¡Viva el Capitalismo! Cuban government surrendering more of it's land.

Miscellaneous Current Events
1

I can’t find English sources that talk about this, but according to some Spanish speaking news sources, the government of Cuba is going to surrender 800,000 hectare of land to anyone interested in investing and producing from it;

http://es.finance.yahoo.com/news/Cuba-tiene-800-000-hectáreas-ap-2803492106.html?x=0

I imagine that the process may be slow, and possibly corrupt (after all, they might give those lands to anyone who’s got dibs with the Cuban government), and of course, the very land owners will continue to be taxed or regulated in what they produce (hopefully not too much). But hey, baby steps toward a more market friendly system with private property is better than no steps no?

Heheh, once again, to cite an article form here, Raul is “strengthening” capitalism to save “socialism”. hehehehehheheheheh: http://blog.mises.org/15092/if-only-our-rulers-were-more-like-cuba’s/

2

I hope that outside investment is allowed, because the only people who could buy this land in the country is people who are in bed with the government. Otherwise this is non-news.

3

‘Raul is “strengthening” capitalism to save “socialism”.’

As George Carlin would say: “that’s like screwing for virginity.” XD

4

When the Castro brothers made their annoucements about “More Capitalism to save Socialism” I was intrigued by the fact so very few on this boards commented about it, even if only to crack a joke.

Personally I am very interested in this process to see if it will end up like China or Russia. Given how amazingly resorceful and enterprising Cubans are I say this has the potential to be very, very interesting. Personally I am keeping a weather eye on Cuba to see how the situation will evolve for foreign investors.

5

If anyone has played Tropico… why do I picture this going exactly like the “Privatize” edict?

6

I haven’t played Tropico 3. But, knowing that game’s humour, I will guess that it sends a percentage of money you spend to your slush fund or gives a lump of cash to some group as a backdoor bribe.

7

Well the weird thing about Marx philosophy and their econ, is that they believe that in order to achieve their ideal version of socialism, they must use capitalism to start the process. Marx believed that capitalism was necessary as a start to the end of socialism because 1) Marx believed that capitalism made the end of alienation possible,2) it increases production to a necessary level to start off the socialist project,3) it reduces scarcity, and 4) it reveals the true nature of class conflict.

Marx’s justification for this was that he thought that history would go through the order of capitalism-to a mixed econ- to his ideal version of socialism.