Forum debate: who would actually move to Cuba?

The dream of moving to Cuba that nobody fulfils

Nobody actually goes. That is the conclusion that emerges from a discussion sparked by a dream: the idea that socialism's defenders should pack their bags and settle in Cuba. The argument goes that they never will because they are afraid of socialism. And if Spain became a socialist country, they would be the first to leave, unless they held a government post. Framed that way, the remark reignites a spat that has now lasted more than two and a half years.

The response is swift. "Go to bed, you muppet. School tomorrow," one user replies. Another answers with an inventory of achievements: Cuba is a republic without a king, an independent state not subject to the domination of the great powers, and the only country in the Americas where 100% of the population is literate, in addition to having deployed medical missions across half the world. Cuban healthcare and education, it is argued, outshine those of the rest of Latin America.

The island, according to its critics

The official narrative meets a fierce counteroffensive. Cuba is described as a prison island controlled by a incivil family for decades, with citizens living on the bare minimum and with no right other than to survive. The system, it is added, is admired only by socialist ideologues, that is, by other socialists. The irony comes on the internet front: connections crawl along at 128 Kbps, and mobile phone contracts are conspicuously absent. And the worst part, one user concludes: there are no Doritos.

The most repeated argument is the one about the rafts. Life in Cuba is so good, the saying goes, that Cubans set off on rafts with nothing but the clothes on their back towards the United States, without even enough money to fit an outboard motor. The figure is stark: in 2022 and 2023 the island is said to have exported 5% of its population of eleven and a half million, some 200,000 exiles a year, for a country not at war. The Cuban peso, it is noted, is said to have lost fourteen times its value against the dollar in three years, going from 25 pesos per dollar in 2020 to 350 at the time of the discussion, making Cuba the country with the lowest average wage in the world: fourteen dollars a month.

What about the embargo?

The counterpoint comes from the embargo. Perhaps the blockade of the island should be lifted, it is suggested, and the globalists sent off to Ukraine while they're at it. The legal answer is that the Helms-Burton Act does not affect a private individual who wants to raise, fish or manufacture something and sell it to Cuba: what Americans do in their own country is their business, and they are as free to choose whom they trade with as Algeria is to cut off its gas. It is called national sovereignty. The exchange heats up and ends up on the right of every country to choose its trading partners.

The thread then drifts towards China. The claim is that Cuba is increasingly a dumping ground in the service of the United States, and that anyone who wants to prosper should try China, even if getting a work or residence permit is not easy. The rebuttal: it is not about being good enough, it is that you cannot set up a business without being Chinese and without government permission, which is far from a meritocracy. The counter-rebuttal denies the premise: you can set up a 100% wholly owned business, the visa is the same as in any Western country, and foreign investment is welcomed. China's development, it is added, is explained by the size of its population, but if Spain copied its economic decisions, many people would be horrified. And the closing line: if the dictatorship provides better living conditions, so be it.

The mirror dream of Argentina

The mirror game is completed with Argentina. Someone confesses to having dreamed the opposite: that the supporters of the free market should go and live in Argentina with their role model. The answer is that free-market supporters do not blockade countries economically. Dreams are just dreams. Then comes the split proposal: half to Cuba, half to Argentina, and Spain left free. The final word goes to whoever stays behind to lead the troops, promising a court-martial for the infiltrators.

In between, the thread gets tangled up in ideological labels. Fascism is socialism, one user asserts, therefore I am not a fascist. Another replies that liberal countries are those where entrepreneurs and warlords rule, free competition without state interference, and that a regime can be a banana-republic feudal-capitalist dictatorship like Segarro, which would explain its good relations with the United States and Israel. The counter-question is why someone who defends the free market so fervently does not move to the United Kingdom or the United States, or to Haiti and Somalia, liberal paradises with no known state intervention.

The statistic that doesn't fit

There is one figure that fits no narrative. Despite exporting some 200,000 exiles a year, Cuba ranks only sixth in the world ranking of prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants. The Cuban Communist Party, it is added, is the country's second-largest apparatus in some unclear classification. The sentence trails off, like so many in a discussion that promises to continue as long as someone keeps dreaming that the others will leave.

On this basis, the likely outcome is that the standoff will not be resolved. Nobody is going to pack their bags over an argument, let alone for a destination each side describes in opposite terms. At most, the usual hedged prediction applies: the one who really leaves does not talk about it on a forum, and the one who talks about it does not leave.