives well - we're talking about comparative incentives here. And in Cuba, the incentives very much favor begging from tourists.

[trotsky]

In the late 1980s, I lived in Bangkok, Thailand, for a stretch.

I'm not sure if it was richer or poorer than it looked. What was striking was that it looked both very rich and very poor at the same time. Beautiful, shiny malls and new skyscrapers. Piles of garbage outside the walls of the prosperous suburban villas. Huts on stilts above filthy canals with a late-model Mercedes in the carport.

Perhaps that's just a sign of an economy in transition. At least it actually was developing.

[Chris Brown]

Bloix,

You are correct the exchange rate, when I was in Cuba last July anyway, was about $23 Cuban pesos to $1 USA dollar. However the monthly salaries of Cubans is equivalent to about $50 USA, equivalent to about $1150 Cuban pesos per month. Again, keep in mind that Cubans, whether a doctor, airline pilot, or bricklayer, earn about the same each month (A couple years ago I spent a week in the home of an airline pilot and spent three days in a car with him as he drove me from place to place.)

The ideological point of the Cuban economic system to maintain equity in wealth to the extent possible. Consequently all Cubans are relatively equally poor, except for those working in the tourist industry, those with casa particulars, and those with paladars (private restaurants limited, I believe, to four tables,) who have access to tips from tourists and those who receive remittances from folks abroad.

Keep in mind that each Cuban is provided a minimum ration of rice, beans, cooking oil, and other basic food stuffs each month. Additionally, keep in mind that Cubans do not pay for health care, education, and rent.

Please understand I am not defending the Cuban economic system. I'm am simply trying to keep things accurate as possible, as far as I understand things.

[James Killus]

I'm still stuck at the part about comparing Cuba to Northern Mexico, rather than comparing it to other Latin American countries with dictators, dictators that the U.S. has supported, and, in some cases, installed.

U.S. support for various authoritarian/totalitarian governments around the world has always been explained as being a part of "containment" and "anti-communism." It does not seem to me to be an unfair question to ask about the extent to which this policy resulted in better standards of living for the people under those governments. That Cuba seems to have made an attempt to educate its people and provide them with health care--despite American hindrance and harrassment--seems like something that should be discussed, not dismissed outright.

However, one group disputes the notion that Cuba has made any such attempts, branding all tales of Cuban education and health policy achievements lies. The other (much smaller, but with some overlap) group, seems intent on comparing Cuba to some parallel world ideal Cuba, where democracy bloomed and trade flourished and the Invisible Hand was always helping, never holding a gun and a Death Squad membership card.

[Bloix]

Chris Brown - my point is merely that begging from tourists is what you'd expect from the existence of the parallel economies - it's not evidence of deep or widespread poverty. It's not evidence of the absence of such poverty either, of course.

[Liam]

Chris

Before this spirals downward, there were in fact journalists, whether or not they all were, that were arrested.

My point in my earlier comment, was that you aren't in a position to argue statements comparing executions in Texas and Cuba over almost the past 50 years or the reality or details of what occurred in or after those trials.

Though none of this is really pertinent to the rest of the discussion occurring here of course.

[Liam]

Chris

Before this spirals downward, there were in fact journalists, whether or not they all were, that were arrested.

My point in my earlier comment, was that you aren't in a position to argue statements comparing executions in Texas and Cuba over almost the past 50 years or the reality or details of what occurred in or after those trials.

Though none of this is really pertinent to the rest of the discussion occurring here of course.

[Eco]

"Worse than Pinochet?"

Unless you value a Cuban life a less than a Chilean one, CASTRO was definitely worse than Pinochet...

His death tally per capita was higher than Pinochet's one, and while Pinochet was also a murderous thug, at least his country's social and economic indicators improved significantly under his watch...

[Eco]

"Since China has bee mentioned a few times here, may I point out that since the Chinese revolution its resources have been put into military and manufacturing production. In Cuba resources have been invested in education, health care and other human needs."

Ouch!! How about the thousands of Cubans sent to Africa to fight? Are wars of choice only bad when they are Bush's choice?

And how about food? Is that a human need or not? Have you checked the calories consumption stats for Cuba? (Hint: Not better than Honduras nowadays, way behind most other Latin American countries)...

Of course you can argue - rightly! - that Cubans do not need so much food, since under communism regime they do not have any incentives to exert effort anyway!!

[Eco]

"One of the most surprising things about Cuba is how relatively well-off are its rural residents. The rural infrastructure - quality of roads, electrification, etc. seem very advanced compared to my limited experiences in other developing countries"

As you correctly put, your experiences in developing countries are quite limited, otherwise you would know that in Brazil, a country poorer than Cuba during the pre-Fidel years, more than 80 percent of rural households have a TV set, whereas in Cuba there are far fewer... Alas, rural dwellers in Brazil have more access to mobile phones, cars, mainline phones than the average Cuban, rural or urban...

Also, a lot has been said about the health and nutrition of Cubans... But that is more of a Caribbean-wide effect... Every Caribbean country not called Haiti (site of a environmental disaster) has very good health statistics, including nearly-failed state Jamaica, whose children have better height and weight statistics than socialist model Cuba. That is no surprise, most Caribbean islands are big groves of mangoes, bananas and other fruits and dozens of different exotic roots.

[PeterE]

I found the comments of Cowen (and de Long) intriguing, particularly because a friend just returned from an academic conference in Havana and reported that (1) the physical infrastructure (buildings, roads) is crumbling; but (2) the population is healthy and literate and (3) the biomedical sciences are first rate. But also because of statistical reports, by UNESCO and the World Bank, which indicated 100% literacy and life expectancy of 75 for men and 79 for woemn. Maybe the health care system stopped functioning years ago as Cowen, or de Long, says.... I wonder how long they were living. A 100 years?

[Julian Elson]

I'd say Fidel Castro was... better than Papa Doc Duvalier, about the same as Augusto Pinochet, and worse than Alberto Fujimori. Worst person ever? No. Worth defending? No.

As far as "places that seem to have a different level of wealth than they do," I think Greece seems much poorer than it is. Greece has 90% of France's per capita GDP, but I don't think you'd know it from visiting Athens and Paris.

[Nick]

Well hey, I have never been to rural Brazil, which I gather is quite large and also diverse (I will take it on faith about the statistics, and that you have a deep personal or academic knowledge of rural poverty in Brazil). My only points of comparison are South and South-east Asia, and I'm sure you think it unfair to compare rural Sulawesi (though it is a tropical island) or Burma to rural Cuba. I don't doubt that Brazil is a much richer country, and if health and education don't count for much in terms of welfare (and we discount the violence and life expectancy issues) than the average or median Brazilian is better off. It's not all "City of God." My point was only that rural Cubans were better off in terms of food and living space, the two things that are most apparent when you "dig beneath the surface" in Havana or Santiago. I'm not disputing that Castro has done a lot of nasty things or that the Cuban economy has suffered under communism.

However, on the issue of tvs, I reckon one reason Cubans don't own tv sets is that the two channels are not that great ;) The only worse programming I have ever seen is state tv in Burma - at least in Cuba they play some American movies (or CNN on a few seconds delay on that fateful day of 9/11). My favorite show was called "mesa redonda" or something like that and featured a bunch of talking heads - imagine a much more civil Crossfire where the hosts were all party hacks and argued over whether America was wrong or really wrong.

"while Pinochet was also a murderous thug, at least his country's social and economic indicators improved significantly under his watch..."

I'd be careful before going too far down that road. Sticking to the "Pinochet was a murderous thug" will get you pretty far in these discussions as far as being fair-minded, but lose the qualification.

[anne]

What seems important is that America has collectively punished Cubans for 50 years because Fidel Castro is a bad, bad person. I do not understand, I really do not understand, why we should be forever punishing Cubans for the sake of a bad, bad person. Even with the bad, bad person no longer dictating, we have immediately assured the Cubans that we will continue punishing them because the bad, bad person has a brother who is also a bad, bad person. I can only hope against hope there is no bad, bad sister in waiting.... Oh dear.

Why have we been punishing millions of Cubans for 50 years? I do wish Cubans lived as Spaniards, but we did not punish Spaniards for the sake of Francisco Franco. Why must we forever punish Cubans?

[anne]

Why is America never ever the least responsible for denying Cubans powdered grass for powdered goats for powdered milk (I am not even asking after powdered cows)? What allows America to remorselessly punish tens of millions of Cubans for 50 years, and even to mock the punished (though the mocking may be to mask a sense that even Cubans might be deserving of sympathy)?

I do not wish to continue punishing Cubans.

[anne]

Remind me to go weakly sobbing after powdered goats from Whole Foods, this morning. Hey, Buddy, can you spare a powdered goat?

They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime;
Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Why don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Say, don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?

[bmz]

I have no love for northern Va.; but specifically, what ugliness are you referencing?

[bmz]

I have no love for northern Va.; but specifically, what ugliness are you referencing?

[bmz]

I have no love for northern Va.; but specifically, what ugliness are you referencing?

[Roger Bigod]

Shorter Tyler Cowen: let them eat genteel decay.

[Harold]

Um, didn't Tyler Cowen write a book "In Praise of Ccommercial Culture" about how the free market is good for art because it made Mozart and Leonardo millionaires? -- At least that's what one of the reviewers on Amazon says.

Well, it's working great for our economy under Bush, no?

[Eco]

"Maybe the health care system stopped functioning years ago as Cowen, or de Long, says.... I wonder how long they were living. A 100 years?"

It is not the health care system... There are plenty of Caribbean countries, some of them poor (e.g. Dominica), with similar health statistics as Cuba (e.g. fiscally bankrupt, stagnant and crime-ridden Jamaica). It has to do with the absence of tropical diseases (some spraying pre-Fidel...) and abundance of food (fruits, roots, fish)... Of course Haiti is an exception, but being better than Haiti is nothing to brag about!

[Eco]

Alas, Jamaicans have similar health stats as the Cubans, but a lot more gadgets (TVs, PCs, cell phones) and cars.

[Bruce Webb]

Economists who will swear up and down that NAFTA and free trade generally explain the recent economic improvements in Mexico at the same time will insist that Cuba, by deliberate US policy cut off from its natural market for fifty years, is the victim of its politico-economic system. This doesn't make logical sense. The trade sanctions/blockade imposed by the United States was designed to punish Cuba, it worked. Just as the sanctions placed on Iraq after the first Gulf War worked. You deprive economies of their market (Cuba) or countries of equipment needed to maintain infrastructure (Iraq) the end result, if your effort is successful, is a failed economy or failed infrastructure. To turn around and then claim that these intended results from a deliberate policy imposed from the outside are proof of internal structural failure is simply cognitive dissonance.

The United States wanted Cubans to be poor and desperate enough to rise up and overthrow Castro. Well they only had so much success on the first part, they got the poverty but maybe not enough of the despair. But at this point to blame Cubans for poverty that to a greater or lesser degree was a goal of US policy is a little unfair.

[effell]

All this speculating about the current situation in Cuba is insane. This is not the Far East we're on about, the place is all of 80mi off of Florida. Just plan for a weekend on the beach there, hop on a plane and check it out for yourselves. I think they'd let you in on a tourist visa and... oh, right...

[mario]

More than anything, Cowen's comments point to a systemic bias in economics--the assumption that to be happy (i.e. "well-off"), we want to live like the rich. In reality, only the 'converse' is true: To be happy, we want the rich to live like us.

That is, outside of having our basic needs (adequate food, water, shelter, and safety to carry out our future plans) met.

[Nick]

I should add regarding the issue of televisions that it is obviously a symptom of a paternalistic government prioritizing areas that may not be so important to most Cubans. I am reminded of inner-city youth who prefer Mcdonalds and expensive Nike gear to nutritional meals, healthcare or saving for college. If you let the free market decide in Cuba, you would probably get a lot more cars and televisions and more dead babies. Alas, people value quality as well as quantity of life. It's not just a question of an equal distribution - the social planner has to know everyone's utility functions as well (if he or she is benevolent).

Oh and some statistics

Cuba Jamaica Brazil
Life expectancy 77.08 73.12 72.24
HIV 0.1% 1.2% 0.7%
Literacy 99.8% 87.9% 88.6%
Infant Mortality 6.04 15.73 27.62
Pop 11 mill 2.78 mill 190 mill
Telephone mainlines 972,900 319,000 38 mill
Telephones cellular 152,700 2.8 mill 99 mill
GDP per capita PPP $4500 $4800 $9700
from CIA worldfactbook

This tells me that the Cuban health and education advantages are real (how substantial they are over tropical island Jamaica obviously depends on your metric), that mainline telephony is slightly stunted and cellular telephony is really stunted for a country at its level of GDP. Also, Brazil is much richer on average, so it is no surprise they have more stuff.

[Barkley Rosser]

eco,

Just to re-emphazize Nick's point. It is the CIA that says that in 2007 Cuba was #57 in the world in life expectancy (on a list that includes microstates like Andorra) at 77.08, while Jamaica is at #99 with 73.12. This is a significant difference. The infant mortality stats are even further apart, with Cuba best in Latin America, at 6.04 while Jamaica is at a pathetic 15.73, a definitely third world level. This is the CIA, not Cuban government stats. Your head is located where? Do you lie to everybody you know on a regular basis?

I would also like to point out to one and all that while clearly Cuba has many economic problems, the scale of which and sources of which have been much debated here, the desideratum of Brad (who cannot seem to bring himself to criticize the US economic embargo on any grounds) of an idealized social democratic outcome is not necessarily what might come out of a transition to democratic capitalism that may or may not occur at some point in the future (probably yes, eventually, if not before both Castro brothers finally die).

The transitions in all the Soviet bloc countries involved massive crashes of their GDPs, with recorded massive declines in the reported happiness levels of citizens in those countries. Most have managed to bounce back, with many doing much better now, such as Poland and Estonia. But many have not fully made it back, with Russia itself only now reaching a point where real per capita income finally again equals what it was in 1991. Many other former Soviet republics still lag behind, including Ukraine.

The Russian example may well become the Cuban example (although, who knows, the increase in trade with the US might save them from such a fate, hack, cough!). Incomes have zoomed in the major cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, where huge wealth has appeared along with massive corruption and inequality. However, incomes and living standards collapsed in the countryside, and still remain below end-of-socialism levels. The same could happen in Cuba, especially if the courrpt Miami gusanos come back in and take over their old sugar plantations, etc. etc. etc.

[Harold]

Uh, according to the CIA website Cuba's infant mortality is 6.04 and Jamaica's is 15.75. Cuba's life expectancy is 77 and Jamaica's is 75. Jamaica has a government run national health service and is pledged to eradicate poverty. Government spending in this area is clearly helpful, regardless of economic organization!

"The Government of Jamaica has clearly stated its intention to eradicate poverty and has conducted poverty alleviation projects. Projects addressing health problems have been mainly in the area of nutrition and the environment. In 1995, approximately 40,000 individuals were targeted for nutrition assistance. Environmental projects in east-central and south St. Andrew aim to improve the health status of these inner city communities." http://www.paho.org/English/SHA/prflJAM.htm (this is from 2001)

To the poster above who implied that Cuba is a little island that you could drive around the perimeter of -- (presumably in one day). The planners of the bay of Pigs Invasion made that same mistake, as recounted in David Halberstam's Best and Brightest. Cuba is 800 miles long and 44,2834 sq miles in area. (Jamaica is 4,400 square miles -- Cuba is ten times larger than Jamaica.) Cuba's population is 11 million, Jamaica's is two million. In "grasping reality" it would help if people began with a few facts!

[Gringo]

Anne:
Why is America never ever the least responsible for denying Cubans powdered grass for powdered goats for powdered milk (I am not even asking after powdered cows)?

The US sells foodstuffs to Cuba: cash on the barrelhead.
From Renaissance and Decay, we find out that from the 1958 to 1996, Cuba increased milk production 11%, versus Mexico 92%, Brazil 331%, Costa Rica 605%. Colombia 140%. This with Fidel's wonder cow, Ubre Blanca.

http://www1.lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/asce/cuba8/30smith.pdf

[Harold]

By the way, what about the numerous adult males in the NYC subways or downtown Chicago begging for money to buy a sandwich or to feed their familes? Isn't this an indictment of the capitalist system? (At the rate we're going, soon they'll be begging for euros.)

[Eco]

On Cuba and Jamaica...

Indeed Cuba beats Jamaica on life expectancy...

However, in terms of child malnutrition based on height for age, they are tied with 4.4% in Jamaica (1999) and 4.6% in Cuba (2000). There is also a slight Jamaican advantage in termos of weight for age, with 3.6% in Jamaica (2002) vs 3.9% in Cuba (2000).

If we are going to split hairs, the Cuban advantage on life expectancy may dwarf the Jamaican lead on child nutrition, but keep in mind that Jamaica is an almost-failed state, so it probably reflects mostly the Caribbean disease environment than any official government policy.

[ideogenetic]

Bruce Webb is exactly right about the cognitive dissonance seen by conservative critics of Cuba's economic results.
It's like watching a laboratory mouse be placed in a vacuum and having observers attribute the mouse's death to his inefficient breathing apparatus.

[Eco]

"(Jamaica is 4,400 square miles -- Cuba is ten times larger than Jamaica.) Cuba's population is 11 million, Jamaica's is two million. In "grasping reality" it would help if people began with a few facts!"

Indeed, Jamaica has a much higher population density than Cuba, which makes it HARDER for the Jamaicans to feed themselves than Cubans, so I am afraid that your argument goes puff!

[Eco]

"This tells me that the Cuban health and education advantages are real (how substantial they are over tropical island Jamaica obviously depends on your metric), that mainline telephony is slightly stunted and cellular telephony is really stunted for a country at its level of GDP. Also, Brazil is much richer on average, so it is no surprise they have more stuff."

Yes, but the point is that pre-Fidel, Brazil was poorer than Cuba. It is not anymore.

At what price?

Since Fidel came to power, Brazil had a 20 years right-of-center dictatorship, that executed/disappeared a few hundred people (as widely documented by human rights organizations) and Cuba had a leftist dictatorship that executed tens of thousands of people... On a per capita, the murderousness of Fidel is about 1000 higher than the Brazilian generals...

So you can pick your packages: poorer under a longer and more violent dictatorship or richer under a milder regime? Which of those two countries do you think is more likely to become a modern social democracy?

And I am comparing to Brazil... If I had compared to Chile, the differences would be even starker!

[Eco]

"Bruce Webb is exactly right about the cognitive dissonance seen by conservative critics of Cuba's economic results.
It's like watching a laboratory mouse be placed in a vacuum and having observers attribute the mouse's death to his inefficient breathing apparatus."

This is getting tired!!

Cuba can and does trade with several Latin countries, Canada, the European Union etc...

Moreover, before the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba was the recipient of massive aid from the Soviets, unlike any other Latin country.

The embargo obviously counts for something, but I would not exagerate its effect... Think exactly about NAFTA, while positive, the effects of NAFTA on Mexico are indeed small.

[Eco]

"The same could happen in Cuba, especially if the courrpt Miami gusanos come back in and take over their old sugar plantations, etc. etc. etc."

What could happen in Cuba is something much worse.

There are thousands of people whose properties were stripped by the Castro regime and they will want it back. Some of these properties were later sold or rented to foreign investors (mostly Spaniards and Canadians)...

You can imagine the mess... It is obvious - at least to me - that there must be some form of retribution to those whose properties were confiscated by the Castros. That was done in some Central and Eastern European countries, but there communism was imposed by Soviet tanks, so reconciliation was much easier (just blame the Russians!)...

To make things worse, to my knowledge there is no Floridian Mandela. My guess is that in 20 years, no descendant of the Castro brothers will be left alive, much like the Romanoffs.

[derrida derider]

"It is obvious - at least to me - that there must be some form of retribution to those whose properties were confiscated by the Castros"

"in 20 years, no descendant of the Castro brothers will be left alive"

Yes, and none of the original gusanos will be either. So why the retribution?

The attempts in Eastern Europe of the exiles to evict people from their houses in the name of restoration of property was a cause of great bitterness and political instability - and that's with the ready excuse about the Russians you point to. It'd be even more disruptive (and much more unjust) in Cuba. These exiles (or rather, grandchildren of exiles) would be resented as carpetbaggers, not victims.

To see what I mean think about the consequences of granting the claims of Palestinian refugees to property in Israel proper - and the injustice done to them after 1948 dwarfs any done to the gusanos after 1960.

[Nick]

I'm not too risk averse so I would take Brazil (I would hope to land in the large Brazilian middle-class and not be one of the 32 million north or north-eastern rural families that live on $40 or less a month but lack decent healthcare, education, and possibly even basic utilities), but I'm not sure Brazil strictly dominates Cuba from behind the veil of ignorance for a high enough risk-aversion.

Back to the original topic of the post, I found some pictures here (http://therealcuba.com/Poverty.htm) that paint a starker picture of Cuban poverty. So my question to those who have visited Cuba (as opposed to those with an axe to grind against communists but have never been) is whether Tyler Cowen had a distorted view of 'beautiful Cuba' because he spent all his time in tourist areas (some of which are nicely restored) or in Vedado/Miramar/Varadero, or whether the poster of the photos (who strikes me as an anti-Castro Cuban exile) went out of his way to find pictures of poverty. I would say these pictures look pretty typical based on my own 3 months traveling there - anyone know where to find pictures of Northern Mexico that supposedly looks uglier to Mr. Cowen?

[Eco]

"I'm not too risk averse so I would take Brazil (I would hope to land in the large Brazilian middle-class and not be one of the 32 million north or north-eastern rural families that live on $40 or less a month but lack decent healthcare, education, and possibly even basic utilities), but I'm not sure Brazil strictly dominates Cuba from behind the veil of ignorance for a high enough risk-aversion."

I would not underestimate the reach of social democracy in Brazil... With all the targeted transfers (by the way, an invention of the neo-liberals of the Washington Consensus), I doubt there are many families earning $40 or less per month even in the rural NE, perhaps you mean $40 per capita?

Of course, trying your luck and ending up as poor in the Brazilian NE would really suck, but unlike Cuba which has been governed by a patrician born revolutionary for the last 50 years, a poor man from the poorest region could be elected president of Brazil.

[Eco]

"Yes, and none of the original gusanos will be either. So why the retribution?"

I think I was not very clear in my post you are referring to.

One point that I wanted to make is that Cuba might take years to open up simply because when it does, there will be a lot of revenge. And among the millions of Cubans in exile, there are perhaps a band that would like to wipe out the Castro dynasty.

As regards Eastern Europe, I know people in South America who received letters from their embassies inviting them back to their grandparents land...

"The attempts in Eastern Europe of the exiles to evict people from their houses in the name of restoration of property was a cause of great bitterness and political instability - and that's with the ready excuse about the Russians you point to."

Not sure if that was so bad. Perhaps you have an insight about some country in particular.

"It'd be even more disruptive (and much more unjust) in Cuba. These exiles (or rather, grandchildren of exiles) would be resented as carpetbaggers, not victims."

I would feel a victim if I found some Spanish hotel chain sitting on my property. Or some former Chilean commie turned businessman de facto owning my old family farm.

"To see what I mean think about the consequences of granting the claims of Palestinian refugees to property in Israel proper - and the injustice done to them after 1948 dwarfs any done to the gusanos after 1960."

This analogy does not work so well. I'm for compensating the Palestineans.

[The Ace]

"I would venture to guess that there have more folks executed in Texas since January 1, 1959 than have been in Cuba. Just a guess, but I'd bet on it"

Your ignorance and obvious hatred of red state America is appalling.

[Metro]

Nick says:

"If you let the free market decide in Cuba..."

It amazes me that there are still people in the U.S. (or anywhere) who still see free markets and individual liberties as just possibilities in a range of otherwise equally valid choices re: types of society/government.

As Margaret Thatcher said: "Those who've known socialism best like it least."

We've had our experiment with socialism - it was called the Soviet Union and Communist-bloc Eastern Europe. 700 million people were behind the Iron Curtain - in societies where they often died trying to escape.

Certainly free market economies and societies that respect individual liberties are not perfect. But that's because people are imperfect. But surely any rationale person can see that the range of options in every sense are much greater in a free market society that respects individual liberties.

Individual liberties belong to the people - and no government has the moral authority to take them away. That is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution - and in the constitutions of many democratic nations around the world.

In Cuba, the government suppresses free speech and jails people who hold conversations like we're having now. And the Cuban government imprisons their people - so that many die to escape. And if you want to run for office in Cuba against the communists - you'll go to jail too. It would be difficult to find an Amendment in the American Bill of Rights that is not completely snuffed-out in Fidel Castro's Cuba.

It's a mystery to me why anyone would actually be in a position of advocating FOR the horrendous imprisoned, freedom-deprived society that is Fidel Castro's Cuba.

[Chuck]

Should visit some of the former Soviet states. There are generations of people who have rarely received health care beyond the most basic if that. The resources that would have provided these were diverted to Cuba.

[Data]

As for the UN's HDI, I am mystified that Chris place such faith in the quality of the data used. If one looks more closely, the UN has (1) assumed a literacy rate for Cuba notwithstanding the government-reported rate, and for dozens of other countries, (2) been forced to use data from a prior year for combined gross enrolment ratio for lack of current data, and (3) assumed a standard GDP for lack of any data whatsoever. From this raw data, the UNDP created the three base standardized scores for Cuba: life expectancy, education, and GDP.

In other words, lacking good data for two of the three measures for Cuba, the UN "guesstimated." This is no indictment of the UNDP, it does what it can with the data. But there is a reason for footnotes, Chris. I suggest you read them before credulously citing overall results.

[Val Prieto]

derrida derider,

I doubt you would use the word "nigger" to describe an African-American, thus, what the hell gives you the right to denigrate me, a Cuban-Amrican by calling me a worm?

I dont know what's worse, reading all the completely inane comments here from so many who have absolutely no idea what the hell theyre talking about or having to put up with epithets.

[Nick]

Well, no one is advocating Cuba for any other nation. I think the point is that the Cuban government decides to allocate a lot of resources to have lots of doctors per capita, lots of teachers, healthcare, etc. None of these things are `free.' However, the US government also makes decisions about priorities for Americans - it created medicare, medicaid, social security, unemployment insurance, a national system of highways, federal research granting agencies, etc. If you cut taxes and cut all of these programs, it's not clear that people would choose the same things. That's all I'm saying - all governments are to some extent paternalistic, and while democratic governments tend to have priorities more in line with people (the reason why Cuba is more screwed up than, say, Canada), they do not allocate resources in the same way as the free market. I hope you don't consider a trade-off between government subsidized healthcare or education and say, plasma screen tvs and bigger cars, as the beginning of the "road to serfdom."

Eco - A couple of sources. First the World Bank (http://poverty2.forumone.com/library/view/8638/) points out that back in 1995, the heydey of your Washington consensus, social transfers went disproportionately to the rich. I think Lula has probably changed that trend, but of course it is hardly unusual for government intervention in the economy to be counterproductive as far as ameliorating the distribution of resources. And for 2003 it looks like about 21% of the population lives on less that $2 a day (http://earthtrends.wri.org/povlinks/country/brazil.php). This is also close to the poverty line in Brazil, defined as $65 a month at Sao Paulo prices. I couldn't find the source for my earlier claim, and I think this one is more reliable. This looks a bit a better than Cuba, but not that much better when you take all the subsidies into account. Fortunately, you would only have a one in five chance of being one of those people. And as you say, you would always have the "Brazilian dream" (not that there is no Cuban dream - become a successful musician or athlete and either make lots of money with the help of the regime or defect). Yes, Lula is from more humble origins than Fidel (who was pretty middle-class by Cuban standards, being the son of a moderately wealthy landowner) but then again, so is Chavez...

[angry]

Seriously: pray you don't get sick in Cuba. Seriously.

[zak822]

Interesting how many people in this thread seem to believe the US embargo has no real role in Cuban poverty.

[Mutant Pacifist]

I haven't been to Cuba, but I've been to Mexico and to Africa. Africa, including the country I lived in, is much poorer than either Mexico or Cuba, but in many ways the villages were more pleasant. "Deep poverty is much more picturesque" -- definitely this was true. Not only did the Mexican village look more run down and decrepit, even though the buildings were actually quite sturdy and well-built, the people constantly denigrated their town. They were self-conscious of their poverty, aggravated by it and embarrassed by it.

In the African village, although the houses were made of mud and tin, with dirt floors, somehow it looked and felt closer to nature, and therefore tended to make Westerners think more of the Garden of Eden than of poverty. Most of the villagers I met were proud of their town, and asked us if we didn't think it was beautiful, which we did.

Until one considered such things as the infant mortality rate, of course.

There is another consideration. In the African village, one reason the people did not seem so poor as the beggars in a metropolis is that they were rural, and they had no lack of space. If one wanted to built a new house, and one had the money for the roof and some friends to help lay the mud bricks, one simply went out, hacked away a bit of jungle, and built the house. The government didn't care, didn't hold you up with a lot of paperwork, or tell you your house didn't meet safety standards and so on. So in terms of what Hernando De Soto calls the informal economy, they may indeed have had more resources than those in the Mexican village, who could not simply go out and build a new house anywhere they liked. Both the Africans and the Mexicans lacked any way to use their land or houses for capital, the other problem Hernando De Soto discusses. It goes without saying that the Cubans are even more restricted.

[Gringo]

Chris Brown:
I suggest a more accurate measure of well being is the number of folks missing teeth, life expectancy, child mortality, and etc. For such are an indication of the level of basic nutrition and medical care. In such respect, Cuba far exceeds Mexico, even within the relatively prosperous, large city in which I live.
Reply:
Mexico was further behind Cuba in 1960 than it is now.

Life Expectancy 1960 to 2005
Cuba 64 to 77 1
Mexico 57 to 75
In 1960, Mexico was 7 years behind Cuba in life expectancy; in 2005 it was 3 years behind.

Infant Mortality 1960 to 2005 ( deaths per 10000 births)
Cuba 35 to 6
Mexico 94 to 22

In 1960 Mexico was 59 behind Cuba in Infant Mortality; in 2005 it was 16 behind.

Source: World Bank Development Indicators online.
What apologists for Caudillo Fidel leave out is that 1) Caudillo Fidel inherited a country that was relatively well off and 2) Other countries have also progressed.

[David Nieporent]

I'll take the UN's word for it, before that of Mr. Cowen. To suggest that the UN or the WHO establishes their index ranking based upon information submitted by the countries ranked should in itself discredit anyone making such an assertion.

Well, that sentence discredits someone, but it isn't Tyler Cowen. Where do you think these organizations get their information? You think there are independent institutions in Cuba free to conduct surveys and report results?

[Mark]

"Interesting how many people in this thread seem to believe the US embargo has no real role in Cuban poverty"

Yeah, it's even more interesting to see the amount of idiots who think Cuba's form of government is less to blame than the US embargo.

[DelD]

"I would venture to guess that there have more folks executed in Texas since January 1, 1959 than have been in Cuba. Just a guess, but I'd bet on it."

And you would lose, big time.

Since 1930, the State of Texas has executed a total of 652 persons.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0760750.html

Meanwhile, in Castro's socialist paradise, Jehovah's Witnesses are executed for owning mimeograph machines...

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1079/is_v87/ai_4754854/pg_8

"Executions for political offenses are still frequent in Cuba. Twenty-nine people were executed in October 1982 for "plotting against Castro.' Among these was Armando Hernandez Gonzales whose "plotting' consisted of putting up anti-Castro posters and scattering some nails in the road to hinder trucks carrying people to Sunday "voluntary' labor. Several of his relatives were similarly charged and also executed at this time. In August 1983, John Olivera Alberto, a Jehovah's Witness, was executed for spreading propaganda inciting rebellion. Three other Jehovah's Witnesses--Jesus Prieto Suarez, Saul Pay, and Efrem Noriegas Barroso--were executed in October 1983 for possessing a mimeograph machine to reproduce religious tracts."

The actual number of political prisoners executed by Casto is probably somewhat north of 15,000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba

[Narniaman]

Just a thought here, but one group of people who don't think Cuban health care is all that it is touted to be is. . . . . .

Fidel Castro and his cronies.

If they did, they wouldn't have imported a surgical team from Spain to take care of a case of a ruptured diverticular abscess, a quite common condition that is routinely treated, and treated successfully, at virtually every hospital in the US that does acute medicine.

But Cuban medicine couldn't even handle something as simple as that!!!

And that's not me making the confession -- it's Castro and his commrades who made that confession.

[Narniaman]

Am I missing something here, or is the argument put forward by Chris and Anne and a few others along this line. . . . . .

"Castro and his communist government was widely successful, far more so than any capitalistic country has ever been. The only reason the average good Cuban communist citizen only makes $50 a month is that the United States doesn't "assist" their economy and refuses to trade with them?"

But I thought that the US multinational corporations exploited third world nations? If the US actually opened up trade with them, wouldn't it just serve to impoverish Cuba even more?

[Gringo]

Narniaman: But I thought that the US multinational corporations exploited third world nations? If the US actually opened up trade with them, wouldn't it just serve to impoverish Cuba even more?

Exactly! A half century ago, Caudillo Fidel claimed that the involvement of the US in the Cuban economy was retarding Cuba's development. Today, it is the LACK of involvement of the US in the Cuban economy that is retarding Cuba's development.

Oh wait: Cuba buys foodstuffs from the US for CASH. Perhaps we could reword the problem. Forcing Cuba to pay for US goods is retarding Cuba's development. THAT sounds right!

[Jack Denver]

The other thing that seems to be missed here is comparing Cuba to Mexico or other poor Latin countries with large indigenous populations that don't even speak Spanish. Cuba was highly developed in the '50s (more so in the cities than the countryside) and would have been much more developed now - I think in the '50s it was ahead of Puerto Rico. Cuba should be compared to PR today, not Mexico. If you compare it to PR today, Cuba looks pretty crappy, no? If Castro had not conducted his great experiment in health care and literacy, Havana would by now be the Las Vegas/Honolulu of the Caribbean with all the economic riches that entails (maybe all the corruption and depravity too, but that's a different story). If the Communists ever go, it still has terrific potential as a resort island - casinos, golf courses, beaches, etc. Not to mention that Castro has managed to ruin a once rich agricultural sector - if you put Castro in charge of Switzerland they'd be begging in the streets there too in no time. Communism is absolutely the most perfect system ever invented for destroying an economy and the more rigorously you follow it the more your country will be destroyed. And Castro was pretty rigorous.

[Eco]

"Eco - A couple of sources. First the World Bank (http://poverty2.forumone.com/library/view/8638/) points out that back in 1995, the heydey of your Washington consensus, social transfers went disproportionately to the ric"

(1) That is interesting... If you read the points of the Washington Consensus, Brazil policies under Lula are much closer to WC than under Cardoso. But that is for another thread!

(2) The social transfer plan was Cardoso's and the World Bank's... Lula's plan was to distribute food instead of cash; later they flip flopped, thankfully

[Harold]

Ruptured divertuculum caused the death, by sepsis, of my FIL, who had the best medical care here in the US. It is hardly routine but a very serious and often fatal condition. It's horrible way to die. Frankly, I'm amazed that Castro is still living.

It's too bad that Cuba didn't get a chance to develop into the Las Vegas of the Caribbean (NOT) but East Germany, which was a junky mess after the fall of the Berlin wall is now quite pleasant. Perhaps Cuba will be too, ultimately.

[Greg]

"Frankly, I'm amazed that Castro is still living."

I suspect he's been dead for a while, but we'll never know the truth.

The U.S. is only about 25% of the world's economy. If Cuba can't prosper while trading with 75% of the world's economy, then I blame Cuba, not the U.S. embargo.

[Narniaman]

Harold commented:

Ruptured divertuculum caused the death, by sepsis, of my FIL, who had the best medical care here in the US. It is hardly routine but a very serious and often fatal condition. It's horrible way to die. Frankly, I'm amazed that Castro is still living.

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"It is hardly routine". . . . . .

Well if you say so. In my 20 years of being a general surgeon I sure saw a lot of people with ruptured diverticulum.

It was a quite common surgical problem.

And no, it doesn't routinely lead to death, although it can. There are still people who die from appendectomies and cholecystectomies, which everyone agrees are "routine". In my 20 years of practice I can't even remember anyone who died from a ruptured diverticular abscess, although there were some who got quite sick.

But the fact remains -- If Cuba had any type of health care system at all they would not had to bring in a surgical team from across the Atlantic to try to savage their hero.

And the point is. . . Castro and his commie comrades realize their system is pitiful -- otherwise they wouldn't have agreed to that.

Can you imagine, for instance, George Bush having a common surgical condition such as diverticulitis -- and the US government bringing in a surgical team from Spain to try to save his life?

[Darien]

Actually, Prague is in fact fairly wealthy.

http://www.praguemonitor.com/en/272/czech_business/18553/

[Harold]

Appendectomy, illegal abortion, ruptured diverticulum -- all can lead to sepsis and/or peritonitis -- extremely dangerous in anyone (let alone someone in their eighties -- especially if they have diabetes). Sepsis is a leading cause of organ failure and death in the old, antibiotics notwithstanding, and occurs in the most developed countries with the best health systems. For surgeons it is a no-brainer.

After my FIL died (after lingering for 3 months) people came forward with tales of other friends or relatives who had died from same cause here in the US.

Use other examples if you want to prove how terrible the Cuban health system is.