Cubanascnan

A Century of Dictators

By: Martina Alvarez

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 33 mins

Publisher's summary

Democracy and capitalism can be painful, and you don't always like the outcomes. Some days, you win, but most days you lose. Under a dictatorship, life can be good for a time, but your ancestors will eventually starve and end up on a raft headed for a nearby capitalistic country. Marxism makes a lot of sense theoretically, but in practice, every time it has been tried it has failed. This can take a couple of decades, and the success of communism requires a parasitic relationship with a capitalistic system as it has to sell into this mixed market economy to meet the monetary needs of the government and the entitlements promised to the people. Communism failed in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and to some extent in Venezuela, and although these are different cultures and countries, they were all unsuccessful for the same reason. Food, education, housing, healthcare, and defense insecurity were brought about by a lack of a mixed market economy that lacked the necessary resiliency to get through lean times. All of the aforementioned nations had a golden age that lasted for decades, but any brand of Marxism will fail as a result of a lack of diversification of the economy and the people in conjunction with needing capitalism to perpetuate their government's ideological narratives and the money needed to give their populace adequate security. People who have lived in these systems often blame economic contractions on corruption as a form of laziness and conditioning, but the reality is that in every system there is expansion and contraction. In democracy and capitalism, nothing is perfect, but at any given time, some people are failing, and some people are winning. In socialism and communism, the entire economy is dependent on the success and failures of the larger capitalistic economies in the world, and everyone wins a little and loses a lot together. Batista's and Fidel's Cuba both had economic high points that lasted in total for three decades collectively, but both regimes were utter failures as they failed to live up to their socialistic ideals for 70% of their time as leaders. In some ways, the Cuban people are to be blamed for this as they supported both Batista and Fidel, and although Cuba is an archipelago and suffers from insular dwarfism and gigantism like all islands, Cubans should expect more from themselves. China has had some success letting a mixed market economic approach into private and partially owned state enterprises, but even it is doomed to fail in the future as it won't be able to meet the government allotments promised to its citizens as the entire Xi Government depends on exports for revenue to capitalistic economies. All systems are doomed without trade, but the ebbs and flows of market forces that are protected from the people in part in socialism and communism are an illusion. No country is an island nor is any economic system, and Cuba is a great example of how parasitic relationships of communism exist as a means of survival and how the failures of socialism and communism run deep, are inevitable, and last for decades. The problem with dictatorships and communism is the same as they are subject to the whims and machinations of a single individual who usually isn't that smart and becomes corrupt with power. This is a recipe for disaster, and it's always doomed to fail. Democracy and capitalism aren't perfect, but at least, opportunities for change exist, which means there is hope. Hope is really all people have in this world, and in capitalism and mixed market economies, these dreams are allowed to play out and bring resources that are needed for lean times. This doesn't and will never exist in socialism and communism; thus, in time, failure and widespread suffering are inevitable. Cuba epitomizes this, and sadly, there are many more.

"Liberty, not communism, is the most contagious force in the world."-Earl Warren