Comments on: Message from E. Acosta http://freerangelibrarian.com/2004/01/15/message-from-e-acosta/ K.G. Schneider's blog on librarianship, writing, and everything else, since 2003. Sat, 22 Nov 2008 03:56:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: Steve Marquardt http://freerangelibrarian.com/2004/01/15/message-from-e-acosta/#comment-300 Steve Marquardt Fri, 16 Jan 2004 09:30:57 +0000 http://www.freerangelibrarian.com/2004/01/15/message-from-e-acosta/#comment-300 It's not a blockade, it's an embargo. Although the embargo causes inconveniences, I still remember reading, a few weeks after I returned from a visit to Cuba in December 2000, a headline in Granma (the Party newspaper) that proudly declared that Cuba engaged in trade with 120 nations. So what is the problem, if Cuba can buy goods from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, China, India, France, the UK, Sweden, Spain, Italy and many more? Could it be the disincentives of their own economy, in which no Cuban can exploit (in the capitalist world we say "employ") another Cuban, unless it's within a government enterprise or a foreign joint venture, such as a tourist hotel, or where livestock and houses can be sold, but only to the government? And so forth. One writer has said that Cuba was the recipient of the equivalent of ten Marshall Plans from the Soviet Union. That was a conservative writer, so let's say just five Marshall Plans. What does Cuba have to show for it? Many of us who oppose Cuba's ill treatment of those who aspire to be free librarians also oppose the embargo and the travel ban, and ALA's statements have said that as well. But those are not the answers to Cuba's self-imposed problems, imposed by a system that does a great job of freezing history and redistributing wealth, but a miserable job of moving forward and creating more wealth for its increasing population. Given the craziness of the system, it's simply human nature to start thinking about what alternatives and different ideas might help to improve a communist system that Leszek Kolakowski described as beautiful in theory except for one thing: people. People just don't behave the right way in order for communism to work. At bottom, that disconnect is Cuba's fundamental problem, as it was in the now collapsed Soviet system. It’s not a blockade, it’s an embargo. Although the embargo causes inconveniences, I still remember reading, a few weeks after I returned from a visit to Cuba in December 2000, a headline in Granma (the Party newspaper) that proudly declared that Cuba engaged in trade with 120 nations. So what is the problem, if Cuba can buy goods from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, China, India, France, the UK, Sweden, Spain, Italy and many more? Could it be the disincentives of their own economy, in which no Cuban can exploit (in the capitalist world we say “employ”) another Cuban, unless it’s within a government enterprise or a foreign joint venture, such as a tourist hotel, or where livestock and houses can be sold, but only to the government? And so forth.

One writer has said that Cuba was the recipient of the equivalent of ten Marshall Plans from the Soviet Union. That was a conservative writer, so let’s say just five Marshall Plans. What does Cuba have to show for it?

Many of us who oppose Cuba’s ill treatment of those who aspire to be free librarians also oppose the embargo and the travel ban, and ALA’s statements have said that as well. But those are not the answers to Cuba’s self-imposed problems, imposed by a system that does a great job of freezing history and redistributing wealth, but a miserable job of moving forward and creating more wealth for its increasing population.

Given the craziness of the system, it’s simply human nature to start thinking about what alternatives and different ideas might help to improve a communist system that Leszek Kolakowski described as beautiful in theory except for one thing: people. People just don’t behave the right way in order for communism to work. At bottom, that disconnect is Cuba’s fundamental problem, as it was in the now collapsed Soviet system.

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