According to the Socialist Party USA website, “In socialism, full employment is realized for everyone who wants to work,” because, “In a socialist system the people own and control the means of production and distribution through democratically controlled public agencies, cooperatives, or other collective groups. The primary goal of economic activity is to provide the necessities of life, including food, shelter, health care, education, child care, cultural opportunities, and social services.”
Now it turns out that Cuba is facing a severe budget deficit and may have to trim its “bloated work force,” according to the Associated Press, even though the official unemployment rate is only 1.7 percent. That has some on the island socialist utopia upset because as the AP’s Anne-Marie Garcia reports, “guaranteed employment was a building block of the 1959 revolution that swept Fidel Castro to power.” A half century later, Castro’s brother Raul is hinting that one in five Cuban workers aren’t needed. In fact, he says some of his analysts, “calculate that the excess of jobs has surpassed 1 million.”
Wait a minute, there’s no way to calculate in a socialist economy. Castro and his planners can’t calculate the optimal deployment of the factors of production, including labor. It’s impossible to adjust these factors moment to moment as conditions change. The number of redundant workers could be one million or five million. Who knows? As Ludwig von Mises pointed out in Economic Calculation In The Socialist Commonwealth, the folks like those over at Socialist Party USA,
have consistently neglected to apply to
the economics of the disputed socialist state the same caustic acumen, which they
have revealed elsewhere, not always with success. Economics, as such, figures
all too sparsely in the glamorous pictures painted by the Utopians. They
invariably explain how, in the cloud-cuckoo lands of their fancy, roast pigeons
will in some way fly into the mouths of the comrades, but they omit to show how
this miracle is to take place.
The AP reports that Cuba’s workforce totals just over five million and 95 percent are on the government payroll. But for the most part, Cuba’s employed are not exactly busting their humps. Cubans joke, “the state pretends to pay us, and we pretend to work.” However, this kind of attitude is no joke to the younger Castro. “Without people feeling the need to work to make a living, sheltered by state regulations that are excessively paternalistic and irrational, we will never stimulate a love for work.” Sounds like Fidel’s little brother is on to something.
“All socialist systems, including that of Karl Marx, and his orthodox supporters,
proceed from the assumption that in a socialist society a conflict between the
interests of the particular and general could not possibly arise,” Mises wrote. “Everybody will act
in his own interest in giving of his best because he participates in the product of
all economic activity. The obvious objection that the individual is very little
concerned whether he himself is diligent and enthusiastic, and that it is of greater
moment to him that everybody else should be, is either completely ignored or is
insufficiently dealt with by them.”
The head of the labor union that represents 60 percent of Cuba’s government workers claims no one will be fired but instead will be re-assigned. Maybe a few more are needed at the government cafeteria where the AP’s Garcia reports that the staff mostly ignores customers. “Three waiters sit at the counter cracking jokes. A fourth is the only one working, making coffee for three tables. Nearby, a cashier stares into space, a cook flirts with a scantily clad teen and a supervisor sits idly by.”
So how does Cuban government fire its employees? Does George Clooney fly in to give you the bad news face-to-face? “I was saved, there are a ton of drivers on the list, but not me,” Cuban Huffington Post blogger Yoani Sanchez overheard a cab driver tell someone on his cell phone. If your name appears on a layoff list, you’re done.
As warm and fuzzy as its proponents make socialism sound, you’d think they would find a kinder, gentler way of giving people the bad news. Private employers operating in dog-eat-dog capitalism can people with much more compassion.
{ 29 comments }
How strange that the scenario sounds exactly like that described in Richter’s Pictures of a Socialistic Future, written 130 years ago.
The logical solution is overlooked here: Just execute those whose output is lower than their consumption. Why should the entire engine of society be dragged down to maintain a few worthless bags of organs?
Twilight Zone thought of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJyqlxoLuvo
Interesting!
Great episode! Rod Serling was ardently anti-communist!
Violates the holiest of holy concepts: Equality. Your actual contribution to the body politic must be ignored at all costs. That’s why large-scale war is so nifty in the minds of our elites. Thin the herd – and maybe make some money while you are at it. It even has the benefit of sometimes eliminating some of the best and bravest in any society – a wonderfully delightful outcome to those Haters of Mankind. Afterall, if you hate humanity, you must have a special passion against its most magnificent members.
Equality is a sacred tenant! After all, it is much easier to provide sustenance for a homogeneous mass than it is to provide individuals with their vastly varying wants and needs. Those who cannot conform to the plan must be exterminated, lest the whole world stop what it’s doing to cater to their petty desires.
This is a somewhat radical point of view any non-sociopathic person would have difficulties to agree with.
Yet it regularly happened in the Soviet Union, happens in China, happens in North Korea, Malaysia, and pretty much any nation that has ever gone down the total state ownership road. It’s not about being sociopathic (though it is interesting that both sociopath and “compassionate” socialism both have the same root word), it’s the sad reality of attempting to live under a socialist or communist system. Those that refuse to labor for the state are “euthenized”.
Reassigned!!!???
In socialism the news and justice system are also run by the central planners and so little is said about the reassignment. What forced labor camp or what gravesite the uncooperative are reassigned to are never made known.
more hookers today in cuba than under fulgencio batista. ¡viva la revolución!
fabian, george bernard shaw was right, the unproductive should be made to “justify their existence”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93eir00rOho&feature=related
I was unaware that “cultural opportunities” were part of the necessities of life.
Yep, that’s pretty much what we’ll have to do. But of course we will pretend that it isn’t our fault, and call the mass executions by some other name. Like, “The Great Famine”, “Mass Re-education”, “Patriotic War”, “Great Leap Forward”, or something like that. Use your imagination.
Signed,
Stalin
Hitler
Mao
Pol Pot
and Friends
What is the purpose of hiding our intentions behind veils of lies? The exterminated did not deserve to live, and greater things will be accomplished due to their absence. Perhaps those who were spared will choose more wisely next time.
That’s why large-scale war is so nifty in the minds of our elites. Thin the herd – and maybe make some money while you are at it. It even has the benefit of sometimes eliminating some of the best and bravest in any society – a wonderfully delightful outcome to those Haters of Mankind. Afterall, if you hate humanity, you must have a sp
FYI, user “Jack” is obviously a spambot – check all latest comments under recent blog articles.
A very bad one, at that. What’s the point of copy/pasting other people’s comments?
I guess every spambot has to begin with small steps
.
You’d think people would be happy when a centrally planned economy like Cuba starts obeying market forces.
Now if only America would open its doors to those newly unemployed Cubans, we could really occupy the moral high ground.
Re: Michael,
One does not choose to “obey” the laws of economics in very much the same way one does not choose to “obey” the laws of nature – one cannot simply break these laws. The centrally-planned misery the Cubans live under is proof of this basic truth.
Well, the “obeying” can be deferred. Fidel enjoyed his billions and the old gangsters’ mansions and his victims did an extra load of “obeying”.
It’s a shame the old gangsters and their idiotic and evil Embargo put all of this into the realm of “theory”, leaving this troll to take from it all what is his wont.
“One does not choose to “obey” the laws of economics in very much the same way one does not choose to “obey” the laws of nature – one cannot simply break these laws.”
Sure you can. Richard Nixon was famous for breaking them. But when one makes an end run around market forces, new problems often crop up to plague the outcome. This is certainly an observation you would agree with.
Consider it an intelligence test. The leader of a socialist country keeps his public happy through massive employment in government jobs. Then the budget goes bust, leading him to have to choose between ruinous rates of inflation or widespread unemployment. What does he do?
Experience would lead the wiser ones to lay off some of the help, and try to balance the budget. It’s the lesser evil.
As as socialist, how would you know anything about moral high ground?
Mr. Alinsky,
It’s about taking it, not earning it. You know that.
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America would open its doors to those newly unemployed Cubans, Has not confined in the economic model of the previous states now, many of the economic development of the problem cannot be solved, if not the good development mode change will be more serious problems.
I like your quote from the statement of principals. You are smart to ignore the fact that the Socialist Party USA does not consider Cuba a socialist state. Not telling the whole truth usually makes your arguments more sound. Way to act like a true upper-classmen.
Sam, I can’t speak for Mr. French, but I’m well aware that there has never been a socialist or communist government in the world. Cuba (like its ex-sugar daddy was) is a *fascist* country. The world is only made up of libertarians, fascists and children.
Good luck to ya buddy when you take over Wisconsin, the Commies are always the first ones they line up on the wall.
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