Cuba Legalizes Purchase, Sale Of Private Property
Cuba announced Thursday it is allowing the purchase and sale of real estate for the first time since the early days of the revolution, the most important reform yet in a series of free-market changes ushered in by President Raul Castro.
…Castro has also allowed citizens to go into business for themselves in a number of approved jobs — everything from party clowns to food vendors to accountants — and has pledged to streamline the state-dominated economy by eliminating half a million government workers.
…Since no property market was allowed, the rules have meant that for decades Cubans could only exchange property through complicated barter arrangements, or through even murkier black-market deals.
*Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism, p. 87.
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Party clowns had been outlawed?
No. You just had to requisition a party clown through the Party. That way you get a Genuine Communist Party clown.
When your kid is born, the state might have a clown ready for his 10th birthday party.
Sorry, I was referring to Party clowns, not party clowns.
I fail to see the distinction.
ROFL
Way to go, Castro. From the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
“Article 17.
(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.”
What’s next? Freedom of movement and residence? Freedom to travel?
Of course the U.N. doesn’t define what “own” means. Ownership is only meaningful if you can use your property in whatever way you want, and sell it to anyone you want. But nearly every country has laws which prevent you from using your property as you see fit, even if those uses do not infringe on anyone else’s property. A lot of countries do not allow you to sell your property to other people, especially if they are foreigners.
They also don’t define “arbitrarily”. As any communist, socialist, democrat or socialist-democrat will tell you, the government is the people (and vice-versa), and whatever the people say (via the government) must therefore automatically be correct, and not “arbitrary”.
So every government already deprives people of their property, through regulation, restrictions on sale, and confiscation through taxation, expropriation and other “legal” means.
Nevertheless I am very glad that Cuba seems to be moving toward a lessening of the degree of confiscation of citizens’ property. It is one of the very, very few progressive, enlightened steps that any government anywhere in the world has taken since 1989.
Well private property is the only way that man will be motivated to do something. Lets look at any country such as Thailand, much of the capital generated comes condo or house sales. The money generated by the PRIVATE real estate market will do cuba some good. Lets hope it expands further into other sectors of the economy.
Ironic that Cuba is lightening up while this country races to the bottom of the Communist pit.
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