Antes que nada quisiera expresar mi agradecimiento a Raúl Fernández por haber enviado su trabajo con bastante anticipación. El trabajo de Raúl es un documento interesante y sin dudas una contribución a esta conferencia. Mis comentarios están enviados en tres partes. Primero: aspectos metodológicos generales. Segundo: algunas sugerencias con respecto a los aspectos analíticos. Y […]

A major thesis advanced to explain Cuba’s transition into a Marxist-Leninist state centers on that country’s presumed economic backwardness and immobilism. In the “received wisdom” pervading academic circles and the media, prerevolutionary Cuba is perceived as a kind of Hispanic-American Haiti. The backwardness-stagnation thesis is often supported by a corollary: the alleged exploitative grip by […]

Notes1 “The choice is between capitalism and chaos.” —Ludwig von Mises An enduring myth is that Cuba in the 1950s was a socially and economically backward country whose development, especially in the areas of health and education, was made possible by the socialist nature of the Castro government. Despite the widespread acceptance of this view, […]

Notes1 Systems of financial support for old people are experiencing serious financial difficulties worldwide and the old-age, disability, and survivors’ pension system of Cuba (the pension system from now on) is no exception to this trend. The pension system of Cuba has been extensively discussed in the literature by Mesa-Lago (see below) and it has […]

Notes1 “…de un país en desgracia, pobre, solitario y “socialista” (p. 70)…” “Socialismo o Muerte, valga la redundancia” (p. 20) —Zoé Valdés, La Hija del Embajador. El estudio de la CEPAL (en adelante ESCEPAL)2 es el más amplio y completo estadísticamente sobre la economía cubana desde 1989; no obstante, acepta sin mayores salvedades las estadísticas […]