Baby steps in Cuba
Toolbox
Published: April 16, 2009
The federal government is starting to take down one of the last bastions of the Cold War by moving to allow Cuban-Americans to visit with and send money to their families in the island nation.
It's an overdue step, to be sure. The American economic blockade of the island has been blithely ignored for decades by the rest of the world, which saw no reason to single out one country for sanctions when other countries with similar or worse governments were not only allowed to trade with western partners, but in some cases had most favored nation status.
So Cuba was embargoed but Reagan's policy in apartheid South Africa was "constructive engagement," even at a time when much of the rest of the world was attempting to isolate and topple that government, and China – certainly the largest abuser of human rights in the modern world, if not always the harshest – won and held most favored nation status from a succession of administrations, both Democrat and Republican.
The Cuban embargo never made any sense and it makes less now that the specter of international communism has faded from the scene: The Russian government is in the hands of thugs and scoundrels, but they are thugs and scoundrels happy to trade with Exxon/Mobil; following the spectacular collapse of the western banking system, "communist" China owns more American debt – both government and corporate bonds — than ever. So why continue the pretense of isolating Cuba while the rest of the world traded openly there?
OK, so neither China nor Cuba is a free-market economy, but both are moving in that direction. Hopefully, the disappearance of Fidel Castro from the scene in Cuba will lead to a rapid dissolution of a one-party state there, following in the path of the former East European bloc.
Also hopefully we've learned from the Russian experience that simply replacing a government-run economy with laissez-faire capitalism isn't the solution either. In the former Soviet Union, the vast bulk of the wealth of state property went to either former party apparatchiks or mobsters, or both. Taking Cuba overnight from a communist state to a libertarian one is likely to repeat that experience, souring the population on democracy at the same time.
That's why the administration's decision to begin opening relations through family ties is a good one. Nurturing a freedom-loving middle class in Cuba with ties to Cuban-Americans enjoying their liberty in the United States is a good thing; selling the country's assets to whoever shows up with a suitcase of money is a bad one.
Before Castro, Cuba was yet another Caribbean banana republic, run by a repressive dictator and beloved of organized crime. It looked a lot like Haiti does today. Castro improved the lot of the poorest and oppressed the well-to-do, without bringing personal liberty to Cuba's citizens.
Now there's a real chance to turn it into a better place than it has ever been by maintaining the functioning parts of the current economic system while allowing democratic rule to develop. The U.S. government should do whatever it can to encourage that progression.
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