UN Cuba to recognize private property under new constitution - Creeping Capitalism

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-44836358

Cuba will officially recognise private property for the first time under a new constitution that features a number of far-reaching changes, state media say.

Property sales were banned after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, but permitted after a law change in 2011.

The communist-run state's new constitution will reaffirm that central planning and state enterprise are key to the economy.

It is expected to be approved by a vote at the national assembly next week.

The draft constitution would then be put to a popular referendum for final approval later this year.

• Castro's people - a photographic tour through Cuba
• Miguel Díaz-Canel: The man succeeding the Castros
• Cuba: What you need to know

If it is passed it will replace the existing constitution which was approved by the Communist Party in 1976.

Under the proposed reforms the party will remain as Cuba's dominant political force, the Granma newspaper reports.

But presidents will be limited to serving two consecutive five-year terms and political power will be divided between the president and a prime minister.

It will ban discrimination based on gender, ethnic origin or disability. LGBT groups are hopeful it will also legalise same-sex marriage.

Since 2010, Cuba has undergone a series of market reforms aimed at boosting the island's economy.

The national assembly proposed a number of constitutional reforms last month - including presidential term limits and the legalisation of same-sex marriage - as the country moves to decide its political future.

REUTERS
Former President Raúl Castro will see through the planned reforms

The last constitutional reform in 2002 decreed that the socialist character of the political system in Cuba was "irrevocable".

The intention of the proposed reforms is to constitutionally formalise the island's economic and social opening-up while maintaining this "irrevocable" socialist system.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel announced last month that former President Raúl Castro will lead the potential reforms.

Mr Díaz-Canel took over from Mr Castro as the country's leader in April.

The Castro brothers, first Fidel and them Raul, ruled the country between 1959 and 2018.

 

[whatever I feel like]

Good luck, all you would-be kulaks.

 

[RodgerDodger]

So you could sell stuff between 2011 and 2018, but you couldn't own it? Or you could sorta own stuff, but the government just come in and say "yoink" at any point?

Welcome to Comunism. Much of it is people pretending to follow the rules while simply carrying on with reality. That includes buying and selling stuff. Which while the government rails against, they in fact mostly politely ignore so long as they get their cut.

 

[Slap47]

I'm sure the Far Left will REEE about this being a win for the PATRIARCHY and the corrupt Drumpf (because reasons) and call for everyone to #resist the capitalistic change in Cuba until Real Communismtm can be implemented.

I hope these changes go through, not only because it will be a slap in the face to all the pro communist lefties in college campuses and Starbucks the world over, but because the cubans have lived under horrible oppression under communism for decades, and deserve to have freedom in their own country as opposed to having to come here for freedom.

America has finally learned that the best way to spread capitalism is to get people hooked on consumer goods.

You can hate Castro all you want but the insanity of the old school neocon hawks does justify alot of what he did.


Also: Far lefties are starting to hate Castro for excluding women and Afro-Caribbeans from top positions.

 

[Flying_with_the_Penguins]

Must hurt Trudeau to see his dads legacy destroyed like this.

 

[Hatoful Dandy]

Must hurt Trudeau to see his dads legacy destroyed like this.

He can't be his son.

Fidel was able to grow magnificent facial hair.

 

[Silence of the Troons]

Don't expect the Castro worshipping nutters to give up and admit that communism doesn't work. They'll just weep for a bit and move on to worship Kim Jong-un and best Korea

 

[ICametoLurk]

The most recent english language articles on the new constitution drafting process:

http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2018-06-04...-constitutional-reform-holds-initial-sessions

http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2018-06-11...al-of-a-new-cuban-constitution-continues-work

http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2018-06-15/first-draft-of-proposed-new-constitution-progressing

http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2018-07-04...first-draft-of-proposed-constitutional-reform



I'm pretty sure this spanish language article summarising the proposed constitutional reforms is the one all the western media are referring to.

http://www.granma.cu/cuba/2018-07-1...-y-el-futuro-de-la-patria-13-07-2018-20-07-04

This is just the official codification of what has already been going on. This is only a first draft things may still be added or removed, moreover it can only be ratified by referendum so in the end whatever the policy of the party a referendum will decide it.

 

[CWCchange]

Also: Far lefties are starting to hate Castro for excluding women and Afro-Caribbeans from top positions.

The irony is the Castros are Criollos, full-blooded Spaniards, who overthrew a Le 56% Face puppet. Try also telling leftards Castro imprisoned homosexuals and Che Guevara, another European, wasn't much a fan of darky.

 

[DICKPICSRUS]

This is great news
Hopefully the U.S. And Cuba can become allies
Which could help build Cuba's economy with tourism
I mean look at this scenery

 

[thismanlies]

Don't expect the Castro worshipping nutters to give up and admit that communism doesn't work. They'll just weep for a bit and move on to worship Kim Jong-un and best Korea

But it wasn't real communism.

 

[Daughter of Cernunnos]

Leave authoritarian socialism in the 20th century where it belongs. If anything, it proved central planning doesn't work. And I say this as a leftist.

It will ban discrimination based on gender, ethnic origin or disability. LGBT groups are hopeful it will also legalise same-sex marriage.

I hope they recognize gay rights but not trans and trannies reee about it.

 

[TowinKarz]

Every "communist" country is a bit capitalist on the inside, just to function, as central-planning an economy literally never works.

There was a whole class of bureaucrats in the USSR called Tolkach (translated it means "pushers") whose job it was to be, essentially, state-sponsored white collar criminals. It was their job to cook books, fudge quotas and call in "favors" among each other so that factories could get the raw materials they needed and actually get some stuff produced and to market while making at least a little money and still appearing to be meeting Moscow's 5 year plans or finding clever ways to meet them in letter, if not in spirit.

Satirist P.J. O'Rourke visited Russia shortly after the USSR collapsed and looked into what a mess communism had made of the economy and only half-jokingly said that under the Tolkach, if a factory was ordered to produce 500 pairs of shoes, for example, they'd make 500 pairs of baby shoes since those were the easiest to make and this would also ensure "leftover" material from their state-given supply that could be written off as "waste" and given to other shoe factories who never got any leather, but were also given a 500-pairs-or-it's-Sibera directive whose own Tolkach connection was trying to find a way to meet by-the-letter, but not for the benefit of the market. In the end, the output of such an economic system wasn't insignificant, it still produced Space Rockets, nuclear bombs, warships and enough AK47's for everyone and his brother in in Africa, but such a system mostly, in his words, "spun donuts on the lawn".

If you wonder why the New Russia had such an acute mafia/corruption problem almost immediately upon the fall of communism, it's that the Tolkach were suddenly, overnight, no longer beholden to the Party, just their own pockets.

But the same thing likely happens in all "lesser" communist states too. The state says they run everything, and capitalism is strictly forbidden, but, there is always a capitalist black market right under the surface that things like trade and luxury goods flows through with the only real rule being "don't make it too obvious guys" and the tacit understanding that anyone who gets too out of line can be denounced, tried for treason and shot, ensuring they keep it quiet.

Cuba is "legalizing" what they can no longer keep a blanket on.

 

[Gone_Fission]

"Communist" countries are basically what would happen if a capitalist megacorp owned everything and had no real competition. I fail to see a meaningful functional difference between the USSR and a shittier version of Omni Consumer Products or Weyland-Yutani. It still capitalism, just more concentrated, dictatorial, and retarded.

 

[DNA_JACKED]

America has finally learned that the best way to spread capitalism is to get people hooked on consumer goods.

You can hate Castro all you want but the insanity of the old school neocon hawks does justify alot of what he did.


Also: Far lefties are starting to hate Castro for excluding women and Afro-Caribbeans from top positions.

Typical Communist right here. Its NEVER the communists fault, right? It's always the fault of some nebulous outside force, like "capitalism" or "neo cons".

It doesnt matter what some neocon hawks thought, it doesn't justify the stunted development, executions, horrific living and working conditions, and oppressive world Cubans live in thanks to Castro's iron fist. Neo-cons didnt make him kill 50,000 of his own people.

Castro was a Tyrant, an abusive dictator that wasnt worth the dirt under his own feet. Good on Cubans for overthrowing his broken communist policies, hopefully it works out for them.

Also, the best way to spread capitalism isnt getting people hooked on consumer goods (as opposed to the basic bread and wilted veggies communism gives you), it is to simply point to any communist government and say "look at how badly they failed".

 

[thx1138]

So a number of years ago, Castro is on his way across Cuba in his chauffeured limousine to an important party meeting. While driving through the country, a hog runs out and the driver, already nervous about having to be careful with Comrade #1 in the car, doesn't react in time and hits and kills the animal. Just around the bend is a small village, to whom the hog belonged.

Furious at the notion of being delayed and even moreso at taking the blame, Castro orders his driver to walk into the village and tell them what he did.

Realizing he'll probably be torn apart by the villagers but definitely shot if he disobeys, the driver dejectedly trudges down into the village, a good half-mile along.

Hours pass. Castro is even more angry. Either the driver is malingering, or the villagers killed him, and either way, someone's going to be punished.

Finally the driver staggers back to the car, a smile on his face, lipstick smears on his cheeks, a bottle of rum in one hand and a box of cigars in the other.

"Comrade driver!" Castro barks. "Did you do as I told you to?"

"Oh, si, si, Comrade Castro!"

"And what did they do?" Fidel demands.

"Well, I told them, and they brought out rum and pineapples and roasted some beef and played music and," he paused here, obviously embarrassed, "two lovely senoritas showed me good comradeship off in the collective barn, and as I was leaving the mayor gave me thees rum and cigars."

Well, now. Old Fidel is more intrigued than angry at this point and says, "Comrade driver...what exactly did you tell them?"

The driver was forthright. "Oh, exactly what happened, Comrade Castro. I said 'I am Fidel Castro's driver, and I killed the pig.'"

 

[John Titor]

So, they're upgrading from Communist to "Communist".

 

[ICametoLurk]

Cuba was never really any kind of Socialist or Communist state. In the Cold War, a lot of national-liberation/patriotic forces in the neo-colonial/colonial world claimed Communism in order to receive support from the USSR/China. In reality, most of these movements were purely nationalist or left-nationalist/social-democratic based movements. Even in countries that did legit attempt to build socialism, these forces existed to a large degree in the ruling communist parties. Deng was a social-nationalist who bonded with the communist party as he saw it as the best vehicle for achieving a strong, nationalist Han-Chinese state (pay no attention to how the Qing Manchurians are a minority in their own lands or how if you pay attention to Maoist groups that are fighting in India, Turkey (no, not the Kurds), and etc they will all say that the PRC is an Imperialist power. I wonder if putting that quote that Mao said about China becoming Fascist after his death would get sites banned). Though to begin with Lenin was a Jacobin revolution-monger and hide his Jacobinic pretensions with Marxist phraseology while he had Marxists slaughtered (Kronstadt rebellion).

Some examples of such movements/states include Bangladesh (still is a "socialist state" in its constitution today), Angola, Khmer-Rouge Cambodia (which dropped the whole Communist thing in the 1980's when the USA supported them out of realpolitik, even Pol Pot saying that Communism wasn't for Cambodia), Laos, Angola, DPRK (dropped Marxist-Leninism from their Constitution when USSR fell), Mozambique, Ethiopia (went about and killing anyone who challenged the leadership and then when the GIB ME DATS stopped they went hiding), Somalia, South Yemen (there is an ongoing campaign to bring it back, but not Communist). India (also a "socialist state" today), Myanmar, etc etc. Mugabe claimed to be a Communist to get trained by the DPRK and when he went to Rhodesia he did nothing besides slaughtering tribes that he disliked and forced the Whites out.

Cuba was also such a state. While there were Communists who fought in the revolution, and who served in the government Fidel, and likely Raul, along with most of the party were just anti-imperialists who saw the Soviet/Chinese sides of the world as more progressive, and generally better for Cuba. Che Guevara had nothing to do with Marx and Engels. They would have regarded him (at best) as a petty bourgeois Blanquist and (at worst) a bureaucratic socialist.

The official story is that Cuba kept secret the fact it was a "socialist state" for a while. This was essentially a cover story, as initially, Fidel was hoping to play a similar strategy to Saddam Hussein or Duterte today - that is, play off both sides of the Cold War to receive the most support/independent in developing. In all likely hood, Fidel would have been more than fine with Cuba remaining a US-puppet state if he had have been allowed to go through with massive social-democratic economic/social reforms. But the US wasn't willing to budge, so Fidel was forced to go over to the Soviet side, and that meant claiming Communism.

After the fall of the USSR, Cuba was backed into a corner with its own mythology. When you've been centering the mythology of your state - of your revolution, around the idea of it being guided by a certain ideology, you can't drop it without dropping your entire mandate to rule as a state. And the US certainly wasn't willing to budge in allowing Cuba some independence, thus the socialism myth remained.

Under Obama, this began to change - Obama signaled that he was willing to allow Cuba to take the Vietnamese path - remain semi-independant, and adopt a capitalist market economic while (albeit with social democratic concessions) with retaining their socialist mythology. Cuba saw this as a way out, and bit. The current ruling regime in the US has reversed this policy, but there is still huge support for a re-integration of Cuba among the US ruling class - so Cuba is continuing down the path that Obama enabled.

In short, none of this should be a surprise to anybody if you have actually been paying attention. Cuba will continue claiming "socialism" for as long as the current state exists (Like the "P"RC or Vietnam, Laos, India, etc), however it will continually liberalize - slowly at first, but then later, much faster. This has been an inevitability since around the 1970's.

 

[millais]

Cuba was never really any kind of Socialist or Communist state. In the Cold War, a lot of national-liberation/patriotic forces in the neo-colonial/colonial world claimed Communism in order to receive support from the USSR/China. In reality, most of these movements were purely nationalist or left-nationalist/social-democratic based movements. Even in countries that did legit attempt to build socialism, these forces existed to a large degree in the ruling communist parties. Deng was a social-nationalist who bonded with the communist party as he saw it as the best vehicle for achieving a strong, nationalist Han-Chinese state (pay no attention to how the Qing Manchurians are a minority in their own lands or how if you pay attention to Maoist groups that are fighting in India, Turkey (no, not the Kurds), and etc they will all say that the PRC is an Imperialist power. I wonder if putting that quote that Mao said about China becoming Fascist after his death would get sites banned). Though to begin with Lenin was a Jacobin revolution-monger and hide his Jacobinic pretensions with Marxist phraseology while he had Marxists slaughtered (Kronstadt rebellion).

Some examples of such movements/states include Bangladesh (still is a "socialist state" in its constitution today), Angola, Khmer-Rouge Cambodia (which dropped the whole Communist thing in the 1980's when the USA supported them out of realpolitik, even Pol Pot saying that Communism wasn't for Cambodia), Laos, Angola, DPRK (dropped Marxist-Leninism from their Constitution when USSR fell), Mozambique, Ethiopia (went about and killing anyone who challenged the leadership and then when the GIB ME DATS stopped they went hiding), Somalia, South Yemen (there is an ongoing campaign to bring it back, but not Communist). India (also a "socialist state" today), Myanmar, etc etc. Mugabe claimed to be a Communist to get trained by the DPRK and when he went to Rhodesia he slaughtered tribes that he disliked and forced the Whites out.

Cuba was also such a state. While there were Communists who fought in the revolution, and who served in the government Fidel, and likely Raul, along with most of the party were just anti-imperialists who saw the Soviet/Chinese sides of the world as more progressive, and generally better for Cuba. Che Guevara had nothing to do with Marx and Engels. They would have regarded him (at best) as a petty bourgeois Blanquist and (at worst) a bureaucratic socialist.

The official story is that Cuba kept secret the fact it was a "socialist state" for a while. This was essentially a cover story, as initially, Fidel was hoping to play a similar strategy to Saddam Hussein or Duterte today - that is, play off both sides of the Cold War to receive the most support/independent in developing. In all likely hood, Fidel would have been more than fine with Cuba remaining a US-puppet state if he had have been allowed to go through with massive social-democratic economic/social reforms. But the US wasn't willing to budge, so Fidel was forced to go over to the Soviet side, and that meant claiming Communism.

After the fall of the USSR, Cuba was backed into a corner with its own mythology. When you've been centering the mythology of your state - of your revolution, around the idea of it being guided by a certain ideology, you can't drop it without dropping your entire mandate to rule as a state. And the US certainly wasn't willing to budge in allowing Cuba some independence, thus the socialism myth remained.

Under Obama, this began to change - Obama signaled that he was willing to allow Cuba to take the Vietnamese path - remain semi-independant, and adopt a capitalist market economic while (albeit with social democratic concessions) with retaining their socialist mythology. Cuba saw this as a way out, and bit. The current ruling regime in the US has reversed this policy, but there is still huge support for a re-integration of Cuba among the US ruling class - so Cuba is continuing down the path that Obama enabled.

In short, none of this should be a surprise to anybody if you have actually been paying attention. Cuba will continue claiming "socialism" for as long as the current state exists (Like the "P"RC or Vietnam, Laos, India, etc), however it will continually liberalize - slowly at first, but then later, much faster. This has been an inevitability since around the 1970's.

Now more than ever, Cuba's back is to the wall. No more Venezuelan oil money to give them a backup safety net in their economic planning.

 

[protomartyr]

America has finally learned that the best way to spread capitalism is to get people hooked on consumer goods.

You can hate Castro all you want but the insanity of the old school neocon hawks does justify alot of what he did.


Also: Far lefties are starting to hate Castro for excluding women and Afro-Caribbeans from top positions.

There is no justification for tyranny. Even if 'muh neocons' was a good excuse it's not like there haven't been more dovish administrations in the US since the revolution.

 

[Slap47]

There is no justification for tyranny. Even if 'muh neocons' was a good excuse it's not like there haven't been more dovish administrations in the US since the revolution.

Relying on the kindness and consistency of the America is a bad policy.

Here is a good example,

In 1909 the Taft government decided that the first fairly elected government of Mexico was too left wing and initiated a coup to install the General Huerta "The Butcher" as President. He succeeded at the cost of thousands of dead in Mexico city. One problem, Taft stopped being President.

The newly elected President Wilson was one of those Democratic idealist types and a good ol southern boy and cut off support to the Huerta regime to pressure him to be more democratic and crack down harder on the "marijuana fiends" flooding into the country.

Huerta relied entirely on the military for support and he was running out of weapons due to a lack of internal recognition (due to the USA) and support (from the USA). Meanwhile, his opponents (many of whom were rich liberals and regional governors) were simply acquiring the weapons illegally from Texas. To put it short, the Mexican Revolution, arguably the bloodiest conflict in the western hemisphere erupted and it's pretty easy to pin the blame on the US having inconsistent policy. Another good example of this is Iraq.

There is no justification for tyranny. Even if 'muh neocons' was a good excuse it's not like there haven't been more dovish administrations in the US since the revolution.

It's a difficult thing to judge. It's obviously bad to murder opponents and imprison people but sometimes the ends justify the means. An entire system based entirely off that idea could find itself tyrannical but Cuba was pretty well off compared to the rest of Latin America during the 20th century.

What evil was Castro protecting his country from? Perhaps Cuba could have been like Guatemala and had decades of constant civil war and genocide over some dumb Banana company shenanigans? Perhaps like Honduras or Mexico where organized criminals have been enabled for so long that their grip over their countries has cemented? How about Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina? Literal genocidal fascists that drove their countries into the gutter and committed far worse atrocities on a larger scale?

Castro's war was one for national sovereignty and he succeeded. Perhaps that saved Cuba from a much worse fate but you can't really know. Just consider the rest of the region.