File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1998/marxism-international.9801, message 368


Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 11:34:17 -0500
From: james m blaut <70671.2032-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Re: M-I: Re: Reply to the State Caps and the PCP


Jorn: 

Those statistics are from the Radio Havana article reproduced on this list
a few days ago. But they fit perfectly with what I know from the
Demographic Yearbook of The UN which I haven't looked at for a year or so.
Check it out. You'll find that Cuba has better health than any other Third
World country.

Of course there are shortages of som e foods. But not to the extent that
the nutrition of Cubans is affected. This litany was heard about two years
ago from the capitalist press. It wasn'ty true then and it is certainly not
true today, when conditions are much improved.

The only way you can explain the healthiness of the Cuban populatioin --
low infant mortality, long life, etc. -- in the context of the country's
economic problems now and since the USSR collapsed -- is that there is a
very fair sharing of wealth: food, medical facilities, education, etc. If
Cuba, like neocolonial countries, had a superrich ruling class and a
desperately poor working class, then the demographic statistics would be
very different. In short: the best evidence that Cuba is a a socialist
country is the statistics on health (and education, etc.).

En lucha

Jim Blaut  


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