Posted on 07/19/2008 7:05:18 AM PDT by uglybiker
Cuban President Raul Castro is giving over more state-owned land to private owners.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4xLR4g7wcN8
Communism is such a wonderful idea.... if only we could get rid of that pesky "human nature" stuff. You know... love, envy, pride, wanting to help those you know more than those you don't... those silly ideas.
It is stories like this that just annoy me to no end. These people (communists/socialists) take resources and “the means of production” away from the people and destroy entire economies and countries just to realize 50 years later that their “little experiment” does not work.
How many more USSRs and Cubas does the world have to suffer through before all of the socialists out there realize that their schema does not work?
JoMa
Depends on who the private owners are I would say.
I understand you are probably just being sarcastic. But I’m taking this opportunity to comment on something I think should be repeated.
Even in a theoretical world with 100% altruism, communism is wrong and a horrible idea because it takes credit away. That is, it takes away private property which is rightly earned.
Communism would be horrible even if it worked exactly like the most perfect version we could imagine.
Anything to help the regime hold out a little longer....
Those “private owners” are just Communist Party hacks who will treat their workers like serfs to enrich themselves.
Lot of old car collectors are probably licking their chops.
So now they’ll have private ownership under an authoritarian dictatorship. Precisely what they had before Castro’s revolution.
Private property, credit, and earned property are only important to those with human emotions. Once those are forced to conform the way that the Left wants, Communism will work just fine. It just won't have any elements of Freedom, humanity, or happiness. Other than that, it will work just fine.
I admit to the sarcasm, but the points I'm making are also proper logical extensions.
In point of fact, Communism works perfectly fine in America today... but only at the smallest levels. A young new family (working wife, house-husband, and 2.3 young 'uns) are a perfect example. She earns, but every benefits equally. Everyone's needs are met, but all is taken from the one provider. When love, cooperation, and harmony can be taken for granted (mostly), then the system can be workable. However, on any scale above the family unit, it's a virtual guarantee that failure will result. There is no shortage of examples here in the US. Hippie Communes were "in" for a little while, but even with those most ardent adherents to the ideal, it still failed... because you cannot force a person to care as much for his neighbors as for their own family (blood is thicker than water, envy, etc), you cannot stop laziness from inducing some to work less when they know they will retain the same lifestyle (profit incentive, pride from earning, etc), and you cannot avoid the fact that a central power will have to do the distribution and favoritism will inevitably corrput the system.
Within a family, these human traits can be countered (or dealt with, or ignored), but on any larger scale, they are insurmountable... as every "experiment" in Communism hath shewn.
I’m arguing that communism is a moral failure much more than a practical failure.
In practical terms, sure it could “work” in some conceivable though extremely difficult to attain and infinitely undesirable scenario.
But morally speaking, the corruption of communism is absolute starting at square one.
Cuba is a gold mine. Imagine if Raul stepped down or allowed direct foreign investment.
Hugo is finding that out right now...
Now, if we could just get the US Government to do the same thing.
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