Central planning, anyone?
Wait until July and August roll around
“It’s going to be a long, hot, difficult summer for Cuba this year.”
—a Cuban economist, this week
Protesters hit the streets of Cuba this past week. And that’s news when it happens. Because communist regimes don’t usually allow it. The last time protesters got upset enough to march in Havana, back in 2021, thousands were arrested and thrown in jail.
But this kind of stuff happens when people get hungry.
We are reminded that back in the 1950s—after Granma went ashore and the Castro Bros. took over Cuba— months and months went by as the United States government tried to figure out what the Castros were.
Small-d democrats? Populists? Reds? Fidel wouldn’t say. It may be because he didn’t know. There’s a school of thought that says in the early days, Fidel! and Raul didn’t really have political guiding stars except for (1) gaining power and (2) hanging onto it. Fidel even toured the United States and gave speeches. U.S. government officials hung on every word, trying to figure out something, anything, in his ramblings.
The story goes that, after Fidel Castro got home again, an American diplomat named James Britt Donovan joked in front of Castro that Mr. Donovan himself might run for president of Cuba. Who knows? He could win! To which Fidel Castro replied: “You know, doctor, I think you may be right. So there will be no elections.” The Castros had found their guiding star: Communism worked better for keeping power, without the people having much say about it.
For those of us who might have hoped the death of Fidel! and the retirement of Raul would bring prosperity to the Pearl of the Antilles, we have to remember that Cuba is still communist. Central planning, not the market, is still the rage (emphasis on rage). Although the Americans still have restrictions on traveling there, few other countries do, so the downturn in tourism can hardly be blamed on the United States. So shortages push people to the streets. Imagine being short of sugar in Cuba!
Not only sugar. They’re short of food, soap and milk. Not to mention electricity. The blackouts happen nearly daily.
And things will likely get worse. As you can imagine, demand for electricity soars in the summer months. Cuba ain’t Minnesota. And if blackouts are daily in mid-March, no telling what’s going to happen in July and August.
Omar Everleny, a Cuban economist, told The Wall Street Journal, “The economic situation is explosive. We have blackouts, and now a problem with food, and there’s nothing the government can do in the short term to fix things.” He compared the island’s old power plants to the 1950 Chevys that still clang around the streets there: “It’s going to be a long, hot, difficult summer for Cuba this year.”
The Journal says things are worse than ever in Cuba, even when compared to the days after the fall of the old and unlamented Soviet Union, when the Cubans could still rely on Venezuela for oil and food. But look what’s going on in Venezuela today. Chief beneficiaries aren’t what they used to be.
Three years ago, central planners in Havana promised to overhaul the financial system. Evidence shows that they have failed. Which happens with central planners.
So the Cubans tried something different.
After the protests in 2021, Cubans were finally allowed to have small business interests. The law was changed so that a private concern could hire up to 100 people. Thousands of businesses registered for the program, putting tens of thousands of Cubans to work.
Those people are pulling the economic wagon today. “Those businesses,” says The Journal, “are expected to import more than $1 billion in goods this year, more than half of Cuba’s total food imports.”
We wonder if any lessons are being learned in Havana—about free markets, central planners and the difference between.
Pain is a severe teacher. Hunger pain is a scathing one.
If the government of the island continues following the vision of the Castro brothers, the government might find itself on the outs with its people.
That might cause chaos in the short term. But in the long run, throwing off the wet coat of communism might work wonders for Cubans economically.
Again, we are reminded of what Fidel Castro once said after he was on the wrong end of a judicial proceeding. As a young man, he was once convicted as an opponent of the Batista regime. And he told the court, “History will absolve me!”
Well, it will certainly judge him. And will remember the number of disasters, injustices and graves he and his brother left in their wake. It’s already being written down. By Cubans themselves.