Gurus and pundits discussing developments in Venezuela and Cuba since last year have been strongly inclined to establish a new “domino theory,” suggesting that a political defeat of chavismo (followers of the deceased President Hugo Chávez) or a major crisis of some sort in Venezuela would cause an immediate collapse of the Cuban economy and […]

In January1959, a process began in Cuba wherein the country’s government established a Communist economic system1 that drastically changed the life of its people. The objective of a Communist economic regime, according to Karl Marx,2 is to do away with private property on the basis that it represents its society. All the civil organizations of […]

One of the intriguing aspects of on-going transformations in Cuba is that absolutely nothing is said about their intended objective. Observers are mostly left to speculate about the direction in which the country is heading — apart from some general language with very little informative value of “updating socialism.” There is a long list of […]

Notes1 Recientemente Carmelo Mesa-Lago en su libro Cuba en la era de Raúl Castro2 presentó varias proposiciones sobre las reformas socioeconómicas raulistas en curso. Considera que dichas reformas son las más importantes de la era revolucionaria, están bien orientadas, pero son insuficientes. Mesa-Lago (en adelante ML) hace una contribución al poner en perspectiva y evaluar […]

Notes1 In the process of re-analyzing the issues and problems facing the Cuban economy following the July 2006 accession to power by Raúl Castro, it was concluded that much of the state sector of the economy — and the planning process under which it operated — was irredeemably inefficient. Numerous attempts had been made to […]