Report: Castro says Cuban model doesn't work

[Bacchus39]

Source: AP

HAVANA – Fidel Castro told a visiting American journalist that Cuba's communist economic model doesn't work, a rare comment on domestic affairs from a man who has conspicuously steered clear of local issues since stepping down four years ago.

The fact that things are not working efficiently on this cash-strapped Caribbean island is hardly news. Fidel's brother Raul, the country's president, has said the same thing repeatedly. But the blunt assessment by the father of Cuba's 1959 revolution is sure to raise eyebrows.

Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, asked if Cuba's economic system was still worth exporting to other countries, and Castro replied: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore" Goldberg wrote Wednesday in a post on his Atlantic blog.

He said Castro made the comment casually over lunch following a long talk about the Middle East, and did not elaborate. The Cuban government had no immediate comment on Goldberg's account.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100908/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_cuba_fidel_castro

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. It would work great if Walmart could exploit the labor force as they do in China.

[Ken Burch]

3. You're saying we should WANT Cuban workers to have it worse?

n/t.

[Lightning Count]

2. This is monumental. nt

[Ken Burch]

5. NO it isn't. And we shouldn't WANT Cuba to go capitalist.

Democratic socialist, yes(where the workers would actually make the production decisions and control the workplace)but not capitalist.

[Lightning Count]

8. Who said anything about capitalism?

It's monumental that he made such a statement that is all.

[Ken Burch]

28. It's just that there are so many people who gloat about Cuba possibly surrendering

I agree that they shouldn't stay with hard-line Leninism as an economic structure...but anytime anybody talks like the Miami exiles could be about to come back and start exploiting again...a lot of us will automatically be worried.

Democratic socialism, not a capitalist restoration, is what Cuba needs.

[Warpy]

4. Good. He just opened the door to moving toward a mixed economy

which is what a lot of formerly Communist countries did after the oligarchy had been vanquished long enough.

I hope the best for Cuba, that they'll be able to keep the socialism that worked and discard the parts that didn't.

[AngryAmish]

15. like a mixed animal found in the woods?

[RaleighNCDUer]

23. The only thing that kept it from happening 20 years ago was US

intransigence. We had perestroika with the Soviets - Nixon went to China - but gawd forbid we ever open a dialogue with Cuba.

[Warpy]

24. All because the Republicans were swinging their dicks around

to impress a bunch of Batista Cubans in southern Florida.

It was a stupid policy in the beginning and it got even stupider as the years wore on.

[Billy Burnett]

25. Not just republicans.

CANF founder, and Miami-Dade Democratic fundraiser,
Jorge Mas Canosa and Bill Clinton at Miami fundraiser.

[Ken Burch]

29. And one of the Miami gusanos is one of Hillary's in-laws, God help us.

If she and Bill had REALLY had their way, they'd have taken another crack at the Bay of Pigs.

[Billy Burnett]

33. We all saw her support for democracy in Honduras, didn't we?

[Lightning Count]

42. Yes, because she unilaterally dictates that policy.

sarcasm.

[Ghost Dog]

26. In Europe we call the mix "social market economy"

(with always room for much improvement from both directions...).

[ProudDad]

38. Cuba's been a mixed economy since I was there in 1993...

In fact, Castro is probably saying that it's the capitalist component of the "mixed economy" is what's wrong...

Before the "mixed economy" there was almost NO theft, NO prostitution, No drugs...not since the Revolution drove out the Mafia in 1959.

But when the government started courting capitalist tourists and their vices, creating a two tiered economy, that's when those evils came back into play...

Cuba is Socialist. They are survivors. Cuba is the ONLY country on Earth that has developed a post-carbon society and will be able to survive the Long Emergency best.

We should be BEGGING the Cubans to teach us how to survive end-stage capitalism rather than try to foist any more of that fucking dead ponzi scheme death economics called capitalism on them!

[slackmaster]

6. Oh, I thought he was talking about something else

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2005/12/29/cuba_narrowweb__300x450,0.jpg

Never mind.

[jberryhill]

11. It's not that they don't work

It's just really tough for a Cuban model to find work in the first place.

But even Desi Arnaz had to find an American to marry.

[Ken Burch]

31. And Sammy Davis Jr. had to pretend that his mom was Puerto Rican instead of Cuban-American.

"El hombre de caramelo puede, ' cáuselo lo mezcla con amor y hace el gusto del mundo bueno", as the song says...

[robcon]

43. Yeah, Davis HAD to.

incredible.

[UTUSN]

7. K&R #1. I'd go bwah-HAH!1 except for the poor Cuban people. n/t

[Bacchus39]

10. yeah, I think I'll just sit back and watch awhile n/t

s

[Common Sense Party]

9. No shit, Sherlock.

Took you 50 years to find that clue.

[T Wolf]

12. Not a true or fair test, what with the aggressive bully only 90 miles from its shores that

has waged an economic war against this little island for more than half a century.

This is like saying that practice is worthless because the opposing team kidnapps your quarterback before every game.

[slackmaster]

17. That's part of the environment that Cuba lives in

Its model needs to work in that context.

[eallen]

19. Yeah, I know. There has never been a fair test.

The Soviet Union wasn't a fair test. China, before it veered off its ideological course, wasn't a fair test. History is never fair.

So I guess those who want can continue to believe that communism would work wonderfully... if only there were a fair test. Which seemingly means starting from scratch, with perfect leaders, free from competition with non-communist systems, ideally on some other planet.

:evilgrin:

Now personally, I'm more interested in economic systems that bring some benefit, even when the international environment is arrayed against that.

:hippie:

[backtomn]

36. Please......

Cuba has been able to trade with every country in the world, but the U.S. and it is still a mess.....unless you are saying that no country can succeed without trade with the U.S. At the time of the Revolution, Cuba had one of the best economies in Latin America, with Argentina and Venezuela. There were inequalities in affluence at the time, but they did have a significant middle class. I am not sure what form their economy should take but, I hope, for the sake of the Cuban people, they are willing to try something different.

[Billy Burnett]

40. You seem unaware of the extraterritorial components of the US sanctions.

Countries don't make things. Companies do. The US sanctions are on companies that trade with Cuba.

For example, Germany isn't banned from trade w/Cuba by US sanctions, but German corporations that seek to do biz in Cuba and the USA are. If Bayer AG wants to sell Aspirin to the Cuban health system then the US trade sanctions would then ban Aspirin from the US market. Of course, Bayer AG isn't about to give up the lucrative US market, so the US sanctions force Bayer AG forego trade with Cuba.

Get it?

The sanctions are not on nations other than Cuba, just corporations seeking to do business in both Cuba and the USA.

Cuba had one of the best economies of the Latin Americas? An absolute canard put forth by the plantation owner Batista era oligarchs who looted Cuba and fled.

Before the 1959 revolution

75% of rural dwellings were huts made from palm trees.

More than 50% had no toilets of any kind.

85% had no inside running water.

91% had no electricity.

There was only 1 doctor per 2,000 people in rural areas.

More than one-third of the rural population had intestinal parasites.

Only 4% of Cuban peasants ate meat regularly; only 1% ate fish, less than 2% eggs, 3% bread, 11% milk; none ate green vegetables.

The average annual income among peasants was $91 (1956), less than 1/3 of the national income per person.

45% of the rural population was illiterate; 44% had never attended a school.

25% of the labor force was chronically unemployed.

1 million people were illiterate ( in a population of about 5.5 million).

27% of urban children, not to speak of 61% of rural children, were not attending school.

Racial discrimination was widespread.

The public school system had deteriorated badly.

Corruption was endemic; anyone could be bought, from a Supreme Court judge to a cop.

Police brutality and torture were common.

___



After the 1959 revolution

“It is in some sense almost an anti-model,” according to Eric Swanson, the programme manager for the Bank’s Development Data Group, which compiled the WDI, a tome of almost 400 pages covering scores of economic, social, and environmental indicators.

Indeed, Cuba is living proof in many ways that the Bank’s dictum that economic growth is a pre-condition for improving the lives of the poor is over-stated, if not, downright wrong.

-

It has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the western industrialised nations. It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the Bank’s Vice President for Development Policy, who visited Cuba privately several months ago to see for himself.

By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999;

Chile’s was down to ten; and Costa Rica, at 12. For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999.

Similarly, the mortality rate for children under the age of five in Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50% lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba’s achievement. For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999.

“Six for every 1,000 in infant mortality - the same level as Spain - is just unbelievable,” according to Ritzen, a former education minister in the Netherlands. “You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done exceedingly well in the human development area.”

Indeed, in Ritzen’s own field, the figures tell much the same story. Net primary enrolment for both girls and boys reached 100% in 1997, up from 92% in 1990. That was as high as most developed nations - higher even than the US rate and well above 80-90% rates achieved by the most advanced Latin American countries.

“Even in education performance, Cuba’s is very much in tune with the developed world, and much higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile.”

It is no wonder, in some ways. Public spending on education in Cuba amounts to about 6.7% of gross national income, twice the proportion in other Latin American and Caribbean countries and even Singapore.

There were 12 primary school pupils for every Cuban teacher in 1997, a ratio that ranked with Sweden, rather than any other developing country. The Latin American and East Asian average was twice as high at 25 to one.

The average youth (age 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean stands at 7%. In Cuba, the rate is zero. In Latin America, where the average is 7%, only Uruguay approaches that achievement, with one percent youth illiteracy.

“Cuba managed to reduce illiteracy from 40% to zero within ten years,” said Ritzen. “If Cuba shows that it is possible, it shifts the burden of proof to those who say it’s not possible.”

Similarly, Cuba devoted 9.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada’s rate. Its ratio of 5.3 doctors per 1,000 people was the highest in the world.

The question that these statistics pose, of course, is whether the Cuban experience can be replicated. The answer given here is probably not.

“What does it, is the incredible dedication,” according to Wayne Smith, who was head of the US Interests Section in Havana in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has travelled to the island many times since.

[Bacchus39]

41. what companies in Cuba will the international companies be trading with??

since countries don't make things as you say. It seems Cuba needs to sell things more than they need to buy things, which of course they do. but they need income. A car parts company isn't going to trade auto parts for mangoes. They will want cash.

International hoteliers operate in Cuba. there is no requirement for international businesses to trade in the US. If there is a market in Cuba businesses will trade there.


so the Cuban model of (a)communism + (b)Soviet subsidies + (c)trade with the US = prosperity doesn't work if b and c are removed from the equation. Imagine that.

[Billy Burnett]

47. Then I guess that Canada is even worse off.

W/o Soviet subsidies, Canada has always had to rely entirely on US trade to stay afloat. If the US embargoed Canada, then Canada's economy would flop also. Imagine that.

[Bacchus39]

49. I think Canada is much better off than Cuba actually, so I'll disagree n/t

s

[Billy Burnett]

50. Indeed. Due to economic advantages of no embargo and no US travel sanctions on Canada.

But, if Canada were to be embargoed and Americans were to be banned from travel to Canada, then Canada would be in deep doo doo.

Thanks for affirming my point.

[ronnie624]

51. In 24 hours, they'll be pretending they've never seen this before, lol. n/t

[ProudDad]

57. Nice attempt at revisionist "history" -- FAIL (n/t)

[no_hypocrisy]

13. Bill Kristol just had an orgasm.

[Ken Burch]

32. Dude...NOBODY wants that image!

[No Elephants]

14. Um, anyone know which model DOES work these days?

[JDPriestly]

30. Good question, No Elephants. Our model has also failed.

We have become overly corporatist. I have to say that we are not really a capitalist economy any more.

Corporations just gobble up every new technology, every new idea and either starve competition or outspend it or simply destroy it in the media. It's awful.

[ProudDad]

58. I don't agree...

I would say that USAmerica is the most PERFECT example of the inevitable end-stage Capitalism on Earth...

And it's taking us all down with it...

[Zorra]

35. Sweden seems to be doing pretty well. nt

[ProudDad]

59. Well, the Socialist Danes are the world's happiest people (n/t)

[Billy Burnett]

16. LOL. Cuban model doesn't work while under the duress of the US embargo ...

... and the near total stranglehold the WTO, IMF, WB, sociopathic capitalism, etc etc, have all of us serving under.

Under this duress no system could flourish. The Cubans have done OK considering their standing in various social indices (longevity, health care, education, etc).

[dipsydoodle]

27. ditto

.

[Renew Deal]

18. End it

And lets move on with our lives. Americans are dying to get into the Cuban market.

[cprise]

20. Castro said essentially the same thing years ago to Oliver Stone

The big question is whether Cuba should continue playing it by ear, or become another 3rd world paragon of capitalism (Haiti, Honduras, etc.).

[Scruffy1]

22. And yet Cuba is the most well off Carribean nation.

It's amazing how the freetards post so much ignorant crap on DU. Of course what do you expect from a sight with an astrology group, but no book group.

[Billy Burnett]

34. Indeed.

:thumbsup:

Many middle class w/ upper class dreams here.

On the other hand, even the poorest of the poor in Cuba have access to world class social infrastructure, like universal health care for their sick kids and education for everyone including higher ed., that millions of poor Americans would give their 'left one' to have.

[ronnie624]

52. Lol.

:thumbsup:

[Joe Chi Minh]

21. I think I heard Blankfein say the same thing about the US model.

Or was it Greenspan?

Something about neoliberal economics and the corporatism it spawned, causing a planetary, economic meltdown on a historically, a uniquely, profound and comprehensive scale. Feeling some pity for him, I murmured some tentative blandishments, but he wouldn't have any of it. It was all their fault, he said; and nothing I could say would convince him otherwise.

'Sic transit gloria mundi', as I murmured to myself when the cable people threatened to cut off our cable channels.

[Umbral]

37. Is that the model where the most lucrative market for your goods refuses to trade with you,

bans your products, all because they're throwing a monumental tantrum? Yeah, I don't imagine that's working out all that well for them. But still, they've done surprisingly well, all things considered.

[ProudDad]

39. What Castro probably meant...

Castro probably means that it's the capitalist component of the "mixed economy" that he put into place in the "Special Period" of the early 1990s that's what's wrong!

Before the "mixed economy" there was almost NO theft, NO prostitution, No drugs...none since the Revolution drove out the Mafia in 1959.

But when the government started courting capitalist tourists and their vices for hard cash after the fall of the Soviet Union and created a two tiered economy, that's when those evils came back into play...

Cuba is Socialist. They are survivors. They still realize what Community feels like and looks like and how to do it.

Cuba is the ONLY country on Earth that has developed a post-carbon economy and is positioned to survive the Long Emergency of resource depletion, catastrophic global climate change and global economic collapse (of the capitalist beast) best.

We should be BEGGING the Cubans to teach us how to survive end-stage capitalism rather than try to foist any more of that fucking dead ponzi scheme death economics called capitalism on them!

[robcon]

44. Wow, the capialist component! I'm SURE that was what he meant!

/sarcasm

[Mudoria]

45. it has to be spun somehow

[Billy Burnett]

48. Spin this

If this is what is now defined as a failure, then the über corporate mindset has taken hold.

Learn from Cuba

“It is in some sense almost an anti-model,” according to Eric Swanson, the programme manager for the Bank’s Development Data Group, which compiled the WDI, a tome of almost 400 pages covering scores of economic, social, and environmental indicators.

Indeed, Cuba is living proof in many ways that the Bank’s dictum that economic growth is a pre-condition for improving the lives of the poor is over-stated, if not, downright wrong.

-

It has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the western industrialised nations. It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the Bank’s Vice President for Development Policy, who visited Cuba privately several months ago to see for himself.

By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999;

Chile’s was down to ten; and Costa Rica, at 12. For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999.

Similarly, the mortality rate for children under the age of five in Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50% lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba’s achievement. For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999.

“Six for every 1,000 in infant mortality - the same level as Spain - is just unbelievable,” according to Ritzen, a former education minister in the Netherlands. “You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done exceedingly well in the human development area.”

Indeed, in Ritzen’s own field, the figures tell much the same story. Net primary enrolment for both girls and boys reached 100% in 1997, up from 92% in 1990. That was as high as most developed nations - higher even than the US rate and well above 80-90% rates achieved by the most advanced Latin American countries.

“Even in education performance, Cuba’s is very much in tune with the developed world, and much higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile.”

It is no wonder, in some ways. Public spending on education in Cuba amounts to about 6.7% of gross national income, twice the proportion in other Latin American and Caribbean countries and even Singapore.

There were 12 primary school pupils for every Cuban teacher in 1997, a ratio that ranked with Sweden, rather than any other developing country. The Latin American and East Asian average was twice as high at 25 to one.

The average youth (age 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean stands at 7%. In Cuba, the rate is zero. In Latin America, where the average is 7%, only Uruguay approaches that achievement, with one percent youth illiteracy.

“Cuba managed to reduce illiteracy from 40% to zero within ten years,” said Ritzen. “If Cuba shows that it is possible, it shifts the burden of proof to those who say it’s not possible.”

Similarly, Cuba devoted 9.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada’s rate. Its ratio of 5.3 doctors per 1,000 people was the highest in the world.

The question that these statistics pose, of course, is whether the Cuban experience can be replicated. The answer given here is probably not.

“What does it, is the incredible dedication,” according to Wayne Smith, who was head of the US Interests Section in Havana in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has travelled to the island many times since.

The US has many times more people without access to routine health care than Cuba's entire population.

Because of the global collapse of the economic pyramid many people have suffered and lost their livelihood, health insurance, access to ed, lost their homes.
But ...
Not one Cuban was thrown onto the streets or faced foreclosure of their home.
Not one Cuban lost access to their world class health system.
Not one Dr. or nurse faced benefit cutbacks or layoffs.
Not one Cuban lost access to a good school.
Not one teacher lost their job.
Not one!
As a matter of fact, in Cuba ...
More hospitals and clinics are being built for all, right now.
More classrooms and schools are being built for all, right now.
More Drs are being trained for public service for all, right now.
More educators are getting training to serve for all, right now.

Americans have little standing to criticize Cuba, especially now that we can compare reactions of both nations while under financial duress.

Cuba continued to build up its infrastructures even during the hardest of times (because the people of Cuba demanded these things and they made it happen).
America is currently stripping down the core infrastructures to the bone, laying off teachers, nurses, closing schools, cutting curriculum, closing clinics, closing access to basic health care, etc.

Americans have little standing to criticize Cuba.

[ronnie624]

54. There isn't much to spin.

The article is very short on information, and offers no more than a single, incomplete quote. I'd bet the headline doesn't come close to expressing Castro's true meaning.

[ProudDad]

56. Fail (n/t)

[Vidar]

46. It would work fine if they didn't have Godzilla as a neighbor.

[Prometheus Bound]

53. This sounds like an open-minded man.

Can you imagine any other leader or former leader admitting that its economic system doesn't work?

Even if all he meant was that it has some problems that are hard to find solutions to, it's impressive for a man of such influence to question the whole system with a comment like that.

All other leaders live in some sort of a dream world where admitting the obvious is anathema.

[Billy Burnett]

55. He's always been like that.

Discursos e intervenciones del Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro Ruz, Presidente del Consejo de Estado de la República de Cuba.
http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/