Many years ago, I used to walk with my father in Cuba after dinner. We would walk to the street corner shop, he’d buy a Cuban cigar and order a little “cafecito” with “un poquito de azucar.” I tried it years later, cigar included, and I learned quickly why my father loved that coffee and cigar.
We left Cuba many years ago but my mother kept brewing my father that little cup of coffee with a drop of sugar. I can’t tell you the number of Sunday afternoon sporting events that my father, my brother, and me watched over that Cuban coffee that my mother made for us.
As you probably know, my parents are now gone but that entire Cuban section up in heaven must be screaming over the news that Cuba has to import sugar. Here is the news:
The Cuban government acknowledged that it is “shameful” for the island, traditionally one of the leading sugar producers in Latin America, to be forced to import this product.
Despite efforts to revive the sugar industry, the sector continues to face serious challenges, including failures in the last harvest.
During the session of the National Assembly of People’s Power, Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz recalled when Raúl Castro remarked that “it would be an embarrassment to have to import sugar.” He then stated, “and well, we are experiencing that embarrassment because we are importing sugar.”
He emphasized that the crisis in the sector is such that the country has also stopped exporting sugar, which was a key component of the economy.
“Key component of the economy?” How about the leading export since the Spanish ran the island in the 19th century. Cuba without sugar to export? That’s like the Dominican Republic saying that there are no more shortstops to play in the major leagues.
The explanation for this collapse is simple. It’s another example of how socialism kills countries with slogans and the expropriation of private industry.
Before communism, Cuban sugar mills, known popularly as “centrales” were run efficiently for the investors and workers:
By 1958 there were 160 sugar mills with the predominance of Cuban capital. The yearly sugar crop (zafra) represented an average of 99 days of work, producing a total of more than five million five hundred thousand long tons of sugar. The Cuban Sugar Stabilization Board kept active watch on the needs of the sugar industry and took measures of undeniable value.
Raw sugar as well as the refined product gave admirable results. And concerning sugar derivatives such as molasses and alcohol, the 1937 Law for the Coordination of Sugar was a step forward in social justice and economic welfare. Besides the highest rate of production the Cuban sugar industry had the most efficient equipment and most modern machinery in the world and the most productive era in its history. The United States was the best buyer paying for Cuban sugar as no other country ever did.
Prosperity brought about by sugar, benefitting all Cuba may be judged from the fact that in 1958 more than 90% of the land growing cane was brought into cultivation under tractors and 80% of the cane was transported by rail and truck. Salaries were high, the “sugar differential” favored the sugar worker as never before, and no sugar worker was interested in changing his type of work.
In fact, working in the sugar industry was so appealing that “guest workers” would come to Cuba from Jamaica and other places. The mills had a lot to do with developing the railroad lines in the island and were a source of pride. They ran baseball teams and some future major leaguers played in those leagues before a scout signed him up.
So the collapse of the Cuban sugar industry is just another example of the failure of socialism. It’s not the embargo or anything external. It was the confiscation of successful businesses that brought this about.
Let me close by sharing a joke. The Castro regime also brought a shortage of seafood in Cuba. How does an island surrounded by water have a seafood shortage? Well, the fish left for Florida waters.
Cuba has great lands to grow sugar cane and tobacco. We just need people who know what they are doing when they run these businesses.
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Image: New York Public Library
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