by Joan Thompson
This blog is a result of comments made to this article on "Cuban Illusions & Reality" over at The Nassau Institute's web site.
I came across an interesting situation on a visit to China about 15 years ago. The living standards then of the average Chinese family were not unlike the Cubans today.
When governments interfere with the citizens’ freedom to trade, they effectively confiscate their property.
Without a secure right to property economies decline and life is unendingly “poor, nasty, brutish and short”.
We might consider our own government’s view of property rights. The Bahamian $ has very little value (if any) outside our borders. Like Cuba, it is illegal for Bahamians to hold any foreign currency. The PLP Cabinet Minister was breaking the law by holding US $10,000.00 that he reported stolen from a bag in his closet at home. By law government could have expropriated the money – but the thief got there first.
How do we then explain why the Cubans are so deeply suffering shortages of food and the simple comforts? A major reason is the laws that prevent them from owning property. Currency is property in that it represents value in an exchange of either goods or labour.
How then do we explain why Bahamians are well off and Cubans so poor?
It is because we as individuals are free to trade our property to foreigners. Should government prevent or make it difficult to trade our property for foreign currency, we will be closer to the Cuban style of living, than the one we have become accustomed to.
Be wary of the propagandists and those who do not understand the private property order. Bahamian property is not going away when a foreigner trades his dollars for a piece of land. The exchange of land for money, enables the seller of the property to engage in other kinds of exchanges needed for a healthy economy – his and the general prosperity of us all.
