For believers in free-markets, it can become mind-numbingly redundant to repeat the same indisputable facts to our socialist friends, over and over again. It doesn’t matter which historical examples you use…North Korea and South Korea, West Berlin and East Berlin, Western Europe and Eastern Europe, Venezuela and Colombia, Cuba and the rest of the Caribbean.
They will continue to believe, with faith like a child, in that socialist ideal: the workers’ paradise. A place where, freed from the exploitative nature of capitalist economics, “the workers” will control the means of production, and then equitably and fairly distribute goods and services to the benefit of the community.
Every time that you hear socialists, Communist, and Marxists talk about the benefits of government regulations in the economy to “level the playing field,” “look out for the little guy,” promote “social justice,” or ensure equality for “under-served communities”…remember that history is not on their side.
And these same people, many of them prominent academics at Ivy League universities, have spent several decades excusing away every previous iteration of the socialist experiment, because “it wasn’t true socialism.” “China, the Soviet Union, Syria, Iraq, Venezuela, Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea, Laos…no…none of these are real socialism!” they protest. “Socialism works fine!” they scream, “it’s just that previous socialist governments haven’t implemented it correctly!”
Yes, as unbelievable as it sounds, there are still PhDs in the Harvard faculty lounge that are happy to stand by these arguments. Although, how many Marxist professors, however, would like to turn in their US passports and go to live in Cuba? The healthcare and education are great, right? And…it’s a society founded on social justice, right?
Well, how “socially just” is it, when the most basic consumers staples are inaccessible to the general population, but readily available to crooked political and military figures on the black market, connected to the Cuban Communist Party?
In Cuba, chicken, beans, rice, eggs, and soap are a luxury..rationed by the government. Yes, in 2019, a mere 90 miles from Florida shores…working class people can not afford beans and rice…the very staples of the Latin American diet for centuries. When was the last time you ever heard of workers in a capitalist society complaining that they could not buy rice, beans, or eggs?
In a free-market economy, even people working at minimum wage jobs can buy all the chicken, rice, beans, eggs, and soap they could possibly wish to consume. Even in the lowest wage states in the United States, workers earning a mere $10 an hour can buy all the soap, rice, beans, and chicken they’d need for a week with an hour or two of work.
Let’s do the math here: two pounds of chicken: $6. A two pound bag of rice $1.50. A bag of beans $2. A bar of soap $1. A dozen eggs $2. So, for a grand total of $12.50 (one hour’s work for well over 90% of the population), any American who is working can have all the rice, eggs, beans, and chicken they want for a week, and all the soap with which they desire to lather themselves up. Of course, they have 39 other hours in the work week to pay for other goods and services.
In Cuba, the workers’ paradise, these items are in short supply. While the Cuban government blames the usual suspect (the United States), economists have fingered another culprit:
“Commerce Minister Betsy Díaz Velázquez told the state-run Cuban News Agency that various forms of rationing would be employed in order to deal with shortages of staple foods. She blamed the hardening of the U.S. trade embargo by the Trump administration. Economists give equal or greater blame to a plunge in aid from Venezuela, where the collapse of the state-run oil company has led to a nearly two-thirds cut in shipments of subsidized fuel that Cuba used for power and to earn hard currency on the open market.”
Well, fancy that! Who would have ever thought that when the spigot of free money from Venezuela was turned off, that the most basic sustenance would disappear as well?
There has never been a single economic success coming out of Cuba. It is a beggar nation that has never been self-sufficient, prosperous, or successful in any way, other than inducing many of its citizens to risk death by fleeing the country.
Cuba has been a complete and total economic failure for 60 years, and the only reason it never collapsed was due to massive cash payments from the Soviet Union, then from Venezuela. Guess what? Venezuela is running out of money and oil to give away. Cuba is in serious trouble.
Despite their incompetence, don’t ever expect the Cuban Communist Party to admit that its policies are a failure, and open up the economy. The entire economy is still run and heavily controlled by the government and the military. Economic competition and entrepreneurship are an anathema to Cuba, despite whatever small gains have been made.
A workers paradise? Not so much.
The government can implement whatever ridiculous centrally-planned distribution scheme it wants for basic consumer items.
Cuban “social justice” sure doesn’t seem to have deterred millions of Cubans from leaving the island on an annual basis.
Cuba has two choices: they can truly open up the economy…or they can look for another host to infect and leech off of.