The Last Communist City

[Slimprofits]

Re: The Last Communist City

As the chart clearly shows the overwhelming rapid growth of South Korea came AFTER they left central planning in 1979:

Source after source point to the policies of Park Chung-hee as the change in the nation's economy.

A plot of the rise of one or a combination of all public, all private, corporate or household debt originated in South Korea would probably look very similar to this one.

[Wiley]

Re: The Last Communist City

As to the work at the origin of this thread I was reluctant to comment since I come to itulip to get qualified economic information to be able to invest whichever monies I have and not to discuss about other matters.
Having begun a commentary I shall just say briefly: if TP shows an astonishing level of ignorance about Marx's work Mr. Totten has the hability to vastly surpass him. I lived in Cuba for 10 years, between mid seventies and mid eighties as an ordinary citizen, not in any tourist bubble, so I am in a condition to boast a bit more knowledge about that countrys' history, economics, politics and the such.
Totten's work is just a bunch of conclussions taken from a short touristic visit. Just to stimulate some thought a couple of questions: If Cuba staged a bloody revolution in the 50's against an extremely cruel dictatorship as Batista's, which was supported and armed by the near american empire, why was the same people not able (assuming it so wished) to revolt against Fidel Castro, specially when, after the demise of the Soviet Union the economic situation there became extremely dire?
Most of the Cuban adult population form part of the militia and command the use of weapons and military tactics. Moreover, a big chunk of them (hundreds of thousands) have real combat experience in Angola and other parts. There must be something very compelling for such a people to hold to a political system that carries a very significant level of economic sacrifice. Easy, same way North Korea does. FEAR. You won't find taxi cab drivers willing to discuss politics or economics in Cuba. They believe their cabs are bugged. There are armed soldiers on every block in the commercial district of Havana. They are moved to different posts almost daily so as to not become familiar with the people in that area. It goes on and on.


Cuban people is probably one of the most politically cultured in the world. And I asume that to be an understatement. That, of course, Totten did not find out, probably he even does not speak Spanish. So, let's leave the Cubans alone and lift the shameful american embargo, which, very reasonably in my opinion, the cubans call "blockade". After that, maybe, we could be in a position as to determine the relative "success" or "failure" of their particular ways of socialism. Could you tell me exactly what they would want to trade with us that they can't trade with any other county in S. American? Please don't tell me they would get investments with no property rights.
I shall not post again in this particular thread. If many itulipers (particularly EJ) find it suitable to initiate one about Cuba and socialism then I shall gladly participate. I would actaully love to hear more about your time in Cuba. Why you were there and why you left, etc.

c

[gwynedd1]

Re: The Last Communist City

Or perhaps, that size was the problem.

Size can always be a problem but Federated or Confederated arrangements can scale much further.

[gwynedd1]

Re: The Last Communist City

Wiley,

Have you been to Haiti? Again , all you can do is speculate. I too can speculate , very little in comparison, that sanctions spoil objective comparison. Without the US the Bahamas, whose economy is almost entirely tourism, would collapse. That isn't speculation. Why not remove sanctions and prove that communism will fail on its own? Isn't that the point? If communism is a failure, why do we need additional means?

I happen to think that sanctions has done wonders for keeping the regime in place.

[Southernguy]

Re: The Last Communist City

Easy, same way North Korea does. FEAR. You won't find taxi cab drivers willing to discuss politics or economics in Cuba. They believe their cabs are bugged. There are armed soldiers on every block in the commercial district of Havana. They are moved to different posts almost daily so as to not become familiar with the people in that area. It goes on and on.

I don't think so. Cubans are not the easily intimidated bunch. As I said before they don't lack military experience. Further on, any manifestation of dissent is readily and heavily supported from the north. Won't opinate on NK, I (as well as most people outside) ignore nearly anything about. Anyway, there are inmense differences. Not two million visitors a year wandering freely about in NK.

Could you tell me exactly what they would want to trade with us that they can't trade with any other county in S. American? Please don't tell me they would get investments with no property rights.


Embargo is not mainly about not being able to buy something, mostly having to pay higher prices for doing it through indirect means. The main problem is that it cuts Cuba from it's main natural export market, the US. Further, embargo makes companies all over the world difficult to trade with Cuba. No dollar transactions possible, all of them go through NY and are therefore authomatically embargoed. It's not possible to make any arrangemente with, not only fully US owned companies but with companies having partial, even small, US ownership. Non US companies who do business with Cuba can not do it with the US. So, if you are a non US entity, why bother doing business where you can get US enmity? Specially considering Cuba is a small underdevoped market.
The final result is that all Cuban commerce and investment is loaded to be more expensive, difficult and done in worse conditions for the Cubans. Try for one minute to imagine what is like to be a businessman anywhere in the world and consider doing business in Cuba. You should need to get a sensible profits premium.
As to property rights you are also mistaken. Cuba has a foreign investment law most in the tone of such in the rest of the world. You can download it from some website. I know because I also did business there for some time. As far as I know such law is carefully respected by Cuban authorities. Cargo ships which touch Cuban ports cannot go to the US for a sizeable time (six months if I remember well). The list is large.
Many people think that the embargo is in reality supporting Cuban regime. I respectfully do not agree. However difficult it can be to answer "what would happen if" questions my opinion is that ending the embargo would mean a real bust to Cuban economy, even in the present condition. Cuba is already full of foreign tourists from the rest of the world, which is completely capitalist. Some of them are sympathizers, many are not. It is not an isolated country (as NK is). Tourists intercat freely with ordinary citizens, exchange money for goods with them, not only in paladares but all kind of services, including prostitution. And of course many (if not all) cubans talk freely with foreigners. How could you control what millions of Cubans talk with millions of foreign tourists? Of these visitors some hundred of thousands are Cubans living in the US which visit their families and live with them during that time. Try tell these people what not to talk about. I think US authorities have good reasons for keeping the embargo. Don't take them for fools. They are not.


I would actaully love to hear more about your time in Cuba. Why you were there and why you left, etc.

Was in Cuba as a political exile. Returned home when dictatorship in Uruguay ended.

[Slimprofits]

Re: The Last Communist City

From that brief overview it's my opinion that most of the negative reviews expressed here are derived entirely second hand from sources cherry picked to reinforce ideological preferences. To anyone who has read it cover to cover, my congratulations and condolences. After reading the TOC, the Preface, the first two chapters and the last, I can confidently report that "Capital in the Twentieth Century" describes extreme inequality as a feature of late stage capitalism that can only be reversed through state intervention, and without which will engender a crisis of democracy and governance. .

Let's take this to the logical conclusion. By the very same token, it could be said that you are cherry picking and placing this book on a pedestal for ideological preferences. Check your confirmation bias.

[Wiley]

Re: The Last Communist City

Wiley,

Have you been to Haiti? Again , all you can do is speculate. I too can speculate , very little in comparison, that sanctions spoil objective comparison. Without the US the Bahamas, whose economy is almost entirely tourism, would collapse. That isn't speculation. Why not remove sanctions and prove that communism will fail on its own? Isn't that the point? If communism is a failure, why do we need additional means?

I happen to think that sanctions has done wonders for keeping the regime in place.

Really no need to speculate. I've been to many socialist/communist and former communist countries. They are all shitholes. The people are generally somber (can't think of a better word). The infrastructure is crap. There is a climate of fear. Oh and they are really poor and the net migration is always out (to capitalist countries).

[ProdigyofZen]

Re: The Last Communist City

But it was Marx who virtually invented the concept of depreciation, which FIRE uses quite to their advantage in a strange way in regards to real estate.

Build a high rise, depreciate it over 30 years (like the value of the building doesnt go up! haha), earn the rental yield then sell it, earn the "capital gains" and the new owner gets to again depreciate it over 30 years: wash, rinse, repeat.

The whole concept smacks of gaming the system yet everyone will tell you it is completely normal because we have all come to understand this as the way finance operates.

This won't change until there is a complete wipe out of our economic system......

[Woodsman]

Re: The Last Communist City

Really no need to speculate. I've been to many socialist/communist and former communist countries. They are all shitholes. The people are generally somber (can't think of a better word). The infrastructure is crap. There is a climate of fear. Oh and they are really poor and the net migration is always out (to capitalist countries).

Hardly a set of circumstances unique to a particular economic system, socialist or otherwise:

However, figures of those fleeing other Latin American or Caribbean countries of origin compare similarly with those of Cuba. During the 2005 fiscal year, 3,612 Dominicans were picked up at high seas attempting to illegally reach the US (900 more than Cubans intercepted) and in 2004, 3,229 Haitians were also picked up (2,000 more than the 1,225 Cubans that fiscal year). The Brazilian daily O Globo published an article on illegal immigrants in the US, quoting official sources, pointing out that during the first semester of 2005, 27,396 Brazilians were stopped from illegally crossing US borders, an average of 4,556 per month and 152 a day. In 2004, a total of 1,160,000 foreigners, were stopped by attempting to illegally enter the US, 93 percent of them (close to 1,080,000) were Mexicans.

"Human rights in Cuba"

Somber people, crap infrastructure, climate of fear, poverty, net migration out. Hell, we could be taking about Chicago, Detroit, parts of Miami, LA, etc. Glass houses, folks. All the more reason to fix us before we try fixing others.

[Southernguy]

Re: The Last Communist City

With one big, big difference: unlike peple from other places, cubans who manage to arrive at US get inmediately right to live and work there. Thanks to one of many embargo laws. If this was available for all latin americans...I can't imagine what would happen.

[gwynedd1]

Re: The Last Communist City

Really no need to speculate. I've been to many socialist/communist and former communist countries. They are all shitholes. The people are generally somber (can't think of a better word). The infrastructure is crap. There is a climate of fear. Oh and they are really poor and the net migration is always out (to capitalist countries).

Sweden's infrastructure is crap? Really?

Russian has not been "socialist" for nearly 25 years now. The comparison is getting old. And like I said, Haiti isn't a socialist country. I have never seen it worse in any Eastern European country I have been in than the West side of Chicago, Gary or E St Louis.

What I am getting at is this false "we be capitalist and good" and "they be communist and bad" false dichotomy is really just plain stupid to be perfectly honest. The Soviets were the phony "war communism" all along anyway not "communist" alla Marx. That lasted less than a year. I tend to only like central planning for basic ,inherently monopolistic infrastructure myself like water, road ways etc but the particulars of the economic system don't always weigh in very much. Latvia had much more net migration out after becoming "capitalist"( crony FIRE sector). Even Ben Franklin said wages are low when the land is expensive and wages are dear when the land is cheap. What's the economic system have to do with an empty North America? With cheap and fertile land , its easy to make one's politics look good.

http://www.archive.org/stream/increa...nrich_djvu.txt

[Woodsman]

Re: The Last Communist City

With one big, big difference: unlike peple from other places, cubans who manage to arrive at US get inmediately right to live and work there. Thanks to one of many embargo laws. If this was available for all latin americans...I can't imagine what would happen.

Es verdad.

[Wiley]

Re: The Last Communist City

Hardly a set of circumstances unique to a particular economic system, socialist or otherwise:



Somber people, crap infrastructure, climate of fear, poverty, net migration out. Hell, we could be taking about Chicago, Detroit, parts of Miami, LA, etc. Glass houses, folks. All the more reason to fix us before we try fixing others.

It's not glass houses. It is looking at an ideology and its history and saying that is a dangerous path to go down. I have plenty of critisicm for our socialist ways as well. Capitilism isn't perfect but in my experience it is more free and does more good for more people then any other system I've witnessed. At its core it boils down to philosophy....freedom or not so much freedom.

[Wiley]

Re: The Last Communist City

"To speak of Sweden as socialist today is pretty far off the mark. Neo-liberal reforms have gone much further here in some sectors than in the US. Sweden has become a sort of laboratory for privatization", commented Brian Palmer, a professor of anthropology at Sweden’s Uppsala University. Olle Wästberg, a liberal and the former Consul-General to New York, boasted that: "In many fields, we [Sweden] have more private ownership compared to other European countries, and to America. About 80 percent of all new schools are privately run, as are the railroads and the subway system."
http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/3752

[Woodsman]

Re: The Last Communist City

It's not glass houses. It is looking at an ideology and its history and saying that is a dangerous path to go down. I have plenty of critisicm for our socialist ways as well. Capitilism isn't perfect but in my experience it is more free and does more good for more people then any other system I've witnessed. At its core it boils down to philosophy....freedom or not so much freedom.

As much as we all love emotionally appealing phrases like "freedom" it's not a philosophy, it's a glittering generality and a crude device of propaganda.

Really, we know the ideology and the history and no one here is suggesting we go down any such path, "our socialist ways" notwithstanding.

I'm done with this thread. It is a pointless distraction and precisely the kind of thing that makes EJ question the continuing value of the public forums.