Cognitive Dissonance and El Toque’s Currency Exchange Rates
El Toque has been publishing a Representative Currency Exchange Rate for some time now. It fills a need as the Cuban government maintains an “official” exchange rate that defies reality. This article comes after the latest attack on El Toque for informing the citizenry amid the systematic void left by the Cuban Communist Party and its government.
By Eloy Viera Cañive (El Toque)
HAVANA TIMES – The term “cognitive dissonance” was coined by US psychologist Leon Festinger in 1957 and first described in his classic work: A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Festinger maintained that the norm for humans is consistency– that is, that people tend to seek internal consistency in our beliefs, attitudes and behaviors.
According to Festinger, when people perceive a contradiction between their convictions and their way of acting, or material evidence of this is put before them, a psychological state of discomfort or dissonance is triggered. To reduce that unease, people may change their beliefs, modify their conduct, or reinterpret reality in a way that justifies their decisions.
The classic example of this phenomenon was described by Festinger in his study When Prophecy Fails, in which he analyzed the behavior of a cult that believed the world would end on a certain date. Instead of acknowledging their error when the prophecy failed to come true, the members reinforced their faith by claiming that their devotion had “saved the planet.” This reinterpretation of reality allowed the cult members to reduce their psychological discomfort, the cognitive dissonance caused by evidence contrary to their beliefs.
Why am I saying this? Because anyone who still believes that the crisis in Cuba is caused by anything other than the socialist model imposed for decades, the bureaucracy, the family aristocracy that supports it, and the Communist Party that defends it tooth and nail, must undoubtedly be suffering from severe cognitive dissonance.
Those in Cuba today who insist that the lack of electricity, water, food, transportation, etcetera, is exclusively or largely the fault of the US embargo or, at best, of the mistakes made by some leaders who “have not been capable of correctly interpreting the ideas of others,” must be feeling a deep psychological discomfort, to say the least.
And the same discomfort, I imagine, is being felt by those who claim in today’s Cuba that inflation is the fault of El Toque, because it publishes its Representative Rate of the Informal Hard Currency Market with constant updates. I say this because it must be very hard to believe such a thing and arrive at the end of the month with a salary paid in Cuban pesos, then find that the soap and food you need are only available in US dollars from the stores run by the government that pays you in pesos.
It must be very hard to believe that El Toque is responsible for the inflation, and – at the same time – check the site of the Cuban Central Bank and see that it says that 1 US dollar is equivalent to 120 Cuban pesos. Then attempt to buy dollars at this price from the bank or Cadeca, the government’s money exchange offices, and have them tell you they don’t have any available.
That pain, that discomfort – which I believe any rational and reasonably informed person in Cuba must feel – that cognitive dissonance, although it may generate different reactions, does not change the country’s reality.
Precisely for that reason—because we know that our service is valuable to many people, because we have never manipulated currency prices and have limited ourselves to transparently reflecting their evolution (both upward and downward), and because we believe that cognitive dissonance is a process that each person must face individually—we have decided to continue publishing our Representative Informal Market Rate despite the “No El Toque!” campaigns, (noting that in 2024 it was: “El Toque is disrespectful”) or the wishes of so many who want us to disappear.
We also know that not all attacks against El Toque are the result of cognitive dissonance: some are motivated by a complicity or expediency that ends up being useful to the regime in Havana.
We believe that many of those who say we work for the dictatorship because we publish “The” rate manifest another psychological phenomenon: projection. I say projection, because we believe that most of those claiming this are themselves part of the system and have a mission to generate activities that distort and redirect public debate using a technique they have perfected: instilling suspicion.
We also believe that if you’re not part of the system, yet believe and affirm without any proof that by publishing “The” rate we’re part of – or working for – the system, it’s probably because you’ve chosen the easiest road: to attack the messenger, under the façade that you’re attacking the power, yet also knowing that criticism of El Toque, unlike any genuine public criticism of the system, will never be answered with repression or censorship.
On the contrary, criticism of El Toque and its published currency exchange rate has only served to increase our transparency. The algorithm behind our rate can be replicated using our publicly available methodology, and the messages collected daily are also public and can be verified by anyone. The public disclosure of our methodology and the data we use for calculation have allowed scholars from international universities and pro-government institutions such as the University of Havana to audit the rate and validate its calculation method.
We know that the methodology we use is fallible, as it is based on offers and not on actual sales transactions. And not only do we know this, we declare it; which is why we say that our rate is not “The” rate, but a reference.
Our rate has become “The” rate, not because we say so, but only because it is the closest and most reliable reflection of the market reality that exists in Cuba today. Among other reasons, this is because the Cuban regime does not even have an official rate that is economically sound, let alone credible.
If cognitive dissonance isn’t preventing you from seeing the obvious, you should recognize that the transparency we operate with—even if it doesn’t satisfy you—is far superior to that of any entity in the Cuban regime, including those that control the stores that sell basic necessities in dollars, which said they were going to create a digital currency like the MLC only for high-end products and they would never again dollarize the economy. It’s superior to that of the institutions that recognize they need dollars, but don’t offer even one piece of information on what they’re using them for, or why.
Consider too that it’s the Cuban regime that has an obligation to be transparent, both by law and by common sense, yet it tells you that the dollar exchange rate is 1:120 when in the K Tower hotel building it’s exchanged at a rate of 1:370.
We want to believe that those who recognize the regime’s responsibility for the crisis, but as a result of cognitive dissonance also accuse us of “playing into the hands of the dictatorship,” or of being its accomplices for publishing data on the informal market, are speaking out of frustration at not being able to break out of a vicious cycle that perpetuates their poverty and that of their families.
These people should be reminded that those of us who make El Toque have no ties to those who have repressed us, nor do we derive any benefit from the currency market. We do not sell or buy dollars or euros. Nor do we enjoy seeing our parents and grandparents in Cuba watch their pensions evaporate as the red arrows on our charts rise. Much less do we profit from the suffering of our people.
You can always let off steam with us; you can take out all your frustration on those of us who make El Toque, which is also public, but remember: if we disappear tomorrow—although I don’t see that as likely—your problem, your family’s problem, and your country’s problem will still be there.
First published in Spanish by El Toque and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.