In Cuba, We Have The Worst Of Both Worlds

In Cuba, We Have The Worst Of Both Worlds / 14ymedio, Jorge Hernandez
Fonseca
Posted on August 8, 2015

14ymedio, Jorge Hernandez Fonseca, 4 August 2015 – Cuba has lived under
the rule of the Castro brothers for a long "socialist" period, the
result of which has been an impoverished society. The solution now
promoted by the authorities is "to befriend the imperialist enemy,"
because, "without the restoration of capitalism it is impossible to
construct socialism." However, it is not the socialism that Raul Castro
and his generals are going to implement on the island, but rather a
hybrid of the worst of both worlds.

Capitalism requires individual freedom as a condition to better develop
the entrepreneurial potential of society, to foster the development of
the productive sources. Individual freedom implies, however, a certain
dose of social insecurity – an undesirable feeling for many people – but
that strengthens the entrepreneurial capacity of the other part of the
same society.

Capitalist production organization is structured naturally so that the
few entrepreneurs – owners of the businesses – give employment to a
greater number of employees. Socialists denounce the "capitalist
exploitation" by these entrepreneur-owners of the "unredeemed" masses.

Socialism, for its part, prioritizes "the social" at the cost of
sacrificing individual freedom. It argues that "the social security is
obtained at the sacrifice of individual freedom," as a kind of payment
to obtain the longed-for "social justice for the great dispossessed masses.

The productive socialist organization is very similar to the capitalist.
In order to eradicate capitalism, it nationalizes the productive
enterprises and in parallel limits individual freedom through a
dictatorship in order to "give social justice in exchange for freedom."
As there are no owners, the earnings go to the all-powerful state which
supposedly distributes them "equally" to offer the promised social
justice. This scheme doesn't work and decreases the earnings until the
final collapse of the economy, an incentive for the return to the "old"
capitalism.

The Castro regime has decided to implement a State capitalism that
allows only foreign "capitalist exploitation," but leaves the
dictatorship intact

In the current circumstances, the Castro regime has decided to implement
a State capitalism that allows only foreign "capitalist exploitation,"
but leaves the dictatorship intact to curtail the individual freedoms of
Cubans. In this case, we have the worst of both worlds: on the one hand,
the lack of freedom implied by a socialist dictatorship, on the other
hand, that lack of social justice implied by capitalism only for
foreigners. This, for Cubans, means the continuation of the struggle
against the dictatorship.

The Castro regime will disappear with the disappearance of the Castro
brothers, with or without the presence of the United States on the
national stage. It will be then when the Cuban people, inside and
outside the island, will assert their rights, violated in this
half-century of oppression and treachery.

Source: In Cuba, We Have The Worst Of Both Worlds / 14ymedio, Jorge
Hernandez Fonseca | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/in-cuba-we-have-the-worst/