Havana Vs Hong Kong

[Stain]

The picture that compare 50 years of development. I cannot post links yet so just google the title and see the first image. How do we explain this? Libertarians expecially bring up Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore as examples of the success of free market.

[Eagle_Syr]

Economic figures can be unrepresentative of the true living conditions of the masses of the people in these places.

Is it true that, as a whole, Hong Kong is wealthier than Cuba? Very true. But that wealth is not available to the Hong Kong worker; it is locked up in the hands of the elites, bourgeoisie.

The workers are paid little, have few rights, and few prospects of class mobility. In Cuba, at the very least, the community provides adequate health care, education, and other things.

[Prinskaj]

Libertarians expecially bring up Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore as examples of the success of free market.
If they are libertarians, then they can in no consistent way support those countries. Every one of those states are rather authoritarian. (Yes, that includes South Korea, though they are better then the others.)
The state which is usually mentioned when it comes to growth is Singapore, and and many right-wingers proclaim that it's because of free-market capitalism. But this is blatantly false, unless their idea of capitalism is complete state ownership of all land.
And finally, look at inequality in those nations. There is a great speech about the effects of equality in society (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw).

[m1omfg]

Really, posting pictures of gleaming skyscrapers during a light show (I visited Hong Kong and they did the exact one lightshow one time) and comparing them to a scene of kinda shanty buildings and old veterans cars? Anybody who is familiar with Hong Kong knows that Hong Kong is full of horrible shanties mixed between the skyscrapers. The average Hong Kong apartment is barely big enough for a rat and there is a big class divide. Just look at this thing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City it was there until 1994 and it looks like something straight from Fallout.

[Ocean Seal]

Tiny capitalist enclave develops
Ignore rest of world and claim said enclave is "true capitalism"
There you have it capitalism makes everyone rich.
The autonomous republic of Bill Gates' house has a median net worth of a fuckton.

[Raúl Duke]

South Korea I doubt is as "free-market" as they claim...

Asian countries in particular tended to follow rather technocratic developmental paths which feature an element of state intervention and incentives when they can (i.e. not being fucked over by the IMF, not being a colony, etc).

Also, Hong Kong probably has a high element of inequality and other problems. We socialists do not think of wealth as a measure of success, only equality as a measure of societal success (particularly in its inverse, we see inequality as a failing); we don't and we don't have to fall into the standards of liberals and free-market economic 'libertarians.'

Nevertheless, Havana ain't perfect or in certain aspects desirable place to live in. (However, in other aspects, it has its pros I assume)

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

You know when lolbertarians use countries that all used some form or other of state-intervention and dirigisme as examples of "free market success" they are really grasping for straws, and even then, those are all still severely flawed (although I think the claim that Hong Kong is more authoritarian than South Korea is a bit silly, if such things could be compared, that is).