The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg asked a dying Fidel Castro in 2010 if Cuba’s economic model was worth exporting to other countries. He replied: ‘The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us any more.’ It has taken a decade and a half for the Cuban regime’s fans to catch up and they are still advocating for […]
For the past eight and a half years, I’ve lived in Buenos Aires. Which means that every day for what is now nearly a decade, someone back home has sent me a hysterical headline about the mind-boggling fluctuations of Argentina’s economy. For the longest time, these headlines were nothing but doom and gloom. ‘Peso Collapse […]
Free-marketeers are often accused of a crude anti-statism. According to our critics, we fail to understand that markets don’t exist in a vacuum, but are underpinned and supported by a functioning state. I have never seen much merit in that criticism. Anarcho-capitalists aside (and I’ve had pints with all twelve of them: I really wouldn’t […]
Zohran Mamdani and Zack Polanski have brought back the politics of ‘hope’. Many of their voters do not even know the policies involved or their unintended consequences; they vote based on vibe. The vibe of something new, something different, something that promises change. But this politics of hope is not new – and it is […]
That call sent shivers down my spine. Although we knew it could happen, it doesn’t make it easier to pick up the phone and hear that your partner – in life and in the quest for democracy in Venezuela – has been detained. On December 10, Jesús Armas was forcefully taken away from a café […]
With chants of ‘freedom’ thousands of Cubans have, for the first time in decades, taken to the streets to denounce the Communist dictatorship’s repression and failure to provide the necessities of life, such as food and basic medicines. The protests are spreading, despite a violent response from the regime, in an uprising that may herald […]
Is there a less suitable candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize than the forced labour programme of a communist state that is used to fund repression, support narco-terrorism and prop up like-minded dictators abroad? Probably not, but that hasn’t stopped Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and a whole host of hard left Labour MPs from nominating […]
The continued reverence for certain authoritarian regimes on the fringes of the left is probably a testament to the scale of socialism’s defeat at the close of the 20th century. Since then the left, in both its social democratic and socialist guises, has adopted a broadly defensive stance. Social democrats spend most of their time […]
In a cruel twist of fate, this December Venezuelans will see in the fifth anniversary of the opposition’s electoral landslide with an election stage-managed by the dictator they had hoped to defeat. On December 6, 2015, the Mesa de Unidad Democrática (MUD), a big tent opposition party, captured a resounding 56% of the vote to […]
Netflix’s Street Food appears at first to just be a series about grilled meat, fresh empanadas and quick bites from food carts around the world. The latest series, set in Latin America, is a reminder though that behind every business is a personal story — overcoming loss, challenging your limits, not accepting the pernicious idea […]
A year ago today some 500 Cuban LGBT people and their allies paraded from a famous Havana park down to El Malecon, the seafront. The parade – a ‘conga’ in local parlance – wasn’t a political march, and they had done the same thing on May 11 for many years before. But in 2019, because […]
We’re all looking for things to cheer us up in these apocalyptic times when even a trip to the supermarket is fraught with potential danger. We live online to an even greater extent now than ever before, and it is in the online realm that many are sharing their heart-warming stories of individuals doing good […]
Cuba is suffering its worst economic crisis since the 1990s. The bankruptcy of its Venezuelan sponsor, the lack of courage to undertake vital economic reforms, and international support for the cause of democracy in our country, mainly from the United States, all mean Raúl Castro can no longer rely on comfortably holding on to power. […]
If the last Friday in April was a work day for you in São Paulo, Brazil, you might not have made it into the office. Public sector unions crippled train, metro, and bus lines, and blocked major roads in that teeming metropolis of 12 million people. The scene was replicated on the same day in […]
Over the Christmas week, CapX is republishing its favourite pieces from the past year. You can find the full list here. Venezuela has announced a state of “economic emergency”. You would be forgiven for not being overly surprised by this. Venezuela has been on the path to self-destruction for years. As I wrote in […]
