Reviewed by: Cuba Under Raúl Castro: Assessing the Reforms by Carmelo Mesa-Lago and Jorge Pérez-López Joseph L. Scarpaci Cuba Under Raúl Castro: Assessing the Reforms. Carmelo Mesa-Lago and Jorge Pérez-López. Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2013. xv and 295 pp., diagrs., notes, appendices, and index. $65.00 cloth (ISBN: 978-1-58826-904-1) With increased attention on BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and other emerging economies, it is often easy to overlook those few nations–Cuba and North Korea- that cling to a centrally-planned economy and a strong ideological posture that guides political and economic decisions. In this carefully crafted work by two leading economists and Cubanologists, three key questions guide this investigation. First, what are the antecedents that led President Raúl Castro after 2008 to introduce efforts to increase the private sector? Second, what are the barriers to introducing those reforms? Third, how effective have they been? The book begins with a succinct overview of economic development over the 53 years following the 1959 Revolution. Using a dichotomous framework that classifies economic cycles into “idealist” ones in which policies move away from market orientation, and “pragmatist” ones, that are more market-oriented, [End Page 245] Mesa-Lago and Pérez-López detail eight cycles that characterize this 53-year period. Seven social and economic indicators anchor their review of each cycle: monetary liquidity, economic growth, fiscal deficit, open unemployment, trade balance deficit, poverty incidence, and income distribution. The most interesting aspect of the review includes the tensions between Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s admiration of Mao’s Great Leap Forward, and the pro-Soviet faction led by Cuban economist Carlos Rafael Rodríguez. Also noteworthy is the level to which Cuba had hitched its economic fortune to the former USSR and its trading bloc; some $65 billion of price subsidies and soft loans benefited Cuba from 1960–1990. Although Fidel Castro played a central role in starting and stopping each cycle, “the decisions to slow, halt, or reverse pragmatist cycles and return to idealist cycles…were driven…by fear on the part of Fidel and the political leadership of losing political control” (p. 25). The review of the domestic economy of 2006–2012 shows that no country was capable of insulating itself from the global shocks of the recession, especially a small island of 11 million. A global drop in the demand for Cuban cigars, the country’s purchase of more than 8,000 Chinese Yutong buses, the legalization of cell phone sales to ordinary Cubans, and the laying down of a fiber optic cable between Venezuela and the island are a few highlights of this period. Mother Nature was also unkind to the island (hurricanes) at this time. We learn that Cuba exports most of its coffee and “imports quality beans from Brazil and other countries” (p. 63). Noteworthy too is the litany of resource mismanagement statistics such as the five-fold increase in calf-mortality between 1989 and 2005, a lack of agricultural fencing and chemical inputs, and the loss of some 600 million cubic meters of water annually because of leaks in the distribution system. By 2011, domestic production and export output was between 11–96 percent of 1989 levels for twenty key products for domestic consumption and export (69). Mesa-Lago and Pérez-López point out that the Cuban government’s long-standing practice of blaming poor agricultural performance on outside factors such as the US embargo, drought, excessive rainfall, was suddenly reversed. As Raúl noted, the country “has highlighted the primacy of internal factors …[but we need to consider] the concentration of land in the state sector and in the basic units of cooperative production and the agricultural cooperatives” (71). The book’s review on international economic relations underscores the huge void that Venezuela has played in supplying Cuba with free or low-cost oil, while the Cubans export professional medical personnel in exchange. That Nicolás Maduro–the successor to the Hugo Chávez Bolivarian revolution—will be hard pressed to continue such a subsidy given the high inflation in Venezuela and mounting internal political opposition...
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Jan 1, 2021
Frédéric Goulet 
Open Access
