In Cuba, starting and keeping a business running has become a daily test of endurance. Behind every café, small workshop, retail outlet, or family-run venture are people striving to maintain a source of income. Amidst inflation, power outages, shortages of supplies, and significant hurdles in accessing financing, transportation, and stable markets.
Yet, some citizens still harbor the belief that business owners are to blame for rising prices or that they live in affluence. While this perception is understandable given current price levels, it does not always reflect reality. Most small-scale entrepreneurs and self-employed individuals are not becoming millionaires. In many cases, they barely manage to recoup their investments, pay wages, cover operating expenses, and provide for their households.
There was a time when lower investments could yield profit margins exceeding 50 percent. Today, the landscape is often quite different. The costs of raw materials, transportation, fuel, rent, equipment maintenance, and restocking inventory have risen significantly.
Compounding this are power outages, which spoil products, bring services to a standstill, and necessitate additional spending on batteries, generators, or other renewable energy alternatives. After accounting for all these burdens, profit margins may shrink to 10 percent—or, with some luck, reach 20 percent.
Consequently, the final price of a product does not depend solely on the merchant’s discretion. Often, it is the result of a supply chain defined by scarcity, the presence of intermediaries, monetary instability, and a lack of favorable conditions for production. Automatically blaming the final link in the chain may offer a simple explanation. But it fails to address the underlying problem.
This is not to say that exploitative practices should be justified. It is also necessary to demand transparency, quality, compliance with regulations, and social responsibility. Businesses must avoid arbitrary pricing, consumer deception, hoarding, and practices that harm the public. However, criticism must distinguish between those who engage in speculation and those who are legitimately striving to keep their doors open, pay their employees, and support their families.
Cuban entrepreneurs are also victims of a complex economic situation. As are state-sector workers, consumers, producers, and merchants. Rather than turning against one another, we should recognize that we are all part of a reality. Where costs are rising, purchasing power is declining, and individual solutions are proving insufficient.
Small businesses can contribute to employment, the supply of goods and services, and local development. However, they require clear rules, more stable access to suppliers, functional financial mechanisms, fewer bureaucratic hurdles, and energy conditions that allow for operations. Facilitating their work does not mean abandoning oversight. It means creating a framework that fosters legality, fair competition, and consumer protection.
Society, for its part, cannot demand low prices without considering the costs involved in producing, transporting, and preserving goods. Likewise, businesses cannot ignore the difficult circumstances faced by families. What is needed is dialogue, sensitivity, and a balance between the profitability required to stay in business and the responsibility to provide affordable products and services.
There are no magic solutions, nor is there a single party to blame. The root causes of the economic crisis lie well beyond the control of any individual small-scale merchant or self-employed worker. Amidst these challenges, the conversation must move away from prejudice and toward the reality: many businesses are not amassing wealth—they are simply trying to survive.
When a business closes, it is not just a point of sale that disappears. A job, an initiative, and an opportunity to help meet the community’s needs are also lost. Therefore, rather than issuing blanket condemnations, it is better to analyze the situation, regulate fairly, and support those who operate with integrity. In times of crisis, understanding others does not solve every problem. But it can prevent those who are already suffering from ending up in conflict with one another.
By: Álvaro Raúl Suárez Leyva
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