[Marxism] "Cuba goes capitalist" : From the New Statesman

[Lüko Willms]

Fred Feldman (ffeldman at bellatlantic.net) wrote on 2009-06-07 at 15:06:16 in  
about [Marxism] "Cuba goes capitalist" : 

   From the New Statesman: 

> In 1959 Fidel Castro nationalised Cuban land and property. Since then no
> private homes have been built, sold or bought. 

  This is simply not true, in the way it is posed. 

  Sure that the land has been nationalized, but this is a contradictory 
statement. 

  The revolution, as Fidel Castro once explained, has created a people of 
private property holders. Lots of farmers became for the first time the owners 
of the land they till. 80% of the families are owners of the house or 
apartment they live in. Especially on the countryside, people have built their 
own individual houses. 

  What is not possible, is the speculation with landed property, to sell and 
buy houses, land, or apartments. But people can exchange their place, 
sometimes in a wide ring. But not sell or buy. 

  There is a nice film "Se permuta" (Exchange wanted) made in 1984 by Juan 
Carlos Tabío (<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122700/>). 

> In the meantime, the Carbonera Club has had a few hiccups. 
> Cuba's government would prefer to sell the properties with 
> a 75-year lease, but the west prefers freehold. 

   Well, I see this as a big difference. A long term lease is not the same as 
private property in the capitalist sense. 

   On the other hand, let me point out that the role which the capitalist 
governments play in "rescuing" financial institutions and industrial companies 
indicates the high degree of actual socialiasation of the production and 
distribution, and that the private property turns out to be rather an obstacle 
than a force to solve the problems which humanity has to organise our life 
on this planet, to secure clean and safe drinking water for all human beings, 
to name a simple and basic question, to secure nourishment for us all while 
the richest countries suffer from an excess of agricultural production of what 
can be sold. 

  It is time for the working people to take the reign in our common, collective 
hands to secure the survival of the human race. 


Comradely,  
Lüko Willms
Frankfurt, Germany
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