this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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Yes. And it is deeply unfair in how it rewards entrenched wealth rather than giving everyone equal opportunities. That's why socialists are opposed to it.
Other than not being born in the slums of an exploited country, right?
I've worked hard for what I have too. That doesn't stop me from looking around, seeing that there are billions of people on this planet who work way harder than I do for way less than I have, and saying "this system should be changed."
idk what communist countries you've been to, but if you compare for example the average Cuban's quality of life to that of the average person on any other Caribbean island, capitalism doesn't come out looking too hot. Most post Soviet countries are still poorer today than they were in 1989, almost everyone who has been lifted out of poverty in the past generation is Chinese, and there are literally hundreds of capitalist countries that have been doing capitalism for a hundred years or more that have remained the poorest countries in the world regardless.
The objective reality is that communism is leaps and bounds better at organizing society than capitalism can ever be, full stop.
Undernourishment in Cuba has been under 5%, and child mortality under 1%, every year since the year 2000. For Jamaica undernourishment currently hovers at 6.9%, and child mortality 1.3%.
Anecdotes are useless in a discussion like this. I don't care what you think you saw, I care about the facts.
Stats are stats. If Cuba, even while facing a crisis in its food production due to lack of seeds, gas, and fertilizer, is still able to feed its people better than its neighboring countries, then that is a stirring indictment of capitalism.
Both of your examples link to a drop in imports as the cause of shortages, itself a symptom of the ongoing global production crises caused by COVID-19. A wealthy country like the USA can paper over a problem like that by throwing around money and credit - a small country like Cuba can't.
Consider how Cuba's economy could possibly respond differently to this situation if it were capitalist. I suppose they could take massive IMF loans in order to shore up imports, at the cost of "structural adjustments" that cause untold damage to future generations by eliminating the government's mandate to run public services - but that plan hasn't exactly worked in the long term anywhere it has been tried.
The fact is that these crises are well outside the sphere of influence of Cuba's economy or government, and are exacerbated by American imperialism against Cuba and its allies (ie literally hijacking Venezuelan oil shipments using the US Navy). Regardless of political ideology or economic policy, Cuba would be facing these crises one way or the other, and centrally planned communism has proven time and time again that even if it's not perfect it's better at navigating these problems than a competitive market capitalist system is.
Cuba has a longer life expectancy, America is winning hard.