As for State Department comparisions of Cuba’s current stats vs 1958, their report purposefully utilizes out of date data (from the mid 90s, post recession) to make spurious claims that do not hold water today.

Comparing Cuba’s socialist economy versus others in the region (ie. calling it the “2nd poorest”) is a very dubious excercise – as the Economist recently noted (concluding they do not believe the estimate of 2nd smallest). GDP, of course, bares little relation to the progress of citizens. GDP has been increasing the States, but the standard of living of Americans has been falling since the 70s. But if you want to call Cuba a poor country, at least admit they do not let their citizens fall into poverty. According to the UN’s human development index (HDI), Cuba’s poverty index is one of the lowest for developing countries in the world (6/106 countries). They rank #2 in the world for their human development when compared to their GDP. Number 2 in the world. So cuba makes do with what they have to take care of their citizens better than almost every other country on earth.

Martin: You might wan’t to take a look at these stats about pre Castro Cuba. Yes I know they are from the US state department, but they are merely a comparison between modern day Cuba and 1958 Cuba as well as the rest of Latin America.

It seems like Cuba actually had pretty good healthcare and education back in the 50′s. Their economy was booming.

Your sock story also brings to mind for me the differences between super globalized Panama and protectionist Argentina. Argentina has great quality locally made clothing available at upper middle class prices, but the cheaper stores sell really poor quality locally made textiles. Panama on the other hand has both good quality cheap Chinese clothes as well as great upper middle class like clothes from Colombia and Argentina. These things make a big difference in the life of poor people in Panama.

While we Europeans don’t like to think that fashion should be important to poor people. At least in Latin America it is to a big extent, it is a way that people express who they are and in many respects help blur the class lines a bit more than the way it was before.

Any Cuban would be terribly insulted by what you wrote – implying they don’t know what is going on in the world and are not educated. In fact, Cubans have the highest test scores in all of Latin America and, down to the taxi drivers, have a very sophisticated political culture. I wonder if you could even have political conversations like you apparantly did – in other countries, including the US or Spain. You misrepresent their arguments and twist their views. Cubans know their history. They were speaking metaphorically if they said they were under US (capitalist) domination until 1959 – as they were!! They know other areas have universal health care, but they also know many countries in the region do not or have a terrible system where the rich get better treatment than everyone else (like Ecuador, where I just came back from). Cubans go abroad to help their neighbors and come back saying they have never seen poverty like that exists in Bolivia, El Salvador or Jamaica.

And it is not exploitation when your $8 sock purchases and $20 cab ride are being plowed back into basic education and health care, rather than a rich person’s pocket. Get real.