Cuba, the Last Great Hope?

[trivas7]

Is Cuba the last great hope for socialism on the planet? Is this the society people here want to see? With a state owned economy (i.e. not worker-owned), people living on rations? And -- to be fair -- ecologically-minded and w/ high levels of education and employment, free medical care? Personally, I suspect that if I had grown up there I'd be content.

Does Cuba represent the reality of socialism in the contemporary world? Does it make the case for socialism IYO?



You know as well as I do that life for Cuban workers is exponentially better than it ever could be under capitalism. When it comes to housing, health care, education, gender and racial equality and more, Cuba embarrasses every other capitalist country on earth. And remember, this is WITH the capitalist blockade. Revolution brought about this progress, nothing less and nothing more. That is why I am a revolutionary.
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Socialism has worked,

[Os Cangaceiros]

"Blockade" is an interesting word to use for the trade embargo...

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

Is Cuba the last great hope for socialism on the planet? Is this the society people here want to see? With a state owned economy (i.e. not worker-owned), people living on rations? And -- to be fair -- ecologically-minded and w/ high levels of education and employment, free medical care? Personally, I suspect that if I had grown up there I'd be content.

Does Cuba represent the reality of socialism in the contemporary world? Does it make the case for socialism IYO?

No.

[Raúl Duke]

No, not to me but some in this board may held it as an example of socialism. Ask them.

[Bud Struggle]

I guess it's the Last Great Hope of the Russian Orthodox Church. :D

[Pogue]

The last great hope of socialism on the planet?

Look, here is your problem with your understanding of socialism Trivas. You see it as some 'force', some faction, an physical entity, a regime. This is how most right wing people see it. Thats why they hate it, ebcause they think socialism refers to the despotic regimes Russia, China, etc and those alone. Thats why they believe it has been 'defeated', thats why people like Obama, etc refer to socialism as being defeated. Your portraying it as a faction that just disappears, such as say, the Roman Empire.

Socialism is not a faction or a movement of a tyrannical few that want world domination that will be defeated if all of them are killed off or if they're 'empire' is destroyed. Thats why the fall of the USSR didn't kill socialist thougt, obviously.

Socialism is a form of human organisation which has and will manifest itself in ways in which the people involved will not know it is socialism, or maybe will even oppose 'socialism' as they udnerstand it as a political movement. Socialism is the defense of the people against tyranny, and their natural form of organisation as an alternative to heirachy and oppresion; thats why even those protesting against the 'Socialist' regimes of the USSR in 1956 and 1968 and China in 1989 all organised themselves in a democratic, worker (or just ordinary people) based manner. Socialism isn't this force or movement its organisation, its a human behaviour, and then a society after this.

Thats why you keep making threads which can easily be refuted, which often even don't make sense, that make grand claims that don't really mean anything. Because you're still stuck in seeing socialism as that scary and sinister bloc out in the east full of dictators and gulags, famines and secret police, when in reality that was the opposite of socialism.

[trivas7]

Look, here is your problem with your understanding of socialism Trivas. You see it as some 'force', some faction, an physical entity, a regime. This is how most right wing people see it. Thats why they hate it, ebcause they think socialism refers to the despotic regimes Russia, China, etc and those alone.

I respectfully deny the allegation. I've read my Marx. I pretty much agree w/ LSD re the socialism of the future, if and when it comes about:


[C]apitalism is doomed to be replaced once its material foundations are no longer standing.

As for the "anarchy of production", it's there for a very good reason. Anarchy may not be pretty, but it beats the alternative. It beats the oppressive nightmare that is all power in the hands of the monolithic state.

Capitalism will fall one day, but not in the sense you're meaning. It won't be "overthrown" or "torn down", nor with the working class "rise up" and implement "socialism" in its place. It will die when the world is no longer capable of supporting it, when the reasons for its existance are no longer present.

Like feudalism before it, and like ancient production before that, when an economic system is no longer current, it doesn't require a "revolution" to end its reign. Nobody "revolted" to implement feudalism, it just came about because the conditions nescessitated it.

So it will be when capitalism is finally made obsolete. But, lest you get too eager, that day is still a long ways away.




Thats why you keep making threads which can easily be refuted, which often even don't make sense, that make grand claims that don't really mean anything. Because you're still stuck in seeing socialism as that scary and sinister bloc out in the east full of dictators and gulags, famines and secret police, when in reality that was the opposite of socialism.I post threads to clarify my own admittedly muddled thinking and convictions, and to write something interesting for my own selfish pleasure; w/ Emerson I agree that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. I couldn't give a damn whether or not anyone thinks they've refuted them.

[Magdalen]

"Blockade" is an interesting word to use for the trade embargo...

I'm very interested to see that a so-called socialist prefers to use the phraseology of US imperialism.


Is Cuba the last great hope for socialism on the planet? Is this the society people here want to see? With a state owned economy (i.e. not worker-owned), people living on rations? And -- to be fair -- ecologically-minded and w/ high levels of education and employment, free medical care? Personally, I suspect that if I had grown up there I'd be content.

Does Cuba represent the reality of socialism in the contemporary world? Does it make the case for socialism IYO?

Socialism does not need Cuba to survive, but the Cuban Revolution is a great asset to the socialist movement internationally, and of course, to the Cuban people. Cuba allows us as socialists to demonstrate a living, breathing alternative to capitalism's future of racism, poverty and war. It helps us to illustrate that socialism is the only sustainable road that can provide for humanity. Cuba proves that that it is possible to provide everyone in the world with the essentials for a dignified life despite limited material resources.

Without this tiny, blockaded island of 11 million people, the current developments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador would never have taken place. Now these countries are following Revolutionary Cuba's lead in taking on greedy, murderous US imperialism, and building real social justice. Without Cuba's selfless internationalist contribution in Africa, apartheid may have never been defeated, and would have turned oil-rich Angola into another one of its colonies.

Despite the hardships of the blockade, despite invasion, sabotage, terrorism and biological warfare at the hands of the US, the revolution has abolished the poverty and destitution which blighted the island before 1959. Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate and a higher life expectancy than the United States. It has a doctor to patient ratio second to no country in the world, completely free education up to and including university level. We should also compare the responses of Cuba and of the capitalist world to economic crisis. Today, the 26-county government in Ireland seeks to impose horrific new limits on medical cards - in the early 1990s, while facing the worst peacetime economic crisis of any country in modern history, Cuba actually increased health care spending as a proportion of its GDP.

[trivas7]

Socialism does not need Cuba to survive [...]

If socialism dies in Cuba, where does it survive?

[danyboy27]

If socialism dies in Cuba, where does it survive?

trivias, communism and socialism cant die, they dont breathe.

[trivas7]

trivias, communism and socialism cant die, they dont breathe.
I dunno; perhaps they exist in the ether of utopian thought peculiar to the nineteenth century. Somewhere the Victorian concerns of Mr. Charles Dickens still beat within this nostalgic post-modern heart.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

I dunno; perhaps they exist in the ether of utopian thought peculiar to the nineteenth century.

Says an Austrian schooler. That's hysterical. When will Hegel's dictatorship come to save us all from the tyranny of socialism? :laugh:

[Bud Struggle]

If socialism dies in Cuba, where does it survive?

RevLeft of course!

[trivas7]

Says an Austrian schooler. That's hysterical. When will Hegel's dictatorship come to save us all from the tyranny of socialism?

Same time as Marx's saves us all from the tyranny of capitalism.

[#FF0000]

I post threads to clarify my own admittedly muddled thinking and convictions, and to write something interesting for my own selfish pleasure; w/ Emerson I agree that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. I couldn't give a damn whether or not anyone thinks they've refuted them.

You know, if you're going to be so self-righteous, you could just start blogging. :mellow:

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Same time as Marx's saves us all from the tyranny of capitalism.

The difference being Marx's "dictatorship" is a democracy, whereas Hegel's was a single person.

[trivas7]

The difference being Marx's "dictatorship" is a democracy, whereas Hegel's was a single person.
Too bad that no government that has ever implemented the dictatorship of the proletariat ever understood it that way.

[Raúl Duke]

Let me mention something about the LSD quote:


Like feudalism before it, and like ancient production before that, when an economic system is no longer current, it doesn't require a "revolution" to end its reign. Nobody "revolted" to implement feudalism, it just came about because the conditions nescessitated it.


This is ridiculous. Many social trends, including revolts, revolutions, and upheavals, played a part in the end of feudalism. Even the implementation of feudalism had to do with events such as the fall of Rome,etc.

[Pogue]

Too bad that no government that has ever implemented the dictatorship of the proletariat ever understood it that way.

I agree, thats why I oppose governments. I still don't get your points.

[trivas7]

Let me mention something about the LSD quote:

This is ridiculous. Many social trends, including revolts, revolutions, and upheavals, played a part in the end of feudalism. Even the implementation of feudalism had to do with events such as the fall of Rome,etc.
He's using a maximalist Marxist definitiion of revolution: social relations change when the productive forces necessitates it. This isn't essentially re political revolutions or people in revolt against governments. What exactly do you disagree w/?


I agree, thats why I oppose governments. I still don't get your points.
What points exactly? You seem to understand that socialism is an ideal. I agree. Marxism ultimately suffers from being as utopian as those socialisms Marx himself criticized (But that's not its only problem). I differ from you in that I see anarchist organization as the muons of the social world: they go into and out of existence, with no persistence to be practical or outlast a social fashion. I've been part of an anarchist movement -- they are unruly affairs and consensus process insures that nothing ever gets done. No society can survive, let alone thrive by such means.

What exactly is the point of opposing government?

[Os Cangaceiros]

I'm very interested to see that a so-called socialist prefers to use the phraseology of US imperialism.

Well, I think it's a bit inaccurate to call the United States's refusal to trade with Cuba a "blockade". The U.S. isn't stopping ships from coming into Cuba, like what the British subjected the Germans to during World War One.

Maybe it's a pointless dispute about semantics, though. I guess it doesn't really matter what you choose to call it.

[RGacky3]

I've been part of an anarchist movement -- they are unruly affairs and consensus process insures that nothing ever gets done. No society can survive, let alone thrive by such means.

What Anarchist movement pray tell?

Also, historically, Anarchist organizations have gotten a lot done, sometimes more so than non-anarchist organizations (again I'll point to the Spanish CNT during the civil war, who were producing more and more efficiently than the non-anarchist areas). What stops them from surviving, in almost EVERY SINGLE CASE, is outside violent forces.


they go into and out of existence, with no persistence to be practical or outlast a social fashion.

Class struggle is'nt a Social Fashion, I don't know but since when did the Zapatistas or the IWW have anything to do with social fashion, and both of those organizations were and are extreamly practical at getting what they want to get done, done.


What exactly is the point of opposing government?

Whats the point of opposing slavery?


Too bad that no government that has ever implemented the dictatorship of the proletariat ever understood it that way.

Not to support the USSR style Socialism, but the make up of the Communist party WAS democratic, morso after Stalin, it was'nt technically a dictatorship. Maybe in practice, but they understood themselves as a democracy, and they wern't so much less a democracy than the US.


If socialism dies in Cuba, where does it survive?

Socialism is an idea, it survives in the many people that believe in it, you don't need a 'State' to represent it. Infact I'd rather not have a State.


I respectfully deny the allegation. I've read my Marx. I pretty much agree w/ LSD re the socialism of the future, if and when it comes about:


Marx is'nt the end all, read other people.

[NecroCommie]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUfvgHFh9CY

[Revolutionary Youth]

Socialism is an idea, it survives in the many people that believe in it, you don't need a 'State' to represent it. Infact I'd rather not have a State.

Ah, you remind me of V for Vendetta.

"Behind this mask is an idea. And ideas are bulletproof".