Raul Castro not announcing the Cuban toilet paper shortage
Cuba is about to run out of toilet paper: that's the news from the island. As one hapless bureaucrat was heard to announce on a local radio station:
The corporation has taken all the steps so that at the end of the year there will be an important importation of toilet paper
No doubt there will be celebration on the streets of Havana as a result of the populace now knowing that they can visit the bathroom sometime in December.
However, the Cuban toilet paper shortage is simply, writ small, the entire problem of what has been known as "socialist calculation". Yes, it does sound appealing that we'll let the wise people in government sort out the economy. They'll tell us what sort of cars we should have, make sure that we eat healthily, most importantly, they'll make sure that no one is exploited by "The Man" in the production of those things we need for everyday life.
As FA Hayek pointed out though, this comes up against an insurmountable problem. It simply isn't possible to assemble enough information and process it so that the bureaucrats and the government know what should be produced. Nor how it should be produced. To process all of the different options as to what people actually want you have to use markets. There simply is no other way.
And in Cuba now, where they're out of that simplicity, toilet paper, we see the truth of this. It just isn't possible for those wise and benevolent types in government to get it right: so perhaps we shouldn't allow them to try?
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