By Brian Carnell

Tuesday, March 13, 2001

Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman despise corporations, but they positively fell head over heels in love with Cuba on their first visit there in February. Not that they don't find problems with the Cuban revolution -- they do -- but it is the things they wonder and marvel at that should frighten any lover of freedom.

First, Cuba's problems which are mainly economic. Mokhiber and Weissman's economic analysis of Cuba is completely contradictory. On the one hand, like many Left observers, they blame all of Cuba's economic problems on the U.S. embargo. While I oppose the U.S. embargo, this explanation for Cuba's problems continues to mystify me. If, as Leftist apologists for Cuba maintain, trade with the United States is a bad idea for developing countries, how is it that the lack of trade with the United States is simultaneously supposed to have caused the ruination of Cuba? Leftists can't have it both ways.

Besides, as Mokhiber and Weissman point out, Cuba's economic problems are due largely to that nation's centrally planned economy which miscalculated and misdirected its economic sectors. For example, it geared its agricultural sector to producing sugar for export which turned out to be an enormous mistake as world sugar prices tanked (except in the United States where corporate welfare programs prop up sugar prices).

The best Mokhiber and Weissman can muster about Cuba's agricultural crisis is that even though there were occasional food shortages, "no one, so far as we know, starved."

But although it has problems, there is one thing Mokhiber and Weissman apparently love about Cuba -- the censorship. They don't, of course actually mention political repression in Cuba. To point out that, just prior to their visit, Cuba rounded up dissidents to clear the air for its celebration of the revolution's anniversary would not fit well with their love for Cuba's health care system. But they do praise the effects of such censorship,

Walking into Havana's Jose Marti Airport, we immediately sensed that this was not like other places: there was no raft of billboards urging us to drink Coke, smoke Luckies, charge with our MasterCard, or rent a Hertz. Indeed, there were virtually no commercial advertisements in Cuba.

Of course there isn't much in the way of free political expression or protest either, but I guess as long as Castro makes the trains run on time and maintains a billboard-free environment, who are Mokhiber and Weissman to complain?

Complain they do, of course, but not about Cuban censorship and lack of political freedom. Instead what concerns them is the ominous threat on the horizon to Cuba: designer jeans. After describing how highly skilled workers, such as doctors and nurses, prefer to work in the tourism sector where they can earn more than the $30/month wage that they'd get from the government (paying doctors $30/month is certainly one way to keep health care costs down), Mokhiber and Weissman are concerned that this problem will only intensify.

The problem is exacerbated by remittances from Cuban-Americans living in Miami and the gifts of toys, designer clothing, and other items they provide to family in Cuba. Walking by the hip clubs in Havana's Vedado neighborhood, one can feel the magnetic pull of the corporate culture on kids who have little way of understanding the very dramatic sacrifices their society would have to make were Versace and Nike goods to become freely available.

Indeed -- just imagining the attendant horrors brought on by toys and designer jeans is too much for this writer to bear. Thank goodness Cuban citizens have Castro and thoughtful analysts such as Mokhiber and Weissman looking out for them.

Source:

Impressions of Cuba. Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, San Francisco Bay Guardian, February 27, 2001.

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