Cuba Crawls Toward Capitalism

Raul Castro has recently loosened restrictions on the Cuban economy, but Americans eager to flip houses in Havana will have to wait.

When older brother Fidel took over in 1959, one of his first orders of business was shutting down private property ownership. Ostensibly, the goal was to protect the Cuban people from predatory landowners, but the socialist scheme has redefined the word “barbeque” and created some awkward moments.

From the Miami Herald:

Three and four generations often live together, divorced couples are forced to remain in the same quarters and tiny lofts — nicknamed “barbeques” because of their searing heat –are added to many rooms

And since there was no property market Cubans could only exchange property through complicated bartering and murky black market deals. Some even resorted to phony marriages. Others moved into the homes of elderly folks so they might inherit the property when that person died...

Currently, the Cuban government employs some 80% of the country’s workforce, but many are expecting an exodus to the private sector in the coming years as reforms take hold. 

Still, Cuba isn’t entirely libre quite yet. The real estate market, for example, is for Cuban citizens and permanent residents only. But according to the Daily Mail, “Cuban exiles in America are entering the property markets through friends and family on the island - bumping up property price.”

Raul Castro promises that Cuba will remain a socialist state, and that no one will be allowed to “accumulate great wealth” under the new rules. But some houses are going for more than a thousand times the government mandated wage of $20 per month.

Some predict that more of these kind of changes will eventually come to Cuba, but that the process will be “painfully slow”. 

Part of that is due to Castro’s “ambivalence” but some critics point the finger at the United States. Likening the decades-old economic embargo to “a tantrum,” some argue that a stable Cuba is in America’s best interest.

And while many Cubans are dissatisfied with their government as it is, they are still likely to eye any leader not named Castro with skepticism. 

“The sudden collapse of communism risks civil war, or at least the danger that Cuba’s formidable security and intelligence agencies will become hired guns at the service of drug trafficking and organized crime,” reports the Economist.

The sizeable Cuban exile community in the U.S. has long insisted on a zero-tolerance policy towards the Castros. The U.S. has obliged, at a cost of between $1 and $4 billion per year. Most analysts say the only winners in the deal are the Castros themselves, who see it as a handy bit of propaganda. 

Many Cuban homeowners are excited the younger Castro's reforms. For now it looks like Cuba is indeed walking towards capitalism, albeit it with a limp.