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. Response to Recent Changes in Cuba by Gary Marx and Cecilia Vaisman -authors of Cuba No Libre-
Since our article was written, Cuba’s new president Raúl Castro has instituted a number of reforms that have received widespread media attention and sparked renewed speculation about whether Cuba’s one-party socialist system can survive. Among the changes implemented in recent weeks, Cubans are now permitted to stay in tourist hotels and purchase long-prohibited items such as DVD players, microwave ovens, cell phones and computers. In an effort to ease widespread discontent over high food prices and meager salaries, the government is distributing idle state-owned farmland to individuals and lifting the ceiling on state salaries. Raúl Castro is also reportedly considering easing the restrictions on the sale of homes and automobiles as well as allowing Cubans to travel overseas without official permits. The agricultural reforms and increased salaries may ease desperate living conditions by making food and other basic goods more affordable. But the other reforms are unlikely to significantly change the lives of most Cubans because they can’t afford to purchase the new products nor accumulate the money needed to stay in a $150/night hotel or travel overseas. Some experts suggest that Raúl Castro’s limited reforms will inevitably spin out of control and eventually lead to a capitalist, democratic Cuba. We are less sanguine.
4/22/08
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