Cuba under Castro and Batista
CUBA UNDER CASTRO has in no sense been a success story. Sometimes you hear people say that although GDP has not done so well, Cuba has good social services. That is plausible, because a country can get good social services (and a good army) by taxing away everything else. But it turns out that although the army is no doubt much bigger than under Batista, pre-Castro Cuba *already* had strikingly good living conditions, as I discover from Brad DeLong via Instapundit:
Just because people begin their papers with quotes from Ludwig von Mises does not automatically mean that they are wrong:
http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/asce/cuba8/30smith.pdf
http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/asce/pdfs/volume12/perezlopez.pdf
The hideously depressing thing is that Cuba under Battista–Cuba in 1957–was a developed country. Cuba in 1957 had lower infant mortality than France, Belgium, West Germany, Israel, Japan, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Cuba in 1957 had doctors and nurses: as many doctors and nurses per capita as the Netherlands, and more than Britain or Finland. Cuba in 1957 had as many vehicles per capita as Uruguay, Italy, or Portugal. Cuba in 1957 had 45 TVs per 1000 people–fifth highest in the world. Cuba today has fewer telephones per capita than it had TVs in 1957. , 03.05.20b.htm ]
October 12th, 2008 at 2:25 am
…thanks to US policy!