Parsing facts

There is an article here that was recommended to me recently, and although some of its observations are sound enough, some are not.

The author’s general argument is that the U.S. policy of pushing for “change” and “freedom” in Cuba is really about a desire for economic change, open markets and freer capital flow, hidden behind projected (false) images of a harsh dictatorship oppressing the people of Cuba. After all, he reasons, there are no poor in the streets begging in Cuba; citizens are given what they need from the state. His evidence can be summed up in this passage:

In Cuba, 85 percent of the population owns their own homes, mortgage-free. They have unrestricted access to high quality health care and a guarantee of a free public education through the university level. Teachers and community organizations have pivotal roles in determining educational priorities and curricula, ensuring the accessibility and relevance of the educational system. Every Cuban is guaranteed a basic income, and a job if they can work. One could go on about the percentage of female medical doctors (62 percent) or universal literacy (99.4 percent) or the number of incarcerated juveniles (zero), but in the US, such basic values have nothing to do with democracy or freedom.

And so on.

These data are facts—absolute, hard facts. In education and health care, Cuba largely excels. But what is missing is important. Without spending time speaking to U.S. policy, which we’ve repeatedly noted has been counterproductive, politicized and outdated, let us focus for a moment on some of the author’s claims.

First: In Cuba, every citizen is guaranteed a basic income, and a job if they can work.

Absolutely. That guaranteed income is $17 per month. It buys little, and right now (and at the end of most months), the state-run convenience stores and bodegas look much like the one in the above picture—empty-shelved. Meanwhile, the cell phones and electronics that Cubans are now technically allowed to buy (as of last year) tote price tags that put them far out of the reach of that income level. So what we can deduce is: a worker has to give up two or three days of wages just to buy a toothbrush, but the author still finds this to be an impressive level of “freedom.”

Second: Cubans do not have to depend on stock market gambles to provide for their retirement (at age 55).

Quite; instead they earn a monthly pension upon retiring that forces many to return to work. The minimum pension, which certainly used to be helpful when it was valued at $92 per month in 1989, is now a mere $9.53 per month. And furthermore, Cuba is enacting a new policy that will increase the retirement age to 60 for women and 65 for men. The new requirements will be fully phased in by 2015, such that the Cuban retirement age will then exceed the average for Latin America.

In making sure to show that the United States lives in a glass house when it comes to freedoms and democracy, the author is arguing past many people. The point is not that the United States is right and Cuba is wrong, nor that the political/economic system the United States has is perfect (far from it) and Cuba must emulate it. Pointing fingers like this results in a stalemate where everyone is wrong, or else no one is.

Let’s be clear: a country like the United States, which over recent years has allowed torture, unjust war and financial disaster to occur, does not deserve our lauding at the expense of giving attention to those failures. Nor, therefore, does Cuba deserve praise for its health and education system if praise is given without recognition of the country’s economic, social and political shortcomings, not to mention its holding of political prisoners and treatment of dissidents.