Bad math. Only tax over 200k is at 80% (which is the definition of marginal tax rate)
Income 0-50K / Tax = 0
Income 50K - 200K / Tax = (assuming 40% for shits and giggles) 60K
Income 200-205K / Tax = 4K
Total tax: 64K
Take home: 141K
See, I don’t think that I agree with the fact that there has to date been such a thing as a successful socialist state. What I think that I am saying is that Chumpsky (unlike many of the posters here) is willing to look at the problems that exist with a capitalist state and engage others on the level of morality (i.e. are we really willing to accept things the way that they are, and if so what does this say about us).
What I am getting sick of is that every time that someone wants to talk about capitalism on the level of morality, a bunch of posters leap to its defense as if it is the only way that things could possibly be done.
Admittedly, under the enligntenment of our current administration these numbers could have been radically turned around with no press covering it, but I am betting that the trend has not reversed.
Uh, what percentage of these are political prisoners? 'Cause if most of them ain’t, you’re sort of comparing apples and oranges here.
Actually, considering that Chumpsky has already said that he believes that “Cuba has been the target of the most sustained terrorist attack of any country in modern history, beginning in 1959 and continuing to the present day,” I think he’d argue that the United States is the major, if not sole, reason why Cuba is doing so poorly, and that if we’d never started the, uh, “terrorist attack,” they’d be doing just fine now.
Not that I agree with him, but just pointing out that his assertion isn’t necessarily inconsistent with his worldview…
I always looked at as the communist countries didn’t have to put folks into prison buildings. The entire country is a prison for a communist country.
I always looked at as the communist countries didn’t have to put folks into prison buildings. The entire country is a prison for a communist country.
I don’t think anyone has ever claimed that capitalist systems lead to utopia; most everyone defending the capitalist system does so on grounds that it is the better than the alternatives, not because it is the best of all possible worlds.
It’s pretty fucking easy to point out the flaws in a system – every system has them. But Chump’s cure is worse than the disease. History shows us as much.
Re: prisons – as El_Kabong points out, the US doesn’t house political prisoners, nor does it use its prison system for political “re-education.” A US prison and a Soviet gulag are two entirely different creatures.
I think Monty brings up a pretty good point: a good test for the success of a government system is the degree to which its citizens want to remain and foriegners wish to immigrate. It is telling that Communist regimes as a rule have had to resort to armed force to keep their populations from leaving. It wasn’t the western democracies that built and enforced the Berlin Wall.
Gary Kumquat: “What a splendidly creative definition of working socialism we seem to have arrived at here. As someone who has visited Cuba, I would suggest you not provide this as an example of a thriving nation.”
Have you visited Guatemala? Or taken a tour of the Haitin slums? Or a stroll down the San Salvador barrios?
It is important to recognize how deeply indoctrinated we are in our approach to judging socialist countries. Notice that the reflexive approach is to compare Cuba, Russia, etc. to the U.S. This is not an instructive comparison, though, as it neglects the historical conditions which gave rise to the socialist systems. A more fair way to look at it would be to compare these countries to countries with comparable populations, resources and historical conditions. The U.S. was already the richest country in the world by far at the beginning of the 20th century, while Russia was mostly an agrarian economy, Cuba was a backward peasant country, and so on. To compare the U.S. to Soviet Russia or Castro’s Cuba is absurd.
Rather, we should look at Cuba, and compare the situations both before and after the revolution. So, how well off was the average Cuban in the 1950’s, compared to the 1960’s, 1970’s, and so on? How well off was the average Russian before 1917 and during the 1920’s, taking into account the effects of the civil war and invasion? We should also compare comparable countries. A good comparison can be made between Guatemala and Cuba. Both have comparable populations (11 million for Cuba and 13 million for Guatemala). They both have roughly comparable historical developments, and they are representatives of capitalist and socialist states. Another good comparison can be made between Brazil and Soviet Russia. Both have roughly comparable populations and natural resources, and both had roughly comparable levels of development at the beginning of the 20th century. There are other types of comparisons we can make between countries, and in most every case the socialist societies compare very favorably with their capitalist counterparts.
Let’s look at the comparison between Guatemala and Cuba. We should give Cuba a bit of slack, since Guatemala is not suffering under a 40 year-old blockade, but still the comparison is a good one. Here are a few facts taken from the CIA World Factbook:
Life expectancy at birth:
Cuba: 76.6 years
Guatemala: 66.85 years
Infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births:
Cuba: 7.27
Guatemala: 44.55
Literacy rate:
Cuba: 95.7%
Guatemala: 63.6%
GDP per capita:
Cuba: $2,300
Guatemala: $3,700
Unemployment rate:
Cuba: 4.1%
Guatemala: 7.5%
Economic aid-recipient:
Cuba: $68.2 million (1997)
Guatemala: $212 million (1995)
We see that even though Guatemala has much more advantages in terms of overall economic power, the capitalist system concentrates these advantages in a very narrow sector, leaving the vast majority in the lurch. In terms of human development, Cuba does a much better job at taking care of its people. As Castro put it:
This is not to imply that Cuba is a socialist paradise. Clearly it has many shortcomings, but most of these would be greatly alleviated if the blockade was lifted and Cuba was allowed to come out of its siege mentality, to develop in peace. As stated before, no socialist country has had a days’ peace from capitalist hostility, and Cuba has been more threatened than most. That they have been able to do what they have done shows at the very least that socialism is workable, and that even the highly flawed Cuban socialist model is far superior to the capitalist model in a comparable country.
Beelzebubba: “You did not answer my question, which is How does the state go about providing jobs.”
There are many ways to do this. One point I already mentioned, namely universal education, will already create many more good jobs. Another thing we could do would be to expand job training programs. We could also expand the government workforce to employ people doing civil work.
“You don’t seem to understand that we do have a democratic media system right now. The people get what they want.”
This is one of the biggest myths of the “free market.” There is nothing less democratic than the market. In fact, the mass media is heavily concentrated and tightly controlled by a small number of mostly reactionary people. The product that comes out of the mass media is heavily filtered and biased to fit the ideologies of those who own and control it.
Shodan: “The difficulty coming, as has been pointed out, after you unleash all this creativity. Since they are not allowed to benefit from it, nor to retain much of what they earn by it, they lose the motivation to create.”
You have things backward. The whole idea behind socialism is that the benefits from creative work should go primarily to those who did it–the workers. It is capitalism that rewards those who do no work. In the U.S., the investor class rules, those who do no work, but simply play a game with the market. Under socialism, those who work in the factories own them. The core idea of socialism is economic democracy, that we, the workers, should decide how to distribute the wealth we create, as opposed to being forced to sell our labor power to the capitalist.
My one question for Chumpsky is what he means by a socialist system that has “worked despite its flaws”. In general it seems reasonable to me to assert that if something’s flaws are bad enough, you can’t say that it “works”–like, if I have a hammer with the flaw that the head is made of Jello and not iron, that’s a pretty significant flaw, and it means that it doesn’t “work.” So how bad do the flaws have to be?
-Ulterior
I don’t see the problem here. Clearly socialism works for Cuba, just in the sense that the country is able to keep going and provide a higher standard of living than other comparable countries like Guatemala. When I say, “despite its flaws,” I just mean that there are many things about Cuba that are not good. This is true of any society, though. There is no ideal society, and there never will be. In the circumstances, though, I would say that Cuba has done a remarkable job.
I only have one major issue with Chumpsky’s new world order - can I be assigned a job other than fluffer?
Actually, I have visited Guatemala, and Haiti. Funny old world isn’t it. The last time I checked, I’d visited over 50 countries - mostly through work, but quite a few during my own travels. Don’t know quite what that has to do with a comparison of capitalism and socialism is beyond me, so lets have a look at your more salient points
First, a cite please on US being the richest country.
And one of them has just emerged from 36 years of civil war, causing 100000 dead and 1 million refugees. And you think this is a comparable situation to cuba? WTF?
Look at your examples. Time and again you have failed to demonstrate a succesful socialist state. In trying to justify the obvious flaws of your examples, your only tactic is to compare a country that has known peace for the last 5 years to a country that (according to your source) used to receive $6 billion dollars a year in russian subsidies up till the 90’s.
Your arguments are far from convincing. Let’s try a level playing field here. Please provide your case for the least flawed, most succesful socialist state - and I will provide an example that to me represents the most succesful capitalist state, not just financially but in terms of life expectancy, schooling, etc.
I live about 70 miles from the Third World here in Tucson, Arizona. I can drive down to a very militarized border with plenty of cops along the way and at the border whose sole purpose is to keep Mexicans from escaping capitalist Mexico. In fact, it is a huge problem, since people who have been suffering under capitalism in Mexico are desparate to get out and are willing to risk their lives walking across 50 miles of unforgiving desert to get out. Plenty of people do, in fact, die all the time trying to get out. Not to mention the thousands who risk life and limb trying to escape from Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where, unlike Cubans who are granted automatic amnesty when they reach U.S. soil, are sent straight back to their capitalist hell-holes if they do get here.
Plus, you know, I never noticed a huge flood of people trying to escape from socialistic Sweden into more capitalistic England, or the tide of people trying to get out of Yugoslavia in the 1980’s to get into capitalist Greece.
What is so hard to understand? Guatemala is capitalist, Cuba is socialist. You don’t like Guatemala? How about El Salvador, or Panama, or Costa Rica, or any of the other capitalist Latin American states? Would you feel better if we compared Cuba to them? Or, if you don’t like Latin America, since most of the world is capitalist, we have a lot to choose from. How about Indonesia? Take a tour through the sweatshops of Indonesia where the 9 year old girls toil from dawn till dusk making your sneakers for subsistence wages, and compare their living standards with Cuban workers.
But, I can let you decide. What do you think is a fair comparison?
How do you define successful? Like I have said, there are plenty of examples of socialist states that had decent standards of living. Cuba does quite well compared to other Caribbean and Latin American states. Yugoslavia did quite well compared to other comparable states before it was dismembered.
But, one must understand the historical condition. Show me a socialist state that has not been under constant attack. Show me a socialist state that has been allowed to develop in peace. There simply aren’t any. Every time a state has taken matters into their own hands, they have been attacked by the capitalist states. Look, for example, at what happened to Nicaragua and Vietnam when they attempted to develop along socialist lines. They posed no threat to anybody, and yet were attacked ruthlessly by the U.S. When Chile elected a socialist president in 1971, the U.S. overthrew the government. When Guatemala elected a liberal reformist government in 1953, the government was overthrown by the U.S. When Patrice Lumumba became president of the Congo in 1961, he was assassinated with CIA backing, and his body dissolved in acid, then one of the most ruthless gangsters in Africa, Mbutu, propped up in his place. The Soviet republics endured 70 years of a momentous onslaught from the western capitalist states.
I will keep emphasizing that no socialist state has had a day’s peace from capitalist threats and attacks. It has always been a siege socialism. Yet, for all the difficulties they have had to endure, those states that did survive the capitalist onslaught managed to create societies that provided for their people on an egalitarian basis and that worked to raise the standards of living of ALL the people. This differs quite markedly from the capitalist model, where the poor are deliberately kept down by force. There are no death squads in Cuba that roam the country assassinating dissidents, blowing up humanitarian agencies, raping and killing aid workers or kicking people off their land. The same cannot be said, though, of Guatemala, El Salvador, Columbia, and a host of other U.S. client states.
I will readily admit that I would rather live in the U.S. than in Cuba. Like I said, the U.S. enjoys enormous advantages that help it to overcome its backward political and economic system. But, would I rather live in Cuba than Guatemala, El Salvador, or the Dominican Republic? You bet your ass.
Sure, but why would you want to? 
The first two would certainly increase the number of people who are qualified to work, but they would not create jobs. The number of people who are walking around right now with degrees and accreditations but no employment serve as adequate proof of that. The third point is interesting – what kind of civil work do you suggest? From what great untapped reservoir of money should funding for these new jobs and civil works come, especially once corporations have been destroyed and the new tax scheme has deadened the urge to create in all of these well-educated souls who realize that they’ve been well-taught and are receiving wholly unfair compensation for their demonstrations of that fine education?
And yet, this does not mean that the product that comes out of the mass media is not what the people want. If people were unhappy with television, why would they pay – sometimes upwards of $100 a month – to watch it in huge numbers? If we weren’t happy with news media why we be watching news, especially from the 24-hour cable outlets, in ever-increasing numbers? If the print media weren’t serving our needs needs to some extent, why would any newspaper still be printed?
I’d be careful if your answer to that is any sort of suggestion that we’re too stupid to know what’s good for us.
How do you figure that the benefit from creative work would go to those who primarily did it when any compensation above a government-chosen level would be confiscatorily taxed? How do you figure that everyone would be involved in creative work, anyway? We’ll always need refuse collectors and janitors and ditch diggers. We’ll always need accountants, who’d best not be creative. Not much creativity happening in the service industry, but we’d be lost without that sector. So what gives?
Do you have any idea how ridiculous that is? The majority of American adults are investors. Some on a minor scale, some on a more serious scale. But even on the grandest scale, what do you have to back up your assertion that those who own vast amounts of stock do not work? If nothing else, they work to manage their portfolios. Why is that not useful in your grand scheme of things, especially considering that investment in corporations creates capital which further fuels the economy and creates jobs and wealth?
So how do you reconcile the worker’s self-determination of where his wealth is going with 80% tax rates for the highest earners? (Who are, by and large, compensated so highly because their jobs create wealth?)
Jeepers you tend to post late Chumpsky. What country are you in, or are you just a night owl?
Once more I have to ask you if you have a fucking clue what you’re talking about. I’ve had a tour of Nike’s main factory there (their Jakarta office is in the same building as mine) and it’s a nice, clean sort of place. Funny the children slave from dawn to dusk, as the place wasn’t open at dawn - I turned up at 8, and had to wait for it to open. Oh never mind, it’s so much more fun just to rant off without any basis in fact, isn’t it.
You also keep claiming that Cuba is a good example of a working socialist state. As mentioned, it’s been subsided to the tune of 25% of itys GDP till 10 years back. It’s doing so well that every year 6000 people try to make it to the US. If you’d actually visited there, you would have heard countless local anecdotes about people looking for jobs serving tourists because the tips are better than a doctors salary! My, thats a system that gives people good incentives.
So, let’s have a fair comparison. How about China v the US, the powerhouses of capitalism and communism. Let me guess, you don’t like that one. How about North Korea v South Korea - surely those two make for good comparison?
And I still wait for a cite to your claim that the US was the worlds wealthiest nation at the start of the 20th century.
They managed a bit of an onslaught of their own.