The Cuban Dictatorship’s Next Repression Targets Small and Medium Business Owners

A campaign has emerged now against small businesses known as MIPYMES, where Cubans can only purchase with dollars, and everything is very expensive. However, at least in these shops, Cubans are not subjected to waiting hours under the sun to buy basic food and products like soap and toilet paper.

For Cuban people who continue to suffer from a shortage of medicine and basic necessities, these small stores at least provide a stable supply of goods.

From an economic perspective, it is a mistake to control the prices of MIPYMES because private businesses do not operate like state-run ones, and they should not be fined for adjusting their prices as necessary. But it is clear that those who do not have access to dollars depend on the state for their food.

The result of this new oppression is the disillusionment of foreign investors who might want to bring money into the country and invest in the island with their own capital. But Cubans will also continue to leave the island as soon as they can.

The relentless attempts of Marxism to manipulate the private sector never lead to growth or prosperity. On the contrary, they stifle entrepreneurial initiative, discourage investment, and impoverish the population.

The government has deployed an army of inspectors and officials dedicated to oversight, yet it insists that this is not a war against small businesses. What is certain is that they have raised resistance to these small stores, where the dollars do not pass through the hands of the communist, controlling, and oppressive regime that is in power. Small business owners are aware that they represent a threat to the dictatorship since a large portion of the dollars entering the island escapes their control.

An economist named Gustavo… believes that «when the government’s measures are analyzed coldly, it is impossible to find any economic or even political logic. Almost all of these regulations are counterproductive. In the short term, there will be an inflationary escalation. The sensible thing would be to have half a million or a million MIPYMES. The current eleven thousand are too few, a symbolic figure. There is a conceptual error: private businesses, due to the meager salaries of state sector employees and pensioners, are not designed to meet the demand of low-income people, who are the majority of Cubans.”

«It is difficult to enter a private market and see an air-conditioned, clean store with imported products of much higher quality and design than those available to the population through the ration book, and not be able to buy. MIPYMES are not the neighborhood state-owned stores. The government must remember that the private sector runs its businesses with its own money, not with public funds. These policies discourage future foreign investments and investments from Cubans abroad. Moreover, the lack of a sustainable supply of goods and services will further reduce the purchasing power of state employees and retirees, increase prices, and Cubans will continue to emigrate.”

“The right thing to do, to stop the multi-system crisis and inflation, would be to reduce taxes so that private businesses can flourish, allow foreign companies to pay their workers directly, and privatize the more than 300 inefficient state-owned enterprises. And, above all, reduce the enormous bureaucratic apparatus of the State,” concludes the economist.

Main articles on Mipymes and the original interviews to private business owners can be found at different sites such as directoriocubano.info, eldebate.com and diariolasamericas.com

Flor Elena Robledo

Flor Elena Robledo es periodista y comunicadora con experiencia en «Sábado Gigante» y Univision, destacándose en comunicación pública y traducción simultánea. Ha enseñado periodismo, entrevistado a figuras públicas y trabajado en TUVU y MegaTv, alcanzando millones de vistas con sus historias. Posee un título en Periodismo de Radiodifusión de la Florida International University y estudios de posgrado en Periodismo en Español.