Good article, I enjoyed reading. You mention that you were mystified why Cuba didn't reform their ag sector -- my uninformed impression is that Cuba basically hasn't reformed anything at all and whatever reason this is occurring for is the same reason they're not reforming ag. Is this wrong? Curious to hear your thoughts.
Cuba has reformed quite a bit, compared to 1991 at least. During the Cold War Cuba nationalized all private businesses. Under post-cold war Fidel they permitted very small family owned restaurants you could open in your home or renting rooms to foreigners. Under Raúl they massively expanded private sector to allow for real restaurants, small repair shops and other service sector stuff like haircuts, etc. Under Díaz-Canel you now have a ton of small and medium businesses, including wholesalers (though they’re reversing this at present), across a whole range of services and even small scale light industry. The problem is that they’re kind of stuck between capitalism and socialism with benefits of neither and problems of both, because they won’t fully commit to reforming key sectors like ag.
Good article, I enjoyed reading. You mention that you were mystified why Cuba didn't reform their ag sector -- my uninformed impression is that Cuba basically hasn't reformed anything at all and whatever reason this is occurring for is the same reason they're not reforming ag. Is this wrong? Curious to hear your thoughts.
Hi! Thanks for the kind words.
Cuba has reformed quite a bit, compared to 1991 at least. During the Cold War Cuba nationalized all private businesses. Under post-cold war Fidel they permitted very small family owned restaurants you could open in your home or renting rooms to foreigners. Under Raúl they massively expanded private sector to allow for real restaurants, small repair shops and other service sector stuff like haircuts, etc. Under Díaz-Canel you now have a ton of small and medium businesses, including wholesalers (though they’re reversing this at present), across a whole range of services and even small scale light industry. The problem is that they’re kind of stuck between capitalism and socialism with benefits of neither and problems of both, because they won’t fully commit to reforming key sectors like ag.