Posted on Tuesday, 05.25.10
RAUL CASTRO
Captain of a sinking ship
BY CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER
www.firmaspress.com By the second half of the 1980s, Raúl Castro knew that the communist system was tremendously unproductive. Despite the enormous Soviet subsidies, the island sank gradually into misery. Then it occurred to him that Cuba's economic disaster was caused mainly by the poor management instituted by government bureaucracy. He became a defender of technocracy and believed he could fix the communist system with the tools of capitalism. He sent several dozen Army officers to fine educational institutions in the capitalist world specializing in entrepreneurial studies. When Mikhail Gorbachev around that time became Kremlin chief, Raúl fell in love with the changes begun by the Russian and completed his recipe: Good management, together with a profound reform of the State, with special emphasis on decentralization, would help save communism. He ordered a translation of Gorbachev's book Perestroika and distributed it among many of his officers. He was going to rescue the system and solve an enigma that had puzzled him: Why some societies with great human capital -- with an abundance of well-educated and healthy persons -- were so unproductive. After all, Raúl Castro had reason to feel optimistic and confident: Under his direction, the Cuban Armed Forces had become the world's ninth-largest army and had triumphed in Angola and Ethiopia. From his perspective as minister of defense (by then he had held the post one quarter of a century), under Moscow's tutelage, that poor little island, which generated so little wealth, had been transformed into a military power with world stature. Raúl did not understand that demolishing a bridge with cannon fire is infinitely easier than building it. Gorbachev made the same error. He knew the deficiencies of the Communist state and believed that he could correct them with a mixture of reforms and sophisticated management. It annoyed him to hear that his huge country, more than twice the size of the United States and rich in natural resources, was contemptuously described as ``Bangladesh with nuclear missiles.'' Ultimately, he discovered his fundamental error: The system could not be reformed. State-run collectivism led to ever-spreading impoverishment and could not be saved by the technocrats even if they were very well intentioned. If the objective was development, competitiveness and prosperity for the masses, one had to forget the communist utopia and imitate the countries situated at the head of the planet. Raúl Castro today is exactly at the same spot where Gorbachev found himself at the end of the '80s. Sugar production has fallen to the levels that existed more than 100 years ago and the country, in full material degradation, cannot even feed itself. Why? For six reasons that make communism irrelevant. • Without a strong currency that maintains its value and purchasing power, economic transactions are tantamount to plowing the seas. • Without private property, individuals do not conserve the material wealth they create or make an effort to create more. The ``public good'' is a laughable fantasy. Without private property, there is no development. • Without a price system ruled by supply and demand, it is impossible to effectively assign the available resources. The prices fixed by the market form the language in which the economy is spontaneously expressed. This is not a capricious ideological dogma but an observation confirmed one thousand times in the real world. • Without economic freedom and clear rules that facilitate the creation of businesses, reduce corruption and reward savings and local and foreign investment, wealth can never be generated in a systematic way. • Without a legal system and an effective, equitable and independent judicial power that resolves the inevitable conflicts, punishes the guilty, protects the rights of persons and provides guarantees, it is impossible to sustain a prosperous society. • Without transparency, without accounting for the acts of government, and without installing officials under the authority of the law, guided by meritocracy and legitimized in periodic elections, no decent standards of development can be set. Is Raúl Castro ready to admit these bitter truths, or does he prefer to keep patching the hulk to keep the boat from sinking? At one time, Raúl said he wasn't ``elected'' to bury the Revolution, only to improve it. By now he knows that that's impossible. It is the same dilemma Gorbachev faced -- either Castro renounces the harebrained communist model or insists on keeping it and damages Cuba even more. So far, everything indicates that Raúl prefers to die in his mistake, even if he bequeaths the Cubans a country in ruins. That's called bullheadedness. http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/25/1646325/captain-of-a-sinking-ship.html
RAUL CASTRO
Captain of a sinking ship
BY CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER
www.firmaspress.com By the second half of the 1980s, Raúl Castro knew that the communist system was tremendously unproductive. Despite the enormous Soviet subsidies, the island sank gradually into misery. Then it occurred to him that Cuba's economic disaster was caused mainly by the poor management instituted by government bureaucracy. He became a defender of technocracy and believed he could fix the communist system with the tools of capitalism. He sent several dozen Army officers to fine educational institutions in the capitalist world specializing in entrepreneurial studies. When Mikhail Gorbachev around that time became Kremlin chief, Raúl fell in love with the changes begun by the Russian and completed his recipe: Good management, together with a profound reform of the State, with special emphasis on decentralization, would help save communism. He ordered a translation of Gorbachev's book Perestroika and distributed it among many of his officers. He was going to rescue the system and solve an enigma that had puzzled him: Why some societies with great human capital -- with an abundance of well-educated and healthy persons -- were so unproductive. After all, Raúl Castro had reason to feel optimistic and confident: Under his direction, the Cuban Armed Forces had become the world's ninth-largest army and had triumphed in Angola and Ethiopia. From his perspective as minister of defense (by then he had held the post one quarter of a century), under Moscow's tutelage, that poor little island, which generated so little wealth, had been transformed into a military power with world stature. Raúl did not understand that demolishing a bridge with cannon fire is infinitely easier than building it. Gorbachev made the same error. He knew the deficiencies of the Communist state and believed that he could correct them with a mixture of reforms and sophisticated management. It annoyed him to hear that his huge country, more than twice the size of the United States and rich in natural resources, was contemptuously described as ``Bangladesh with nuclear missiles.'' Ultimately, he discovered his fundamental error: The system could not be reformed. State-run collectivism led to ever-spreading impoverishment and could not be saved by the technocrats even if they were very well intentioned. If the objective was development, competitiveness and prosperity for the masses, one had to forget the communist utopia and imitate the countries situated at the head of the planet. Raúl Castro today is exactly at the same spot where Gorbachev found himself at the end of the '80s. Sugar production has fallen to the levels that existed more than 100 years ago and the country, in full material degradation, cannot even feed itself. Why? For six reasons that make communism irrelevant. • Without a strong currency that maintains its value and purchasing power, economic transactions are tantamount to plowing the seas. • Without private property, individuals do not conserve the material wealth they create or make an effort to create more. The ``public good'' is a laughable fantasy. Without private property, there is no development. • Without a price system ruled by supply and demand, it is impossible to effectively assign the available resources. The prices fixed by the market form the language in which the economy is spontaneously expressed. This is not a capricious ideological dogma but an observation confirmed one thousand times in the real world. • Without economic freedom and clear rules that facilitate the creation of businesses, reduce corruption and reward savings and local and foreign investment, wealth can never be generated in a systematic way. • Without a legal system and an effective, equitable and independent judicial power that resolves the inevitable conflicts, punishes the guilty, protects the rights of persons and provides guarantees, it is impossible to sustain a prosperous society. • Without transparency, without accounting for the acts of government, and without installing officials under the authority of the law, guided by meritocracy and legitimized in periodic elections, no decent standards of development can be set. Is Raúl Castro ready to admit these bitter truths, or does he prefer to keep patching the hulk to keep the boat from sinking? At one time, Raúl said he wasn't ``elected'' to bury the Revolution, only to improve it. By now he knows that that's impossible. It is the same dilemma Gorbachev faced -- either Castro renounces the harebrained communist model or insists on keeping it and damages Cuba even more. So far, everything indicates that Raúl prefers to die in his mistake, even if he bequeaths the Cubans a country in ruins. That's called bullheadedness. http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/25/1646325/captain-of-a-sinking-ship.html
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