Fidel Castro: Cuban model doesn't work anymore

[onthegroundnewsreports]

<span style="font-weight: bold">News Source: OTGNR - </span>

<span style="font-weight: bold">Confirmed: Fidel Castro tells journalist...o told a vis...</span>
Confirmed: Fidel Castro tells journalist that the Cuban model doesn't work.

Fidel Castro told a visiting American journalist that the &quot;Cuban model&quot; no longer works, an apparent admission of failings in the communist economic model introduced by his revolution more than 50 years ago.
&quot;The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore,&quot; Castro told Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic in an interview last week.
Goldberg published parts of the exchange on a blog yesterday and today.Castro's younger brother and successor, President Raul Castro, has said as much in numerous speeches since taking the reins of power in 2006.More recently, he said that a full fifth of state jobs could be redundant and that the government would have to review its role in the country's economy. A few small changes have already been introduced: allowing more private enterprise for farmers and barbers, for example.Goldberg said that Castro's statement was in response to a question about whether the Cuban model was still worth exporting. (CNN)

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[quodlibet]

Re: Fidel Castro: Cuban model doesn't work anymore

Johnnycakes, please comment (?)

[remo]

Re: Fidel Castro: Cuban model doesn't work anymore

Capitalism dont work either look at Jamaica or the U.S. for that matter.....
You think you will ever see the President of the United States or the Primeminister of Jamaica come out and say Capitalism does not work anymore and we should tweak the system a bit for the overall good of the population?...........Dont hold your breath

[johnnycakes]

Re: Fidel Castro: Cuban model doesn't work anymore

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Quodlibet</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Johnnycakes, please comment (?) </div></div>

Quodlibet,
I read all I could find on this. There doesn't seem to be much detail.
There was no mention of how the U.S. war on Cuba affects the issues and Fidel gave no sign that either exploitive (pre-revolutionary) capitalism would be reintroduced or the basic structure of the socialist economy dissolved in any way.

Raul is making incremental changes in the economy that can be dialed up or down depending on how they work out. How much and how many of these are attributable to the U.S. war is unclear.

What can be foretold is that the more talk there is of Cuba even remotely reverting to capitalism and forsaking socialism as wanted by the United States, the longer the war will go on because it will seem the Cubans are weakening in their resolve.

[quodlibet]

Re: Fidel Castro: Cuban model doesn't work anymore

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Quodlibet</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Johnnycakes, please comment (?) </div></div>

Quodlibet,
I read all I could find on this. There doesn't seem to be much detail.
There was no mention of how the U.S. war on Cuba affects the issues and Fidel gave no sign that either exploitive (pre-revolutionary) capitalism would be reintroduced or the basic structure of the socialist economy dissolved in any way.

Raul is making incremental changes in the economy that can be dialed up or down depending on how they work out. How much and how many of these are attributable to the U.S. war is unclear.

What can be foretold is that the more talk there is of Cuba even remotely reverting to capitalism and forsaking socialism as wanted by the United States, the longer the war will go on because it will seem the Cubans are weakening in their resolve. </div></div>

Would the economy of Cuba have lasted as long as it did without the legacy of cold-war patronage?

[johnnycakes]

Re: Fidel Castro: Cuban model doesn't work anymore

Quodlibet: Would the economy of Cuba have lasted as long as it did without the legacy of cold-war patronage?

Answer: A better question might be how much better would the Cuban economy be today if the United States were not waging a war to kill the Cuban economy and thereby the revolution.

The economic aid from the Soviets was essential but may not have been necessary had not the U.S. war been going on.

Socialist economies, contrary to what we all have been told work very well WHEN LEFT TO DO WELL. The United States has never allowed any socialist country to exist or prosper unmolested.
If you do not factor that in to your reasoning then you cannot expect a truthful or serious answer to your question.

Let me throw this in. It is generally accepted by the people in the United States and the West in general that the Soviet's socialist economy was a failure.
This &quot;failure&quot; is used to make the claim that socialism doesn't work PERIOD.
Well, the claim that the Soviet socialist economy was a failure is simply not true.

I would ask those who are reading this, who do believe that the Soviet socialist economy was a failure, go to the link provided and read the article on the history of Soviet socialism to see the truth.

http://21stcenturysocialism.com/article/the_soviet_model_and_the_economic_cold_war_01331.html

[quodlibet]

Re: Fidel Castro: Cuban model doesn't work anymore

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Quodlibet: Would the economy of Cuba have lasted as long as it did without the legacy of cold-war patronage?

Answer: A better question might be how much better would the Cuban economy be today if the United States were not waging a war to kill the Cuban economy and thereby the revolution.

The economic aid from the Soviets was essential but may not have been necessary had not the U.S. war been going on.

Socialist economies, contrary to what we all have been told work very well WHEN LEFT TO DO WELL. The United States has never allowed any socialist country to exist or prosper unmolested.
If you do not factor that in to your reasoning then you cannot expect a truthful or serious answer to your question.

Let me throw this in. It is generally accepted by the people in the United States and the West in general that the Soviet's socialist economy was a failure.
This &quot;failure&quot; is used to make the claim that socialism doesn't work PERIOD.
Well, the claim that the Soviet socialist economy was a failure is simply not true.

I would ask those who are reading this, who do believe that the Soviet socialist economy was a failure, go to the link provided and read the article on the history of Soviet socialism to see the truth.

http://21stcenturysocialism.com/article/the_soviet_model_and_the_economic_cold_war_01331.html

</div></div>

Your response is sound in theory, unfortunately we have no examples of economies that are 'left to do well' on which to test the theory. Additionally, I suppose that 'left to do well' - which suggests allowed the ability to succeed on merits also suggests the ability to fail on merits - we have no example of that either, given the example of patronage I mentioned earlier.

So we have interference to fail, and we have intervention to succeed. Some would say those cancel each other out.

[johnnycakes]

Re: Fidel Castro: Cuban model doesn't work anymore

http://21stcenturysocialism.com/article/the_soviet_model_and_the_economic_cold_war_01331.html

Your response is sound in theory, unfortunately we have no examples of economies that are 'left to do well' on which to test the theory. Additionally, I suppose that 'left to do well' - which suggests allowed the ability to succeed on merits also suggests the ability to fail on merits - we have no example of that either, given the example of patronage I mentioned earlier.

So we have interference to fail, and we have intervention to succeed. Some would say those cancel each other out.


Quodlibet,
I take it you did not read the article on the successful Soviet socialist economy.
If you read it you will see that the Soviets did very well even with U.S/ Western European wars against them that totally shattered their economy twice within twenty years.
The Cubans also since the end of Soviet assistance have bounced back to the point that they placed 51st on the Human Development Index, something no capitalist Third World country of similar means has achieved .

Consider how fast the socialist economies, which only started in 1917 or so, remedied the problems that accumulated over the course of human history under one form of capitalism or the other and the fact that capitalism has produced the 25-80% poverty rate that is eternal under capitalism. Capitalism had no opposition at all and has failed miserably.

[jah_yout]

Re: Fidel Castro: Cuban model doesn't work anymore

the american economic model no longer works....


why is the press not also running with that story?

oh because they are america's 8itches?

[jah_yout]

Re: Fidel Castro: Cuban model doesn't work anymore

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: remo</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Capitalism dont work either look at Jamaica or the U.S. for that matter.....
You think you will ever see the President of the United States or the Primeminister of Jamaica come out and say Capitalism does not work anymore and we should tweak the system a bit for the overall good of the population?...........Dont hold your breath </div></div>

bingo!
people are dumbed down into numbness by ther media

[j-kid]

Re: Fidel Castro: Cuban model doesn't work anymore

Maybi dem bin observing economy of countries like China and Russia?

[johnnycakes]

Re: Fidel Castro: Cuban model doesn't work anymore

Fidel has long ago said that the reporter misinterpreted what he (Fidel ) said.

It is highly unlikely that Cubans will switch to the cowboy capitalism as practiced in Russia and China .
The Cubans have an autochthanous socio/politica/economic system meaning it was created in Cuba. The Cuban Communist party is not like all the other (Stalinist) Communist Parties in the world in that it strives to be more egalitarian, more internationalist and more of a principled democratic socialist state where the right to a decent life comes way WAY before the right to have 10% of a country filthy rich and 50% living in poverty

The Russians are total capitalists and Chinese are only slightly more a state economy than many Western capitalist states.
It is no secret that as the Russians and the Chinese turned toward capitalism the social safety nets of socialism were tossed out and people were and are descending into dire poverty by the hundreds of millions.

The Cubans can see this quite clearly and it is why they are not making any moves toward the capitalism that that puts the poorest at risk.

As far as principled socialists and real christians (WWJD) are concerned, taking care of the poorest amongst us is the top priority and the Cuban people are principled socialists.

Oh they'll tweak things and they'll make it as good as they can without risking the creation of a new inequality.
That's what the revolution is all about.

If it didn't work then the 80 billion dollar question is: Why is the United States pressing its war on Cuba through the economic embargo, the bacteriological and terrorist warfare of past years, the massive propaganda war against the Cuban people and their government.

It's not to establish democracy is it?

(PLEASE don't say yes and make me repeat myself for the hundredth time.)

It's to prevent Cuban SOCIALISM from being seen as a successful alternative to you-know-what and providing the good example to countries in the area, in the hemisphere and in the world. Isn't it? ISN'T IT????

PLEASE say yes or I will have to type for 3-4 hours and will get cranky and pedantic.