But during the generally lighthearted conversation (we had just spent three hours talking about Iran and the Middle East), I asked him if he believed the Cuban model was still something worth exporting."
The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," he said.
This struck me as the mother of all Emily Litella moments. Did the leader of the Revolution just say, in essence, "Never mind"?
I asked Julia to interpret this stunning statement for me. She said, "He wasn't rejecting the ideas of the Revolution. I took it to be an acknowledgment that under 'the Cuban model' the state has much too big a role in the economic life of the country."
The "he" is Fidel Castro, of course. No word if the old fella has been reading Hayek lately. And the sound you just heard is the floor dropping from underneath over a half-century of fawning analysis. You don't have to reject the ideas, but it's in practice where things get ugly.
Fascinating piece from the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg. Read the whole thing.
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