On The Effects of Privatization in Cuba
Text message conversation:
I brought up the concern of segments of the Cuban population being driven into poverty by any future privatization of state companies and the economy in general, and he was like well the Cuban government has said no to allowing micro-credit/micro-finance organizations to help the Cuban poor during and after a transition. I was like give me a break.
providing high interest loans to poor Cubans will do nothing to alleviate their impoverishment as decades of micro-finance in other poor countries has shown. If anything the reality is that many, as has happened throughout the world, will only become poorer by acquiring debt which they can not pay off. I mean where in the world has poverty been eliminated with such neo-liberal policies? Nowhere that’s where. Only government backed programs with mass mobilization can have an effect. As proven by the success of Cuba’s state health and education programs, no where in the world, not in Africa or any other poverty stricken area has micro-finance, market driven approaches even come close to the measurable success that Cuba’s socialist programs have had in the areas of providing health care or education, whose positive effects the UN and others have routinely noted in their reports.