BBC NEWS | Americas | Cuba to abandon salary equality

Well, it's nice to see that Cuba is coming around to the understanding that there is no such thing as equal and that capitalism is the best way to ensure productivity which is the best way to ensure quality of life. Yet another embarrassing blow to socialist fantasies.

__________________
Political Wrinkles
Kizzume Forum :: Index
Political Fever

Well, actually, differential pay doesn't actually strike a blow to socialism, since socialism doesn't actually say everyone must be paid identically. It's true that socialism prizes equality, but it doesn't mean that you must have perfect equality in all regards. Even in the Soviet Union, there were incentives and differential pay. That's a myth people propagate because they don't understand socialism. Communism != socialism. Communists support eliminating the accumulation of wealth and full income redistribution. That's not a necessary component of socialism.

Socialism is compatible with merit-based incentives. It's not the sole domain of capitalism. Then again, merit-based incentives for production isn't alway a part of capitalism either. Instead, you get big bonuses for people who don't do anything at all, like corrupt, useless CEOs.

I don't see a problem with income inequality if it's actually deserved, so long as a social safety net is there for others. The degree of income inequality is what is a problem, especially relative to the actual worth of the people who make all the money.

It is good, though, that cuba is reforming a bit. They should become more of a mixed economy.

__________________

Perhaps they're moving to a form of market socialism. But given the fact that they are still very much a society that has an under-developed economy, I think it's primarily agricultural, it will take a bit of a while. I do know they have a burgeoning pharmaceutical industry though, perhaps that sort of industry that they'll be developing. Anyway, good move.

Well said. That really kills the OP's agenda stone dead.

__________________
Viva Fidel

If there ever was in the history of humanity an enemy who was truly universal, an enemy whose acts and moves trouble the entire world, threaten the entire world, attack the entire world in any way or another, that real and really universal enemy is precisely Yankee imperialism

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

I suspect that Raul was never much of a communist (neither was Fidel, until the US said screw you and the USSR said hugs and kisses).

It seems he's looking to move Cuba towards a more sustainable mixed market system. Not pure communism or socialism, nor pure capitalism (which nobody actually practices anyway).

__________________
"Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
-Joseph Welch

I think of all the reforms to make this is probably the wrong one to choose, I don't necessarily have a problem with this but I think more important reforms towards democracy and political liberalism would be better, possibly when Obama is in charge and Cuba aren't as in as much danger.

__________________
Trust me, I'm a socialist!

There's power in a factory,power in the land, power in the hand of the worker. But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand, there is power in a union.
The union forever defending our rights, down with the blackleg, workers unite. To our brothers and our sisters in many far off lands, there is power in a union.
Money speaks for money, the devil for his own. - Billy Bragg

It was supposedly Raul who next to Che was the more hardline communist and Fidel was the lesser ideologically committed. Though such rumours and anecdotal evidence are to be taken with a pinch of salt.

__________________
Viva Fidel

If there ever was in the history of humanity an enemy who was truly universal, an enemy whose acts and moves trouble the entire world, threaten the entire world, attack the entire world in any way or another, that real and really universal enemy is precisely Yankee imperialism

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

I think they were both communists from the start, they would have needed a strong ideology (as well as balls of steel) to take on the Batista forces at Moncada. But some years ago the references to Marxism-Leninism were taken out of the constitution, so that might indicate a welcome pragmatism. But you know what they say, "your young Marxist days are your best Marxist days", and perhaps Raul and the others realise there's no need for there to be a clamping down on the population to ensure anti-regime insurgents don't get a toe-hold. Perhaps they realise that the Cuban people don't want a capitalist system, just a little more material comfort.

Could be. I was just speculating.
According to wikipedia:

"During this period Castro repeatedly denied being a communist.[42][43][44][45][46] For example in New York on April 25 he said, communist "influence is nothing. I don't agree with communism. We are democracy. We are against all kinds of dictators.... That is why we oppose communism."[47]"

Wikimedia Error


I don't really know about Raul, but I know that there always elements of the revolution that were anti-Batista but most definitely not communist. Camilo Cienfuegos, for example, was never a communist. This could be part of the reason that his plane had a tragic accident.

__________________
"Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
-Joseph Welch

I'm happy to be corrected (well most of the time, even if sometimes I respond through gritted teeth ) but my reference tells me that the First Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba was held in December 1975 and the First Secretary of the Party, Comrade Fidel Castro, made a report. It's okay though, the word "communist" doesn't make me crap my pants

Riverend, J. (1997) A Brief History of Cuba. Instituto Cubano del Libro, Editorial Jose Marti. La Habana, Cuba. At p. 118.