Fidel Castro – Socialism doesn’t work
We could have told him that 50 years ago:
Fidel Castro told a visiting American journalist that Cuba’s communist economic model doesn’t work, a rare comment on domestic affairs from a man who has conspicuously steered clear of local issues since stepping down four years ago.[...]
Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, asked if Cuba’s economic system was still worth exporting to other countries, and Castro replied: "The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore" Goldberg wrote Wednesday in a post on his Atlantic blog.
[...]
The state controls well over 90 percent of the economy, paying workers salaries of about $20 a month in return for free health care and education, and nearly free transportation and housing. At least a portion of every citizen’s food needs are sold to them through ration books at heavily subsidized prices.
Of course the "Cuban model" only “worked” while the USSR existed. It was essentially based in heavy subsidies paid Cuba by the USSR for being its main proxy in the Americas. And the USSR’s woes most firmly underlined the problems with a centralized demand economy run by the state. Even so, Cuba continued on along that vein even after their greatest benefactor and financial supporter collapsed like a wet paper box. Now, finally, after pushing Cuba into poverty, Castro admits socialism is a bust.
China, while still totalitarian, recognized the economic problems soon enough to avert a similar disaster by loosening up economically. Cuba and North Korea, though, have continued to use the disastrous economic model and are basket cases (Cuba has instituted some modest economic changes, but not enough to break the dependency on the state the government of Cuba had ingrained on multiple generations of its population).
Of course Castro’s admission comes to late for the people of Venezuela who’ve been roped into a Cuba-style socialist government by strong man Hugo Chavez. Predictably, the Venezuelan economy is in shambles.
You have to wonder how many more ruined economies it will take before the socialists of the world (or wannabes) recognize that their brand of government and economics is a disaster and has probably ruined more lives than any other economic system in history.
~McQ
“Socialism Doesn’t Work”
Please forward to Reid, Pelosi, Obama. Thanks—-CONEY
Someone who gives a rip needs to get Chavez some supervision, in case this news puts him over the edge.
Or not.
The Castros even ruined Cuban cigars for a while, in the process of killing fellow Cubans and reducing the nation to a ghost of what it should have been. Generations will spit on his name.
As to the “Cuban model” not working…this is going make a lot of MSM types simply thunderstruck…!!! Fat Mikey Moore can be expected to go on a twinkie binge the likes of which have never been known. What with Obama and the Deemocrats in full swirl-mode and all, this could be more than Erp can bear, too…
Nope. Mao is loved in China to this day. Castro will be too.
I think you’re wrong on both counts. Stalin is longed for by SOME Russians, too. Bill Clinton is yearned for by a cadre of very strange Collectivist women (and a few nominal men). That does not make any of them “loved” in the main.
I think they are transformed in mythical creatures. Stalin, though, was discredited by Kruschev. Mao did not have that happen.
I thought his comments on nuclear issues was even more enlightening …
The grave must have had a discussion with the old man. He’s realizing some things… Too late, of course…
He’s also telling the Iranians to back off on the anti semitism.
I think he’s realizing that the Batista route of friendship with the US was actually the right path. I think there is a signal here that Cuba wants to make nice with western capitalism. These are amazing statements from Castro.
As far as North Korea, they have actually allowed some small private enterprise with respect to farm products, to advert famine. Right now, I think we are the only place moving left.
But, of course, we’re just catching up to the “modern” nations with their superior ways and such. And, besides, all the economic difficulties we’re having are due to greed and deregulation, so the solution is more government, bigger government, more powerful government.
“The beatings will continue until morale improves.”
I wonder if he isn’t secretly Catholic or something now.
Or maybe he’s still very atheist and fears their religious non-western nut jobs.
Pascal’s Wager comes to mind. He is definitely WAY more introspective and candid than we’ve ever known him to be…
Can someone tell Nancy Pelosi, Diane Watson, Sean Penn, Danny Glover, Benicio del Toro, et al.? Oh, and PoliSci professors across the nation?
First, we get the best example of how Progressive/Socialistic policies either don’t work or don’t fit in the US, followed by the leader of the “model” of the idealistic 3rd World country saying they don’t work there either.
Democracy ≠ Freedom.
The dichotomy is between freedom and collectivism, not collectivism and democracy. Ultimately, democracy devolves into a populist form of collectivism. When the majority lives off the production of a minority, there’s no stopping the tyranny of the majority. Also, clever politicians can scare the majority to vote away their, and their neighbors’, freedoms for the false promise of security,
That’s a critical point that many people don’t understand. Democracy is a process, nothing more. It is at base a nice way of saying “majority rule”. And while that process can increase freedom, it can just as easily decrease it as well. See Venezuela.
Which is why the Founders…keen students of history and human nature…were VERY careful NOT to make this nation’s central government a democracy. It is a democratic republic with a Constitution that is intended to assure the rights of minorities are not lost.
How’s that working out?
Well, democracy can mean different things. It can apply generally, including our constitutional republic, or else more specifically. The most specific meanings of democracy don’t exist these days in any major state.
It works great every time you take the Constitution out of the drawer.
When you have demi-tyrants like Obama…not so well. WE have to insist on the basic charter being honored.
I think that the lesson they will draw from this is “don’t admit that your policies don’t work until you’re ready to step down.“
Before the collapse of the USSR and the opening of KGB files, I encountered plenty of useful idiots (American and sometimes European) who would scoff at criticisms of the USSR as CIA exaggerations, paranoia, McCarthyism, etc. and cite Chomsky or some other Western acanemic shibboleth nonsense. Once the facts came to the light of day, all but the most shamelessly dishonest or stupidly delusional realized they couldn’t maintain the “catatonic skeptic” pose—with respect to Moscow, at least.
But just like Acorn offices reopening under new names, those stupid enough to fall for socialist propaganda usually don’t wander too far. They’re the people squawking about the superiority of the NIH or Sweden, etc..
Erp…??? You gonna let him talk about you like that…!?!?!?!
I think he’s busy twisting fresh minds right now.
I think Erb is off in a corner, curled in a fetal position, moaning.
They switch memes so seamlessly . . . from:
“the USSR isn’t that bad, it certainly isn’t an ‘evil empire’, and in fact it is superior in some ways . . . 100% employment . . . ”
to:
“of course it was gonna fail, everyone knew, at least Gorby had the sense to take it in for a soft landing . . . “
Many of them are well aware of this. Sure, socialism doesn’t work if your goal is to grow an economy in today’s current geoplitical reality. But growing economies inevitably lead to wider gaps between the rich and the poor. Not just individuals either, but whole nations get rich at the expense of others. Socialism works to ‘correct’ that by limiting the rich to the select few favored by the government, so it’s more ‘fair’.
In addition, if your goal is a one-world government, there’s no reason for that to happen while America is a capitalist superpower still respects economic freedoms still represents some type of false ideal in the eyes of struggling people around the world. More than half the world ‘rightfully’ hates us, but for some reason that hasn’t been enough to destroy the term ‘the American Dream’. Socialism in the US will alleviate that roadblock.
Once there is a one-world government, it can really force everyone to be treated fairly. Having to make pragmatic compromises with other governments prevent current socialist countries from reaching their peak, but that would be eliminated when ther’s only one government. The savings on defense spending alone would probably be enough to give everyone a good standard of living. To date, no one has proposed a method for eliminating all the money spent on warfare other than a united planetary givernment.
I’m having trouble keeping my brain turned off, so Erb will have to take over the argument from here.
That was a brave effort, dude. It had to hurt….
It’s only funny until you realize that satire is dead. People used to joke about government dictating to us what to eat.
Too little, too late, you fucking old commie zombie, Die now and go to hell, in five years of your death you will only be remembered as the typical twentieth century murdering monster tyrant.
Harsh…but who could argue…
Maybe they’ll have cruise packages in the near future…Piss On Castro’s Grave…!!!
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