Resident Scholar Emeritus Mark Falcoff

Mark Falcoff: Good morning, readers. I am happy to be with you.

Severn, Md.: I visited Cuba for a month in 1996. I spoke to political and economic leaders and befriended a diplomat in their "state department." I also took the time to have dinner with poor families in the "projects" and hear about their lives and their families. The one thing I noticed is that the government intentially limits the amount of wealth a person can accumulate by limiting access and limiting the size of independently owned businesses. In fact the government limits the wallets of the people. It would seem to me that if the people had more stake in the economy, and greater access to money, they would demand greater rights. Right now they have little stake in anything because they own nothing. If the U.S. were to lift trade and travel restrictions to Cuba, this would benefit "the people" by providing them more access to cash. Once they had a greater stake, they would demand more from the government to preserve their interests. I believe that U.S. actions assist Cuba remaining communist by making the population in Cuba poorer than they should be.

Mark Falcoff: I think you are half right. The legalization of the holding of dollars in the 90s created a whole new class of Cubans who owed nothing to the government. This was because they received remittances from relatives abroad. They could buy items in dollar stores and get enough to eat, for example.

However, they were not allowed to start businesses or engage in any kind of independent economic activity. This is the nub of the matter. Lifting the travel ban would not necessarily change this state of affairs. There might be other reasons to do so, but it does not follow automatically that giving Cubans more access to the U.S. dollar would enhance their economic independence, given the way the society and polity are structured. . . .

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Mark Falcoff is a resident scholar emeritus at AEI.