Fidel Castro: socialism doesn't work

There used to be times when Fidel Castro would be considered the most left-wing famous person of the Western Hemisphere. Times are changing. The U.S. progressives - of the Daily Kos type - are now vastly more extreme communists than the former Cuban leader.

Following the example of his brother Raul, Fidel gave a sensible answer to the question whether it was a good idea to export the Cuban model to other countries. "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," he said. Fidel has also criticized Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his anti-Semitism and especially holocaust denial. However, the same criticism could be addressed to the U.S. and some European lefties, too.

AP, others

It's a great achievement for the former Cuban leader to be as quick. He only needed to decimate his previously wealthy country for 51 years before he saw the light. ;-)




It's expected that his words will help his brother Raul to promote some kind of perestroika in Cuba. I actually think that Cuba is not doing too badly for a communist country. For example, its GDP per capita is nearly $10,000, almost a quarter of Florida which would otherwise be comparable.

Obviously, if the Cuban leaders are reading the Reference Frame :-), I recommend them something very different than gradual reforms. I recommend them a Czechoslovak model of shock therapy. They may try to optimize some issues and increase the responsibility of the new owners for their companies.

However, as quick a privatization as possible - with the voucher privatization's (a fraction of stocks may be bought by every citizen, for special "children's money") being a necessary component for the companies that no one else would buy - would be greatly beneficial for Cuba's economic feature.

Now, when the leaders and former leaders already realize that the leftist ideology is a dead end, they may try to revive the enthusiasm from their best years, avoid all kinds of flavorless third routes, and build capitalism and democracy of a textbook type. With Obama in the White House, Cuba has finally received a nonzero chance to overtake America. ;-)

Update: Some sources claim that Castro was speaking about the U.S. economy, not about the Cuban economy, when he said it no longer works. I don't really know what happened so please be aware that both interpretations may turn out to be right.