Cuba's Now, Our Future

If we stay on Obama's path, I suspect many of us will have a conversation similar to the one Yoani overheard:

The man interrupts my calculations, telling her, “Sweetie, when I was born chickens weren’t rationed.” I start thinking about how I grew up with the shackles of rationing attached to both ankles but, thanks to the black market, the diversion of resources from State enterprises, the shops that sell only in convertible pesos, the trading of clothes for food, and a ton of parallel tracks, I don’t know the exact amount I’ve digested. As I hurry past and hear the doubting phrase from the little Pythagoras: “Oh, Papi, do you expect me to believe that before, in the butcher shops, they sold you all the chicken you wanted…”

Yes, I know. You think it will never happen here because we have elections. Elections do not produce chickens. We, like Cuba, have an oversupply of government, which makes producing chickens, as well as anything else, more dangerous than not producing anything. So we will, increasingly cease to produce, until, of course, we get hungry enough to not care about legality. Then it's illegal production at risk of confiscation both from the state and criminals, because many will cease to care about morality all together- and at that point, theft will actually be less dangerous than production. Are you going to call the cops when someone steals your illegal chicken?