Trade Embargo On Cuba

[brit2006]

Do Objectivists support the trade embargo on Cuba by the US?

If so, on what grounds? Security?

[Hal]

As far as I can tell, the only reason to support the trade embargo on Cuba is to help keep the country poor so that you can make snide comments about communism failing there.

But seriously, theres no possible justification for trade embaragoes other than direct demonstrable national security reasons. And this certainly doesnt apply to Cuba at present.

Edited February 27, 2006 by Hal

[The Wrath]

Are you suggesting that Cuba would not be impoverished if we lifted the embargo?

[gags]

I believe that the embargo has lost whatever limited effectiveness it might have had in the wake of Castro's nationalizing US corporate assets and the Bay of Pigs Invasion. In my opinion, trading with Cuba over the last 40+ years would have been more favorable for US self interest than the embargo.

[brit2006]

So on principle, banning businessmen from conducting free trade with other businessmen in another country is justified so long as national security is sufficiently threatened?

If this is true, how do you determine what a sufficient threat is?

[Capitalism Forever]

Do Objectivists support the trade embargo on Cuba by the US?

If so, on what grounds? Security?

Morality.

Cuba is run by a criminal regime, and any goods or money they may offer you for trade are stolen. Knowingly accepting stolen property makes you a party to the crime and should be against the law.

[brit2006]

Morality.

Cuba is run by a criminal regime, and any goods or money they may offer you for trade are stolen. Knowingly accepting stolen property makes you a party to the crime and should be against the law.

Should it be illegal for Microsoft, Google and Walmart to conduct trade with China, which is also a criminal regime?

[Hal]

Are you suggesting that Cuba would not be impoverished if we lifted the embargo?

Compared to where? Other Latin American countries? Chile?

Morality.

Cuba is run by a criminal regime, and any goods or money they may offer you for trade are stolen. Knowingly accepting stolen property makes you a party to the crime and should be against the law.

Should it be illegal for Americans to buy from corporations which receive government subsidies?

[Capitalism Forever]

Should it be illegal for Microsoft, Google and Walmart to conduct trade with China, which is also a criminal regime?

With the Chinese government or companies controlled by it: yes, it should be illegal. With private Chinese companies, no.

[Daedalus]

Do Objectivists support the trade embargo on Cuba by the US?

If so, on what grounds? Security?

I can't speak for all Objectivists, but this Objectivist does:

"I would advocate that which the Soviet Union fears above all else: economic boycott. I would advocate a blockade of Cuba and an economic boycott of Soviet Russia; and you would see both those regimes collapse without the loss of a single American life." Ayn Rand,

Playboy

interview, 1964

A dictatorship survives by the same method as a second-hander or moocher: by leeching off the productive efforts of the men of the mind. We must make the people of Cuba face what they have evaded for four decades: their god is bankrupt. They live only by America's sanction.

"Communism preaches the reign of mediocrity, the destruction of all individuality and all personal distinction, the turning of men into 'masses, which means an undivided, undifferentiated, impersonal, average, common herd." Ayn Rand,

The Journals of Ayn Rand

, Chapter 10

Once the average Cuban is introduced, via blockade, to the brutal reality of disease and starvation, he will begin to yearn for "capitalist" luxuries with a vengeance. The road will be cleared.

Edited February 27, 2006 by Daedalus

[Capitalism Forever]

Should it be illegal for Americans to buy from corporations which receive government subsidies?

That would be analogous to something like getting a ride from a cab driver who has downloaded music illegally. While it is ethically debatable to choose such a driver when alternatives are available, I certainly don't think there should be a law against it.

[DavidOdden]

With the Chinese government or companies controlled by it: yes, it should be illegal. With private Chinese companies, no.

The question is, what is a "private Chinese company". It's hard to see any difference between Cuba and China in terms of the government's respect for property rights. Both engage in opportunistic fake-capitalism, like the Soviet Union did. The only difference I see is that Cuba is a total failure waiting to collapse in a few years when the bearded haranguer is dead.

[Hal]

<more ayn rand quotes>.

Here she is discussing things within the context of the cold war. The world has changed; Cuba is not a threat to the US and there is no more reason to block trade with it than there is with any other Latin American country. Also, many countries the US freely trades with, such as Saudi Arabia, have governments just as authoritarian as Cuba. But then I suppose they have oil so a trade embargo would be out of the question.

Once the average Cuban is introduced, via blockade, to the brutal reality of disease and starvation, he will begin to yearn for "capitalist" luxuries with a vengeance. The road will be cleared.

This doesnt really make sense. If the US initiated an embargo against pretty much any Latin American country then the result would be devastating. The fact that Cuba happens to be socialist is completely irrelevant here - poor countries generally rely on international trade regardless of their form of government.

That would be analogous to something like getting a ride from a cab driver who has downloaded music illegally. While it is ethically debatable to choose such a driver when alternatives are available, I certainly don't think there should be a law against it.

Why not? What if it were a state owned company, such as (eg) Rolls Royce when it was owned by the British government? I really dont see a relevant difference here.

Edited February 27, 2006 by Hal

[Capitalism Forever]

The question is, what is a "private Chinese company".

A group of Chinese individuals who create their products by the uncoerced exercise of their rational faculty rather than by the enslavement of others, and who are not agents of the Chinese government.

[gags]

Let me first state that it would have been perfectly moral for the US to invade Cuba and depose Castro at any time during the last 40+ years. For whatever reason(s), Kennedy decided to not follow through with the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Every US President since that time has allowed a bloodthirsty scumbag to run a totalitarian dictatorship only about 90 miles from our border. Although we have no obligation to rescue the people of Cuba, we have every right to kill Castro, if we were to decide it is sufficiently in our interest to exercise that right.

I can't speak for all Objectivists, but this Objectivist does:

"I would advocate that which the Soviet Union fears above all else: economic boycott. I would advocate a blockade of Cuba and an economic boycott of Soviet Russia; and you would see both those regimes collapse without the loss of a single American life." Ayn Rand,

Playboy

interview, 1964

A dictatorship survives by the same method as a second-hander or moocher: by leeching off the productive efforts of the men of the mind. We must make the people of Cuba face what they have evaded for four decades: their god is bankrupt. They live only by America's sanction.

"Communism preaches the reign of mediocrity, the destruction of all individuality and all personal distinction, the turning of men into 'masses, which means an undivided, undifferentiated, impersonal, average, common herd." Ayn Rand,

The Journals of Ayn Rand

, Chapter 10

Once the average Cuban is introduced, via blockade, to the brutal reality of disease and starvation, he will begin to yearn for "capitalist" luxuries with a vengeance. The road will be cleared.

I agree with the Rand quotes you cited. Unfortunately, what we have done is to prevent US companies from trading with Cuba, while allowing every other nation to buy and sell from that dictatorship. I would support an embargo if it were truly an embargo. But this half-assed thing we have going now simply isn't working.

[Daedalus]

Here she is discussing things within the context of the cold war. The world has changed; Cuba is not a threat to the US and there is no more reason to block trade with it than there is with any other Latin American country. Also, many countries the US freely trades with, such as Saudi Arabia, have governments just as authoritarian as Cuba. But then I suppose they have oil so a trade embargo would be out of the question.

This doesnt really make sense. If the US initiated an embargo against pretty much any Latin American country then the result would be devastating. The fact that Cuba happens to be socialist is completely irrelevant here - poor countries generally rely on international trade regardless of their form of government.

Why not? What if it were a state owned company, such as (eg) Rolls Royce when it was owned by the British government? I really dont see a relevant difference here.

Cuba is a threat to the United States. According to U.S. Ambassador John R. Bolton. "The United States believes that Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological research and development effort.” http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2.../6/171314.shtml That alone gives us the right and the motive to invade them or impose a blockade that will reduce the country to mass starvation and cannibalism.

"Dictatorship nations are outlaws. Any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany and, today, has the right to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba or any other slave pen. Whether a free nation chooses to do so or not is a matter of its own self-interest, not of respect for the nonexistent 'rights' of gang rulers. It is not a free nation's duty to liberate other nations at the price of self-sacrifice, but a free nation has the right to do it, when and if it so chooses." Ayn Rand

The Virtue of Selfishness

, p. 122

[Capitalism Forever]

Here she is discussing things within the context of the cold war. The world has changed

Cuba hasn't.

Cuba is not a threat to the US

They are still criminals.

and there is no more reason to block trade with it than there is with any other Latin American country.

I would embargo Venezuela too.

Also, many countries the US freely trades with, such as Saudi Arabia, have governments just as authoritarian as Cuba. But then I suppose they have oil so a trade embargo would be out of the question.

They don't have any oil. Not as their rightful property. The oil fields in the Middle East were developed by British and American companies and were owned by them until they got nationalized by force. Justice would demand that they be returned to their rightful owners.

If the US initiated an embargo against pretty much any Latin American country then the result would be devastating.

Why?

The fact that Cuba happens to be socialist is completely irrelevant here - poor countries generally rely on international trade regardless of their form of government.

A poor but free country that has opportunities in international trade will not stay a poor country for long. A poor and socialist country that cannot trade with free countries will not stay a socialist country for long.

Why not? What if it were a state owned company, such as (eg) Rolls Royce when it was owned by the British government? I really dont see a relevant difference here.

The difference is that between a rogue state and a civilized state--between Cuba and Britain.

[Daedalus]

But this half-assed thing we have going now simply isn't working.

That is because our leaders are crippled by altruism. A President who put self-interest above "humanitarianism" or other such rot would surround Cuba with the Atlantic fleet -- with no one permitted to enter or exit. Within a few weeks, Castro's slaves would be reduced to eating cockroaches. Shortly thereafter, they would be eating each other.

Edited February 27, 2006 by Daedalus