North by Northwest

Follow up on my recent post about Cuba finally lifting their ban of DVD players. This AP article discusses the current Cuban marketplace following Raul’s decision to allow sales of DVD players and many other previously restricted goods. Cheap electric bikes had been banned because the government didn’t think their power grid could handle the strain of charging all the batteries on all those bikes.

The government is also allowing regular citizens to purchase cell phones and stay at nice hotels, which were previously restricted to foreigners and high-up government officials.

Cubans snapped up DVD players, motorbikes and pressure cookers for the first time Tuesday as Raul Castro’s new government loosened controls on consumer goods and invited private farmers to plant tobacco, coffee and other crops on unused state land.

The change is a sharp contrast to the early days of Cuba’s revolution, when the government forced or encouraged private farmers to turn their land over to the state or form government-controlled collective farms. But without more details, it was difficult to tell the significance of program, which began last year but was announced only this week.

Many of the shoppers filling stores Tuesday lamented the fact that the goods are unaffordable on the government salaries they earn. But that didn’t stop them from lining up to see electronic gadgets previously available only to foreigners and companies.

Cuba’s communist system was founded on promoting social and economic equality, but that doesn’t mean Cubans can’t have DVD players, said Mercedes Orta, who rushed to gawk at the new products.

“Socialism has nothing to do with living comfortably,” she said.

“Very good! DVD players on sale for everybody,” exclaimed Clara, an elderly woman peering at a black JVC console. “Of course nobody has the money to buy them.”

Hopefully Raul will continue implementing this type of free-market reform and realize that legislating social and economic equality only leads to poverty for most.