Cuba’s economic failures are now in the spotlight as they finally realize they need to change their socialist nightmare economy into something more … sustainable. But Cuba’s problems are too often cited without a recognition of the success they have had in health care and education and poverty reduction. This has come at what most would say is a serious expense in terms of personal freedoms, economic, and especially political freedom. However it is important to note that on the best measure of overall “well being”, Cuba ranks 51st of all the countries.
Now, if we can only get all the fake conservatives to stop supporting the embargo which is a violation of free trade principles we *REAL* conservatives hold dear, maybe the good folks in Cuba can get cracking on the sustained and sustainable economic progress they so richly deserve.
More about the HDI:
The UN’s Human Development Index
From WikiPedia:
The HDI combines three dimensions:
- Life expectancy at birth, as an index of population health and longevity
- Knowledge and education, as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weighting) and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrollment ratio (with one-third weighting).
- Standard of living, as indicated by the natural logarithm of gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity.
Joe Duck 
The trend in which analysis are being being made of Cuba by the promoters of neoliberal ideas to me is very unacceptable. It is head on to note the UNDP’s placing of Cuba number 51 on the level of Human Development Index. What humanity needs is not free-trade. freedom as they call it and political freedom. All this to are the brains of the idealogies what have caused wars over the years. What humanity needs is decent living, education, good health care. I f you introduce the neolibearl idead of open access to the markets, the gains Cuba is enjoying now will be turned to mass human suffering. This has been evident in most of the countries that have allowed neoliberal ideas into their economies. You do not need to search your head into libraries to realise this but you just look at the Africas and the Asian Countries. To me Cuba is on the right track and hust needs to adjust some few issues to sustain the welbeing of the citizens afteral the world over human rights and principles are defined within boundaries and there is no coach or refree for it
Viga thanks for the thoughtful comment, although I think we might disagree about how important personal “freedoms” are in the big scheme of things. The HDI does not appear to give any extra credit for personal freedom and on that measure Cuba is very lacking. I also think we’ll see improvements in Cuba as the years of Castro’s heavy handed and naive economic policies fade away, but as the HDI and you note we need to recognize that Cuba’s not a “failure” as many claim, and it remains to be seen if the new economic policies will bring them to the prosperity enjoyed in USA and EEC or … not.