I walked in to univerity today to be greeted with banners and sign wielding maniacs ranting and raving about how great socialism is and how the western world is too blind to see that.
WTF??
Has nothing been learnt from the bankruptcy and breakup of the former USSR? Has nothing been learnt from the standard of living being experienced by the North Koreans and Vietnamese?
Can nothing be learnt as we watch people flee Cuba by the boat loads craving for capitalistic, democratic freedom?
Why aren’t people from the western world cramming in to flimsy boats yearning for the utopia that can be found in the some 5 remaining socialist/communist societys?
Why are people still trying to tell me how good socialism is?
MadHatter: As any good commie will tell you, all those countries you hold up as examples of “communism” aren’t true communist nations. They also contain little flakes of (gasp!) capitalism here and there, and are ruled over as centralized bureaucratic dictatorships rather than “dictatorships of the proletariat” like they’re supposed to be.
It’s kinda reminiscent of how, when a Christian or Christian organization does something bad, the other Christians will distance themselves from them by claiming that they weren’t “true” Christians.
I had this discussion with a socialist once. In addition to claiming that countries like Cuba had signifigantly better health care than the US, he claimed that it was OUR fault these coumtries were not economically succesful.
He felt that if we had given foreign aid to socialist countries, like we were were OBLIGATED to, then they would have been succesful.
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As you imply, however, this is a classic example of the “My big brother can beat up your little sister” fallacy, wherein the ideal of socialism/communism (a poorly defined Marxist utopia) is compared to the real manifestation of liberal democracy (the flawed world we really live in.) It’s intellectual dishonesty, exactly equivalent to comparing real-world Communism to a perfect, utopian Libertaria where everyone is rich through nothing but freedom and there are no externalities.
The propensity for blaming the U.S. for Cuba’s problems is both part of the above and is a classic argument leakage fallacy wherein two related issues are confused with one another; in this case, where one fact, or at least a reasonable position (“The U.S. is acting like a complete ass with respect to Cuba”) is confused with a related fact (Cuba is a disaster) to come up with a non-fact ("It is the U.S.'s fault Cuba is a disaster.)
For even simpler examples of argument leakage, ask someone you know to explain the difference between the greenhouse efefct and ozone layer depletion; most people think they’re the same thing. Or look at the number of people who think the Earth’s rotation is what creates gravity.
To be perfectly fair, there are different flavors of ‘socialism’ – many a good European ‘socialist’ (social democrat) would have nothing to do with the marxist variety.
Rickjay: Good focus on the logic, but to be fair to Cuba, it is likely that our dumb policies have made things marginally worse. But then that’s quite different, as you rightly point out, from being able to argue that Cuba would not be an economic disaster.
Rickjay-ever hear of a little thing entitled, The Platt Ammendment?
The Monroe Doctrine?
The US TOTALLY exploited Cuba…ever since the Spanish American War.
Please. If we hadn’t gotten involved, I highly doubt Castro would be in power today.
Right right, but that doesn’t mean that U.S. intervention caused Castro to come to power, nor does it mean that the U.S. is the reason behind the shitty state of affairs in Cuba.
I think RickJay’s point still stands, although I myself do wonder if much of the poverty of Cuba is due to embargos, or to Castro. To quote the Tootsie Pop narrator, “Perhaps the world will never know.” DOOO-DOOOO-doooo-dooo-dooo-dooo-dooo-doo.
To answer the last point first, I’m actually certain Castro would be in power today, at least if we assume things go as they did up to 1957 or so. Castro did not become the Cuban big cheese as a U.S. opponent, he became the big cheese as a Batista opponent.
As to the U.S. exploiting Cuba, yes, no doubt they did. The U.S. has not exploited Cuba for 40 years now; explain Cuba’s problems.
What, the U.S. has a trade embargo against Cuba? But if they traded with Cuba we’d be hearing about how they exploit them.
As Collounsbury points out, the embargo does hurt Cuba, but lots of countries trade with the U.S. and are still poor, while others that don’t (or don’t trade much) are not poor. Plus, Cuba DOES trade quite a bit with the rest of the world. They trade with Canada, with Europe… I mean, there are a lot of markets out there besides the U.S.
Trade with the U.S. is not an absolute necessity for having enough meat on the table. Cuba is an absurdly corrupt country, has no public or government accountability of any kind, and has run itself into the ground with Communist economic policies that obviously do not work. If Castro would allow elections and the rule of law and a little more free market economics, they’d be better off with or without an embargo.
Socialism is the solution, if you can’t see that, you must be one of those Capitalists controlling the means of production, and keeping the people down. :rolleyes:
Whoever said that Cuba’s health care system was better than the U.S.'s is nuts. Cuba’s health care has been largely reduced to nothing. They often don’t even have basics like bandages, painkillers, and antibiotics. Treatment of advanced conditions like heart disease and cancer is almost non-existant. State health care for the general public there is far, far worse than what is available in the U.S. to even the poorest indigent.
Unless, of course, you’re one of the members of the government in the ‘people’s republic’. Somehow, they manage to find the resources for them.
I knew you’d see the light tradesilicon. And thanks for the page Satan.
Too be truthfull, the people MadHater met may well have been looneys. There are quite a few people out there that call themselves Socialist or Communist that see China as an actuall socialism. I once got in an argument with someone who thought the Chinese killing student protesters was a good thing :rolleyes:
So why aren’t people flooding into these countries? Depending on who you ask, you’ll get different answers.
Someone like myself will point out that they are little tinpot dictatorships with poor standards of living. I’d just as soon move to Cuba as Lybia. Although,I have been considering visiting Libiya recently.
Others, usually the Workers World or Spartacist people, will comment that the countries are socialist with beuracratic deformations, we need to support them, get them back on track, and the reason people aren’t supporting them is that they have their eyes blinded by our capitalist media.
Others, RCP, and damn, I can’t remember their name but they are looney, will argue that American workers are part of the problem. You see, we’re all imperialist swine living off the blood of third world workers. the homeless and students and peasents of america are going to overthrow us and hopefully kill quite a few people.
Heh, even sven… you make a good point. I don’t like it when people take “socialism” in China and socialism in Denmark or Scandanavia to be the same thing. And for those that say socialist democracies limit freedoms, I’d like to point out such examples as the fact that Denmark was the first country to allow gay marriage, followed shortly by The Netherlands… a freedom which may never be enjoyed here, at this rate.
>> The propensity for blaming the U.S. for Cuba’s problems is both part of the above and is a classic argument leakage fallacy wherein two related issues are confused with one another; in this case, where one fact, or at least a reasonable position (“The U.S. is acting like a complete ass with respect to Cuba”) is confused with a related fact (Cuba is a disaster) to come up with a non-fact ("It is the U.S.'s fault Cuba is a disaster.)
The issue of Cuba has been discussed extensively in other threads but this quote is probably one of the best reflections on this issue.
I have been to Cuba and have friends there. I can tell you the situation there has nothing to do with the USA and everything to do they have a collapsed economic system. ONE country, the US, does not trade with them, the rest of the world does but Cuba has no funds to buy anything because the economy is in shambles.
The only productive enterprises are foreign investments in hotels and the tourist sector. They are managed by foreigners, they import their supplies and they pay tons of hard currency to the Cuban government who spends it on themselves. There is no shortage of money to buy police uniforms, radios, motorcycles… all brand new and shiny and imported from japan or where ever.
If Cuba produced anything they could sell, then they would have some money to buy stuff abroad. With dollars you can buy pretty much anything in Cuba. They just import it from Mexico or other countries and it is available to foreigners who have the cash but not to Cubans who don’t.
As for the health system being so good, that has to be a joke. Go to Cuba and they will beg you to send medicines. Note that Cuban exiles in Miami privately send tons of medicines to Cuba and that the help sent by Cubans in Miami makes the US the country who sends most help to Cuba.
The most rabid anti-communist I ever met was a girlfriend of mine who grew up in Poland under the communist “government” (the really important decisions were made in Russia). I have also met people from Czechoslovakia, Slovenia, Moldova, China (LOTS of people from China), Cuba, Russia, Germany, and a few others. People who grew up under communism NEVER sing its praises, in my experience. Not one. This is actually one of the best arguments for the people MadHatter mentions. Ask them where are the ubiquitous exchange students from these countries, and why aren’t they there carrying signs in support of their views? The only avid supporters of communism I’ve met are western intellectuals who’ve read about it in a book. These same people claim to have a scientific approach to history; oddly the fact that this particular experiment has been done hundreds of times and failed does not dissuade them from sticking by the theory.
BTW, this business of countries not being “really” communist, or failing because they have to contend with other nations like the U.S. pursuing its interests, is one of the most ridiculous one can offer. What’s the conclusion, that communism works great, just not in the real world? It’s like a house that works fine - as long as it doesn’t rain.
Socialism is a bit different; there are some European countries who’ve been socialist to a greater or lesser degree without becoming wastelands. It takes great restraint not to overspend, as Sweden has discovered, but it is apparently possible. While there are definite good things that spring from the socialist aspects of those countries, there are also costs. It comes down to a cultural choice, I guess. At any rate, the collective voice of mankind seems to have spoken pretty unequivocally in favor of an economic system that can offer some hope of high material well being, which far leftist systems rarely, if ever, do.
