José Azel

Entropy, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, is not a promising topic for a newspaper column. However, its ramifications for politico-economic systems is a matter of common sense. In essence, entropy is a measure of the disorders that exist…
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In Cuban education, the French Revolution was emphasized and the American Revolution was not studied as a revolution at all. It was mostly considered a war for independence of little worldwide sociopolitical intellectual consequence. The…
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“In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car.” That saying, attributed to the economist Lawrence Summers, former President of Harvard, is a delightful metaphor for the relevancy of a culture of private property…
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My generation was present at the creation of Cuba’s totalitarian state beginning in 1959 and has witnessed the socioeconomic devastation of a nation.  In the introduction to my book “Reflections on Freedom,” I recount the story of how I was…
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At this point in time, the expectation of a popular uprising in Cuba is as unlikely as a black swan- a metaphor for an event that is beyond the realm of normal expectations. Hopefully, this will not be the Cuban case.
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On 11 March 2018, the 3,000 delegates of China’s National People’s Congress voted almost unanimously to end the term limits on the presidency, reversing Deng’s succession reforms.  This consolidated all power in the hands of China’s current…
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Soft despotism is not as obvious as hard despotism. It gives us the illusion of being in control; it degrades us rather than persecutes us. It often takes the form of a state within a state (imperium in imperio) where an internal…
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The behavioral despair test to highlights the cruelty we induce when we introduce false hope in human expectation. Such false hopes were introduced in the U.S.-Cuba policy debate by President Obama and his supporters with the President’s…
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