How’s the Revolution working for you after 50+ years? “Not well….it’s failed,” is the common answer you, if you are trusted, will hear in Havana. A week in Havana gives but a glimpse of socialism at its best.

The equality Castro delivered is depressing. Havana’s citizens live in run down squatter-occupied former commercial buildings, worn public housing projects, and middle class apartments, while foreign residents and diplomats live in upper class ghettos a little better in quality. The residents get a monthly food ration of so many pounds of rice, coffee, beans, etc. which lasts 15 days on average. The bodegas where ration allotments are spent, are basic, but there are open air farmers markets which are a step up. They also get a salary depending on their status of 200 ($10) to 400 ($20) pesos per month. The best jobs are government jobs particularly military and police who “earn” on average what a doctor earns. The citizens are not free to travel without permission, and do not have access to the internet or outside TV programs.

The government controls the press and the educational establishment. Freedom is extremely limited. I asked one economic grad if he studied the Austrian economists like Hayek, he say yes but he was taught that only socialism worked. I then asked if there was academic freedom; he said, of course not!

There is also the snoop part of the culture, the hard liners who will report on their neighbors. In fact some of the better neighborhoods because they are better have a higher ratio of snoopers. The less desirable neighborhoods are thus freer. A Cuban joke asks why you often see three cops standing on the street corner, the answer: you need one to write, one to read, and one to watch the two intellectuals!

All this yields a population in decline. The birth rate is below replacement level at 1.7. Cuba has one of the highest divorce rates. Abortion is high and used as contraception. Women who plan to advance will not have children. Men who plan to escape don’t want a family. The young educated people leave when they can, usually by marrying a non-citizen or over extending the rare opportunity to travel. Doctors and health care workers who are part of Castro’s diplomatic efforts have a likely exit route, as Joel Millman’s WSJ article, New Prise in Cold War: Cuban Doctors, shows. There’s a joke that Cubans aren’t allowed to fish in the ocean because they “fish too far” referring to the 90 mile distance to Key West.

That said, the people generally appear to be healthy and not malnourished. Public health is said to be good with fumigation the major tool. Medical care is free. Education is free. There is no discrimination in this social melting pot. But the high end government jobs are typically held by the whites and the jails are typically populated by the blacks. Gays and lesbians, in earlier times shunned and later tolerated are now encouraged.

The government manages to keep most people occupied, not productive, but occupied. There is a ministry for this and a ministry for that, ad infinitum. There are those, though, who sit around the public squares and beg, pose for tourists pictures or sketch tourists and demand payment. The government’s renovation projects are honored more in anticipation than in real activity. Work on those projects seems to lack processes and tools we find common.

Culture is the freest outlet for expression. Music is omnipresent, varied and excellent. Jazz at the Buena Vista Social Club is just great. Ballet aficionados in our group compared the Havana troupe to those seen in San Francisco. Art is flourishing and excellent, some very dark, some very difficult for government negative interpretation, which I suspect was intended by the artist. Cuisine is not an art and very basic. As one guidebook suggests, don’t expect much.

Religion was initially banned as atheism, a tenant of communism, doesn’t quite accept belief in God. The results are evident today with churches seized by the government standing in disrepair and fenced. As communism was dropped fron the constitution following the demise of  the USSR, restrictions started to loosen up. Following the Pope’s visit, religions became freer and more accepted. We attended a Greek Orthodox Mass that was inspiring. The congregation is growing and young. It’s responsible for some good charitable work among the poorer classes.

Property rights as we know them are non-existent. Aside from the expropriations of foreign and domestic businesses in the Revolution, the government has allowed home “occupancy” to continue and to be passed to succeeding generations. But buying and selling homes is prohibited. This generates a Byzantine system of trading, phony divorce-remarriage schemes, and bribes. Car ownership including buying and selling for pre 1959 cars is permitted, but not until this past week for more modern cars! Contract rights are in the same boat as property rights, legally enforced to a limited extent if at all. Torts, intentional or negligent, are not actionable. I was told in the hotel if you trip over there and break your back, its your problem, don’t even think about suing, “that’s a Gringo thing.” That, a positive for the Cuban system!

Cuba works as a cash economy. There is no credit for Cubans. Everything is paid for in cash. The ordinary society functions on non-convertible pesos. The foreign businesses, foreign residents, and tourists use CUCs, convertible pesos, 20 to 24 pesos to the CUC. Converting a US dollar to the CUC gets you .86 CUCs. The government takes 10 cents from your dollar and 4 cents goes for exchange vigorish. A favorite occupation of the three museum docents or guards (in each room!) is to ask tourists to change a twenty dollar bill. This budding entrepreneurial effort at the “exchange” business is encouraging!

The most encouraging thing economically is the underground economy. It is significant and growing. Tips don’t get reported and with tourism such a large part of the economy they are significant. Profits like tips don’t get reported and folks like the museum ladies make profits. Government cab drivers who exceed their monthly fare quota don’t turn in the excess but consider it a large tip! Remittances are a large part of the shadow economy and they are significant. Remittances to Cuba as recently as 2008 were estimated at $1.4 Billion. The underground or shadow economy is estimated at $2.0 Billion. Paul Haven’s Washington Times article, Cuba’s shadow economy sees some daylight, paints an interesting picture.

Characteristic of Cubans is to accept life, make do, make things work. Protests and dissent is rare. We saw no evidence of the dissent evidenced by Mary Anastasia O’Grady’s recent WSJ article Cuba’s Repression Escalates. This because there are few rebels.  The attitude toward property rights limitation is typical, not being able to sell your house at a profit, or at all, but only to trade it, typifies the acceptance. Laws and promises of the government are accepted no matter how silly. The “free lunch” is taken for granted; of course, it’s really not free. It’s a numb society.  A generation of the revolution has succeeded in numbing the people. Big government is in control. Socialism is taught as the only system that works. There is no academic freedom, only conformity. Outlets now are music, art, cinema, and most recently religion, all of which have seen the seesaw censorship lessen. The real hope is that these and the budding entrepreneurship of the underground economy will flourish.

The Revolution has failed. What’s called for, for these wonderful people, is a re-revolution. Let’s hope we see it and, in our case, learn from it!