Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2002 10:37:23 +1100
Subject: Re: AUT: capitalist cuba?
From: Thiago Oppermann <topp8564-AT-mail.usyd.edu.au>


Costa Rica also had its debt declared odious by the US Supreme Court.

For the armed insurrection of lawyers!

Thiago Oppermann


On 3/6/02 6:00 AM, "Louis Proyect" <lnp3-AT-panix.com> wrote:

> At 07:43 PM 3/5/2002 +0100, you wrote:
>> 
>> "This is called lying with statistics," according to Louis Proyect
>> when I pointed to information such as that "infant mortalliy also actually
>> rose during the first years of Castro." As I found this a couple of
>> years ago on the regime's own website (though hardly as a
>> headline) I am in case not the one lying.
> 
> Why don't you start actually giving the citations for the stuff you post
> here, either as above or in the case of the ILO or whatever. Until you do,
> people should remain skeptical.
> 
>> My point was hardly of giving a full picture of Cuba society and
>> and its devopment in the 20th century, before and after Castro.
>> People tend to compare Cuba to places as Bolivia and Columbia,
>> rather than for instance Costa Rica where both illiteracy rates and
>> infant mortality according to WTO statistics actually have
>> decreased more than in Cuba in the period of question, as they
>> were originally somewhat higher. I am no what claiming that this
>> says everything but it puts things somewhat into proportions.
> 
> You obviously know about as much about Costa Rica as you do about Cuba.
> Costa Rica is the only country in Central America that had no substantial
> indigenous population. It was largely a country of European immigrants.
> That being said, the welfare state provisions (now under attack from
> neoliberalism) were won in the course of an armed struggle led by
> Communists in in 1948.
> 
>> Nor am I saying that the level of wages says everything. It is actually
>> you who are making the argument, even if  you seem unaware of it.
>> Generalised wage slavery tells us however that we are talking about
>> capitalism.
> 
> Yawn. More Kautskyite arguments against attempts to overthrow capitalism in
> non-G7 nations.
> 
>> But iif we are to talk about the wage level, according to ILO it was
>> higher in Cuba during the Batista regime than in many West-European
>> countries, despite colonial history.
> 
> Citation? Or was this a dream you had.
> 
>> There are far worse places to live than in Cuba. There are also far
>> worse places to live than in South Korea. That does not make any
>> of these countries less capitalist.
> 
> It is not about whether places or better or worse. It is about whether
> capitalist accumulation is taking place. Since for you, all peripheral
> countries are doomed to be capitalist, there is nothing you have to say to
> 90 percent of the people living on the planet. Perhaps you should stick to
> the aptly named aut-op-sy where you have kindred spirits.
> 
>> Though I find it quite funny this reference to "under the revolution,"
>> even if I would be very much pleased if  a social revolution was actually
>> taking place. In all circumstances, the same could be said about
>> quite a few countries. What about:  "The Human Development
>> Indicators would reveal that, whatever the wage rate, the average
>> Irish, South Korean,  Taiwanese and Costa Rician live better under
>> the revolution [today] than before1958.  Even ... a bourgeois economist
>> is forced to admit [that]?" Any bourgeois economist would also have
>> to admit that this would be true for the end of the Franco period
>> compared to Republician Spain of 30ies.
> 
> It is not a question of living better, it is a question of society
> guaranteeing a job, a home, health care and education. Cuba is the only
> country in Latin America that does. As far as South Korea and Taiwan are
> concerned, perhaps you should study the history of the Cold War to
> understand why these countries fared somewhat better than they might have
> if they were in Africa instead.
> 
> Louis Proyect
> Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
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