A letter writer in the Washington Post complains about this Post editorial, which criticized the repression in Cuba, particularly the lack of freedom of expression and the right to emigrate. The writer declares,
Cuba is managing its economy and is making incremental changes and reforms within its socialist and human-needs-oriented system. The U.S. government and The Post shouldn’t lecture Cuba when we have our own problems with the economy, the budget, health care, infrastructure and our moral standing in the world.
I’ve just published a book, most of whose 300 pages are devoted to criticisms of the U.S. government on a far wider range of issues than that, so I’m no knee-jerk defender of any government, much less of the Bush administration. But let’s take a closer look at the writer’s claims:
Cuba is managing its economy…
Well, every country manages its economy in some sense. The Cuban government has managed to turn a beautiful country of tropical beaches 90 miles from North America into one of the poorest countries in the world.
…and is making incremental changes and reforms…
Yes, as the Post editorial noted:
In the past few weeks, Cuban President Raúl Castro has introduced a handful of micro-reforms to the oppressive and bankrupt regime left behind by his brother. Cubans are now officially allowed to buy cellphones, computers and microwave ovens; state workers may get deeds to apartments they have been renting for decades; and farmers may be able to sell part of what they grow at market prices. The measures won’t have much impact (though they have evidently annoyed the officially retired Fidel Castro): The vast majority of Cubans can’t afford to buy electronic goods, and the agricultural reforms fall short of steps taken years ago by North Korea.
So reforms are good. Wake me when they reform more than North Korea.
…within its socialist and human-needs-oriented system.
You’d think socialists would have stopped claiming Cuba. If Cuba is socialist, then socialism is a disaster. While the rest of the Americas grow, Cuba declines. Cubans keep their 1950s American cars shiny and clean because that’s what they have. Socialism’s great accomplishment is to try to freeze the economy at the level to which capitalism (in this case, a corrupt and crony capitalism) had brought it.
As for “human-needs-oriented,” millions of Cubans express their human needs by getting on rickety boats to try to sail to America. One might say that Cuba is like a vast open-air prison, except that American prisoners get better food and more choices in books, newspapers, and television than Cuban citizens do. It’s a rule of thumb around the world: the more a government proclaims its orientation to “human needs,” the less well it actually serves human needs.
The U.S. government and The Post shouldn’t lecture Cuba when we have our own problems with the economy…
Yes, our economy is growing only slightly these days, and we have looming fiscal disasters because our own government has introduced socialism into health care and retirement savings. But Americans don’t flee to Cuba, and our GDP per capita is estimated at something like 10 times that of Cuba.
…the budget…
Yes, our federal budget is a disaster. But it hasn’t — yet — destroyed our standard of living, and I doubt that the adoption of Fidel Castro’s budgeting methods would help.
…health care…
Yes, we have the best and the most expensive health care in the world. If we had less socialism in health care, we could bring down our costs. But more drugs are created here, more medical advances are made here, and people come to American hospitals from all over the world, especially from the often-touted Canadian system.
…infrastructure and our moral standing in the world.
My colleagues and I have written very critically about the Bush administration’s war in Iraq, its treatment of the accused, its accumulation of executive power, and other actions that have harmed America’s standing in the world. (Not to mention President Clinton’s unauthorized uses of military force in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.) But if America’s moral standing in the world is less than that of the totalitarian Castro-Castro regime, then that is an embarrassment to the world, not to the United States.
As Human Rights Watch reports, “Cuba remains the one country in Latin America that represses nearly all forms of political dissent. There have been no significant policy changes since Fidel Castro relinquished direct control of the government to his brother Raul Castro in August 2006. The government continues to enforce political conformity using criminal prosecutions, long-term and short-term detentions, mob harassment, police warnings, surveillance, house arrests, travel restrictions, and politically-motivated dismissals from employment. The end result is that Cubans are systematically denied basic rights to free expression, association, assembly, privacy, movement, and due process of law.” And Human Rights Watch doesn’t even take note of the economic liberties that are systematically suppressed.
The Post’s “lecture” concluded this way:
Let Mr. Castro respect the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights his government recently signed, which guarantees not only freedom of assembly but the right to freely leave the country. Cuban officials recently hinted that the current ban on foreign travel by average citizens might be changed; let it be removed. Then Mr. Castro can discover just how many of Cuba’s 11 million people are willing to go on enduring a regime whose idea of reform is permitting the sale of microwave ovens.
The letter-writer might encourage the Castro regime to follow this advice, and then perhaps Cuba would have some small measure of moral standing in the world.
