Does anyone have a good look on Cuba does what it does?
As far as I can see, it does do a lot ‘better’ then, e.g. USSR or N-Korea. But why so?
Populationdensity? The fact that it does have a lot of ‘democratic’ rules estahblished? The major oil-subsidy from Venezuela? Etc.
(Sorry for the errors in my English.)
I might be wrong but I thought that of all the full blown socialist economies the USSR was the most well off in standard of living due to it’s abundant natural resources that it could waste. Cuba is portrayed as better off then other socialist countries but it is not. That might have something to do with it’s climate being warmer who knows. But as far as why Cuba might not be as bad as North Korea I assume it has to do with the following:
Cuba still has trade with the rest of the world just not the United States.
Cuba also had something like the equivalent of ten marshall plans given to it by the Soviet Union over the course of the Cold War. This delayed using up more of it’s own resources for awhile but has now become more poor since it does not have this Soviet subsidy propping the economy up. This type of subsidy also helped the 1980’s Nicaraguan Sandinista Government stay in place. When the Soviet Union fell this really hurt the Sandinista movement.
Cuba can trade sugar and tobacco for foreign export since it’s own domestic economy is so poor it cannot make wealth on it’s own citizens due to the rigid nature of it’s domestic economy’s pricing and production laws. Not to mention their signifigant citizen rationing program.
Cuba has liberal foreign domestic investment laws which North Korea does not have.
Here are rankings of economic freedom with summaries about North Korea and Cuba:
Cuba: http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/country.cfm?id=Cuba
North Korea: http://www.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?id=KoreaNorth
Cuba beats North Korea only by a little bit because it is SLIGHTLY less regulated economically. North Korea is far more purist about it’s Communism.
It should be noted that lately, Venezuela has provided A LOT of assistance, more so than most people realize, to Cuba, such as subsidized oil. That on top of tourism, rum and cigars is what’s keeping the country going.
Obviously, saying Cuba is doing better than North Korea is like saying a kick in the shin is more pleasant than a kick in the crotch.
How well is Cuba really doing? 80% of Cubans work for the government on state salaries of less than $20 a month.Sounds awful pretty much any way you look at it!
Venezuela has been providing some aid in the form of dirt-cheap oil (roughly 100.000 barrels a day) which is paid in “nature”, ie through the service of trained Cuban specialists working in Venezuela.
If Cuba was allowed to prosper under a true free-trade government it would be one of the richest countries in the world (as was in the '20s) and why is that? The country has large natural resources: we all know about sugar, fruit and tobacco (so different from the usual junk… just a personal comment there) but it also has very large reserves of nickel, cobalt etc. The operations are state-owned, of course, but this doesn’t mean that they are your usual Soviet-era rusty piles of junk. Foreign investors have been pouring millions of modern equipment and know-how into these operations: China has been often cited but the main investors are Dutch, Swiss and, surprise, Canadian companies.
Cuba has always had a very good educational and medical system, well before Batista and Castro started their little war, particular in the medical field. The Cuban government has transformed its universities into “brain-factories”: Cuban youths are trained and sent abroad (mostly to Latin America, but also to Africa… whenever there’s a government willing to pay) to serve as physicians, surgeons, nurses etc. Given the perennial scarcity of medical-trained personnel worldwide this can be considered a valuable resource.
Tourism has often been cited as a large provider of much-needed foreign assets and it has been, working under a twisted partnership between the local government and foreign private companies. Cuba is a splendid country, inhabited by a great people and it’s dirt-cheap too… the perfect tourist mecca. Add to this that many tour operators push their packages aggressively on high-society Europeans willing to “experience the Revoluciòn firsthand” (though in a confortable hotel, staffed by underpaid workers) and you’ll understand why Cuban tourist resorts are always packed full.
Finally a much undervalued sector of the Cuban economy is manufacturing. Cuba is a prime supplier of chemicals and, much more importantly, pharmaceutical goods to many Third World countries. The Soviet-built factories have been working full time and have been in many cases modernized thanks to the aforementioned foreign investors providing much needed export goods.
So what’s the difference between Cuba and North Korea? Castro’s evil genius I will tell you. Once the generous Soviet aids dried up Kim-Il-Sung and his son had to resort to smuggle weapons and blackmail their Southern counterparts and the UN to make a living. Castro instead managed to turn his island into a haven for unscrupolous foreign businessmen, willing to exploit the substinence-level wages and the harsh local laws concerning strikes, labour condition etc.
What’s better than this? Preach Communism to the masses and turn the whole island into your personal acienda… it takes a twisted genius.