anyone have an exit poll comparison 👀?
Cuba is extremely poor and most people would flee to any more advanced economy regardless of it’s moral values for the opportunity to have a better life.
Nobody said that the struggle against a despotic empire would be easy.
The Cuban people are smart. Even cursory investigation reveals that Cubas centrally planned economy is a failure and the people are sick of it. The whole ‘Communism vs Capitalism’ debate is immaterial and a luxury for academics.
A cursory investigation reveals the opposite to be true. Cuba managed to thrive despite all the efforts of US to topple communism there, and the government is broadly supported by the people. Thinking that the debate regarding who should own the means of production and whose interest they should be operated in is immaterial is an incredibly idiotic statement.
Please spend sometime to educate yourself on the subject you’re attempting to debate instead of making a fool of yourself in public.
Lol you and I have very different definitions of ‘thrive’. I assume you’re talking about living off of subsidies from other countries while miserably failing to produce and distribute goods at a level that anyway equates with the rest of the modern world?
making a fool of myself in public
No worries. I can take a ‘shaming’ from you I’ll survive. I can’t say the same for Cuban refugees trying to escape on john boats and other improvised watercrafts. I assume they are trying to reach the US to tell us how awesome Cuba is.
In the real world people of Cuba are more satisfied with their government than Americans.
And it’s not hard to understand why given that a quarter of the population is starving in US. 64% of Americans live hand to mouth. 37% work two full time jobs, and an average person has around 100k debt. If that’s your idea of a functioning economy you should get your head checked.
If you’re looking for a Western apologist look elsewhere. That being said ‘food insecurity’ is in no way comparable to starving. We have the fattest poor people on the planet. There are a million and one ways to get food in the United States regardless of how broke you are. Also the inflation driving the ‘hand to mouth’ argument in the article is driven primarily by financial irresponsibility by the central planners in the US. Money printer go brrr.
The “overemployment” article is referring specifically to remote workers. That’s not to keep up with inflation. That’s free money. A ton of people started doing that during covid. Ive been at companies where they had to fire people because they weren’t doing anything and just collecting a check. It was a huge joke online for over a year. I’m not denying that there are people that work two jobs but a lot of that is because they are competing with an endless deluge of low skilled labor pouring into the country everyday.
The problem with American debt is most of it is unsecured student debt. 300k mortgage debt is healthy if you have collateral. The solution is simple. Don’t give 18 year olds 100k loans. When the government guarantees a loan for anything the price for that thing will increase dramatically in an economy driven by greed.
I’m the first one to say that the US should be more protective of the worker and stymie limitless immigration that undercuts the value of work but Communism or whatever term you feel like using to justify a centrally planned economy is equally wrong in the opposite direction. The answer is unsatisfying but it’s a mix. How that mix is proportioned will depend on the culture of the people and what they value. Then as a people they can decide what to incentivize. At some point though you have to give individuals the ability to reap what they personally have sowed even if it is more (or less) than their neighbor.
You want to starve poor people, so you are a murderer.
You can spin it however you like, but the reality is that a quarter of people in US don’t have enough food to eat. There are tent cities all across the country due to rampant homelessness. Healthcare in inaccessible and regularly bankrupts people. Cuba has none of these problems. In fact, Cuba ranks as world’s most sustainable developed country.
Communism works while capitalism creates failed states like the US. That’s the reality of the world.
Who is ‘they’? The people leaving or the people working in the government? Does it even matter if all people can hope for is meeting their basic needs?
I’m no apologist for the west but you’re dreaming if you think there is anything to envy in Cuba other than the climate. Stores have bares shelves, people search or queue up for hours for bare necessities, and centralization ensures rampant government corruption that fuels (highly capitalistic) black markets.
And the only thing the people can do? Wait in line for their alotted rations and ‘vote’ in an election where there is only one choice.
Why are they calling this an election when the people have only one choice? It looks like nothing more than a farce.
That comment shows such an infantile understanding of democracy. Having a single party simply means that Cuba decided on the approach how to do things, which is communism. There are lots of different approaches you can take towards achieving the goals within that scope.
Elections with one party have exact same purpose as elections with multiple parties. The citizens select candidates based on their ideas and proposals. The main difference in a multiparty system is that people still haven’t figured out what the right way to run the economy is, and each time a different party gets elected they pull things in a different direction. This is why it’s practically impossible to do any large scale projects in the west.
The main difference in a multiparty system is that people still haven’t figured out what the right way to run the economy is, and each time a different party gets elected they pull things in a different direction
If the party dictates “the right way to run the economy” as you say, then doesn’t that blunt people’s ability to reform the direction of their leader’s policies because of the framework enforced by the party?
I’m not arguing that Western democracy provides superior remedies to public disatisfaction or that socialism is not the correct path for prosperity but, if the argument is about allowing people to meaningfully oppose the policies of their elected representatives, then, in a one party system, changing those policies also requires reforming the ideology of the party, which is an additional barrier. Multi-party systems are by no means perfect but at least they provide some alternative path where an outside party can be formed with radically different ideas that can challenge the larger parties and try to pick off support.
And, yes, there is always the threat of smaller parties being squashed using political/financial power, but that, to me, seems like more a product of corruption than an inherent aspect of a democratic system. Not to mention, the same could be done to factions within a party trying to facilitate similar reforms, no?
The only principle is that the economy should be publicly owned and work in the interests of the majority. I think that’s a pretty reasonable framework to start with.
I really don’t see what multiple parties actually add in practice. You can handle all the disagreements and arguments within a single party. The argument that a single party approach somehow restricts development isn’t really supported by any real world evidence I’m aware of.
The only principle is that the economy should be publicly owned and work in the interests of the majority.
I think it’s reasonable to argue that the almost every democratic party has this principle. Even those that argue for unfettered capitalism can see that as working in the interest of the majority and the only way the economy can be truly “publicly owned”. You can argue that they are wrong but that doesn’t mean they don’t believe they are following those principles just as faithfully.
If the single party’s ideology is so broad that it basically encompasses “don’t be evil” then I’m not sure I even understand the distinction between having one party and having a “partiless” state (which would effectively make factions within the party defacto parties in and of themselves).
I think it’s reasonable to argue that the almost every democratic party has this principle.
Then the question is why multiple parties are necessary?
You can argue that they are wrong but that doesn’t mean they don’t believe they are following those principles just as faithfully.
We have concrete real world evidence backed by theory that this is in fact a fallacious idea.
If the single party’s ideology is so broad that it basically encompasses “don’t be evil” then I’m not sure I even understand the distinction between having one party and having a “partiless” state (which would effectively make factions within the party defacto parties in and of themselves).
The ideology, once again, is that the means of production should be publicly owned. This is not nearly as broad as what you wrote here.
So if they wanted a different approach, how would voting express that?
If we in the west want a different approach, how would voting express that? It’s impossible to change our neoliberal and social democratic system via voting.
Get people to agree with you. Petition your representatives. Protest. There are plenty of options, but you don’t get change just because you believe you are right, and sometimes you have to compromise.
You forgot the final step: have your movement destroyed and/or silenced if it inconveniences the ruling class in the slightest. As history has shown us time and time again.
You’re free to vote for change within a social democratic framework (which makes very little difference anyways), but you can’t change that framework.
Go read up on Deng reforms in China which introduced aspects of capitalism into the system. It’s worth noting that nothing equivalent would be possible in a western style democracy. It’s absolutely unthinkable for any western country to integrate aspects of Marxism into the system.
Bob’s Red Mill is owned by its employees. Providing shares as part of compensation is fairly common. Does that not qualify as integrating aspects of Marxism (workers owning the means of production), albeit implemented in a different way?
It would really help for you to actually learn the basics of what Marxism is.
I think you are the most comittrd troll I’ve ever encountered.
I just think it’s weird to call it an election when it sounds like the only option available is ever “yes”.
It’s amazing how you can’t wrap your head around the concept of elections within a single party.
I can’t wrap my head around how you consider this a real election when the National Candidacy Commission has absolute and unconditional veto power over all candidates.
The same way you consider elections to be real in your country. Sanders had huge public support and championed policies that were popular with vast majority of Americans. Yet, the candidate that represents the oligarchs is now the president.
Bernie Sanders never had massive public support. He had enthusiastic support from a minority. In 2016, he benefited from many primary voters not particularly liking Clinton and the feeling that the primary was more of a coronation than a contest. Fast forward to 2020 and Joe Biden got around double the votes that Sanders did. There was a brief period of time where the more mainstream candidates were splitting that vote giving Sanders a phantom lead, but that disappeared the moment the other mainstream candidates dropped out. And that’s just in the Democratic primary. In a larger election with centrist and right leaning voters, politicians like him have no chance of being elected unless the political climate changes significantly. That’s not coming from some oligarchy boogieman. That’s the genuine beliefs of the proletarian making their way into the ballot box.
In terms of individual policies, polling on those are (1) notoriously tricky to poll and (2) don’t necessarily translate well to elections. Take government-provided health care. If you ask if the government should be responsible for providing health care, you will usually get a healthy majority. But if you tweak it to also ask about increasing taxes, that majority disappears. Never mind that government-provided health care be the same thing, just with the money taking a different route.
Vast majority of people want things like affordable healthcare, loan forgiveness, higher pay, and better social security. Every single poll shows this. The notion that you have to raise taxes on people with low income is just a fiction. The taxes Sanders proposed were taxes on high income earners that would’ve affected a tiny rich minority.
Meanwhile, things like public healthcare aren’t a theoretical question. There is tangible evidence from plenty of other countries, including Canada right next door. US has far worse outcomes and people in US pay far more per capita. The fact that this is a debate in US shows just how much public discourse has been subverted by special interests.
The reality is that the ideas that Sanders championed are sensible, have been implemented with great success in many western countries, and have broad support from US public. Yet, despite that, people of US got more of the same. Yet, you think you live in a democracy while people in Cuba who have a government working in their interest live in a dictatorship. This is your brain on American propaganda.
You might gain some insight if you were to actually study the substance of the election instead of making generalizations and assumptions.
I started poking around. While it’s clear that citizens have some say, ultimately any dissenting opinions appear to be filtered out by the Communist Party.
