While the Russians retake their place in Cuba, a local headline in Miami claims capitalism is making a comeback on the island. However, the only ones getting rich off this “capitalism” are high-ranking Cuban communist officials.
The Center for a FREE Cuba explains:
How some Miami companies are secretly fueling the dramatic growth of Cuba’s communist oligarchs. Russians come back to Cuba, prepared to challenge the U.S.
Two headlines in the Miami Herald raised eyebrows this past week.
The first headline “Capitalism makes a comeback in Cuba” is a misnomer. The second one: “How Miami companies are secretly fueling the dramatic growth of Cuba’s private businesses” invites contempt.
The effort by those in Miami going into partnership with Cuban oligarchs connected to the Castro regime on the island trying to cast themselves as “secretly fueling the dramatic growth of Cuba’s private businesses” is self-serving nonsense.
Miami companies secretly funding the growth of Cuban oligarchs, for the most part are the same ones that for decades were in business with the Castro dictatorship.
Some of these “businessmen” in Miami, like their counterparts in Cuba, are individuals closely linked to Raul Castro.
For example, Rodolfo Dávalos León is a Cuban national living in the United States who founded Caribbean Ventures Management LLC, a company incorporated in the state of Delaware in 2016, but headquartered in Coral Gables, Miami. When protests erupted across Cuba on July 11, 2021, and the dictatorship’s future was in doubt, Mr. Dávalos León tweeted out “If the revolution falls you will find me in Cuba, with my father, knee on ground, rifle in hand, defending the work of Fidel. Long live Cuba, long live Raul, and long live Fidel!”
His father is a highly placed confidant of Fidel and Raul Castro. According to official records, Dr. Rodolfo Dávalos Fernández is a professor of International Law at the University of Havana and president of the Cuban Court of International Commercial Arbitration.
This is not an agent of change.
Capitalism, or free markets operating under an independent judiciary with the rule of law, has been absent in Cuba since 1959, and is not returning with this current regime.
Nora Gamez Torres presents a dissenting position in her first article that does not accord with either headline. She quotes Dagoberto Valdés, a Catholic activist in Cuba and editor of the independent magazine Convivencia., who is spot on in his observation of what is happening on the island.
“It is the famous ….‘piñata’ in which the economic actors who are closest to the circle of power are those who reach the ‘candy,’” Because “loyalty to ideology and power is the guarantee to their survival,” these businesses cannot be regarded as seeds for a truly independent civil society, he concluded.
This is not a surprise, and Havana has been announcing it with high-level visits by Russian officials, and Russian oligarchs to pursue this “change.”
Havana has been touting a “transition” to Russian-style “private enterprise”. In a country without the rule of law there are no “Cuban independent entrepreneurs” doing large scale business, but oligarchs connected to the dictatorship.
Continue reading HERE.
“Havana has been touting a “transition” to Russian-style “private enterprise”.
Well as Rick Ricardo used to say, let me “egg plane” Russian style private enterprise. We just have to look at the history of Russian coming into a free market economy to see Cuba’s future.
When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Russia said it was going to a private enterprise system. They sat back waiting for a hung inflow of capital and resources from the west. Nothing happened. First mistake is that this is not how free market economies work. The Russian people sat back waiting for others higher up to start giving orders. Then those who previously controlled the country (KGB) assumed control of the working industries and made themselves rich. (That is not free market.) The rest of the nation’s people not employed by these industries suffered. The people did not know how to take control of their own lives. (That is not free markets.) Then Putin came in and taxed (extorted) the hell out of the industries and distributed the resources to the people. (That is not free market.) Things became much better but now you had a dictator running the nation creating high levels of corruption. (That is not free markets.) Then the dictator, being afraid of losing his position, invades Ukraine and starts a long running war. (That is not free markets.) In the last few days it has been revealed that there is internal conflict within the Russian government
So yea, I do not see Cuba’s new path of Russian style “private enterprise” being a good thing. But on the positive side ANYTHING is better than communism. So proceed and good luck but don’t get your hopes up since things will not end well.