You make a nice mention of 'socialist protectionism'. Essentially what you described, looks like Cuba is a giant factory full of slaves instead of a country, and EU is its customer.
First of all, you had to pick the worst of the worst implementation of an economy (Cuba) to make your point. Does my question look like I was asking for a counter-example, no matter how horrible or remote? If that's the goal then I have an even better answer "Sadism would keep a farm owner from using technology to do farming". I hope it's clear that that's not the kind of answer I was looking for.
Not only that, I just checked 'Economy of Cuba' wikipedia page and it has to import 70-80% of its food. So your worst of the worst example is still not good enough to make manual-farming labor cost-effective.
Later, you use phrases like "unique combination of" and "clever" and what not. Really? Was the industrial revolution so unique and clever that something similar will never ever be repeated? Have you looked at the daily science and technology innovation news around yourself?
"response time are too slow" and even if not, back to "social protectionism".
Sorry I've completely lost you. I don't even know if you're saying whatever you're saying as a socialist or lassez-faire capitalist or what, so I could at least put your point of view in perspective. What I do know is that every passing day, my conviction keeps getting stronger that politicians and economists love to get lost in the word-soup of archaic ideas, and completely miss the mark that the technologists are making on the world one day after another.