Yes, Socialism Has Worked and is Still Working
During a global pandemic, 63% of Americans lived paycheck to paycheck while corporations paid zero in taxes and billionaire’s added $8 trillion to their net worth. The rich continued to live opulently as ordinary Americans continued to feel the pain of our capitalist system. Many of our society’s ills are due to the wealth disparity between the upper class and the masses. This profound inequality of wealth has resulted in an upper class that controls the political system to secure its own interests at the expense of the people. Americans are tired of our system and are in desperate need of an alternative. However, many Americans can’t imagine a better alternative to capitalism. The clear alternative would be to work towards socialism, which responds to human needs better than capitalism, but this doesn’t appeal to many Americans. When the word socialism is brought up, people usually have no clue what it means or are scared, despite having little to no understanding of it. While focusing on Cuba, I’m going to present historical and contemporary examples to show the success of socialism.
A rough definition of socialism would mean the abolishment of private ownership over the means of production (MoP), which is thus replaced by societal ownership over the MoP. The MoP are material resources such as factories, farms, and mines, which are used for producing goods. In practice, a revolution takes place in which the masses expropriates the capitalists, turn the MoP into social property, and seize state power for themselves. Social property may take the form of enterprises owned by a workers’ state, collective farms, and cooperative unions. As a result of having a society that is run by and for the working class, the products of labor also belong to the workers.
What does this look like in Cuba? Around 72 percent of Cubans are employed in state-owned businesses, 23 percent are privately employed (farmers and self-employed citizens), and 5 percent work in cooperatives. While there is a noticeable amount of private employment, this is primarily due to Cuba’s tourism industry, its way of dealing with loss of income due to the US embargo and the dissolution of the USSR, its main trading partner. Nevertheless, the rest of Cuba’s businesses are socially owned. Because of this, Cubans reap the benefit of their labor. Cubans are given free education on all levels, universal healthcare, housing without having to pay mortgage or property taxes, etc. Furthermore, Cubans have a say in how the workplace and society is run through the presence of mass organizations. Organizations such as the Cuban Women’s Federation (FMC), Cuban Workers Federation (CTC) and the Association of Small Farmers (ANAP) all have the right to initiate and be consulted on new legislation. These organizations give Cubans the ability to negotiate for new legislation through organized meetings to dictate mass policy. Mass organizations also participate in Popular Councils, which have the duty of reaching out to people to identify problems in their community and solve them.
Before I go into how Cuba is currently performing, I want to first show the conditions Cubans lived under before the revolution which overthrew the US-backed Batista regime. The study I cited to show Cuba’s levels of socioeconomic development during the 20th century, Has Socialism Failed? by Vicente Navarro, has a lot more data on Cuba which I omitted to preserve the brevity of the article. The document also covers the performance of socialist countries in Eastern Europe, Asia, and more.
To truly appreciate Cuba’s remarkable achievements, the horrid conditions Cubans lived under during the pre-revolutionary era must be highlighted. In 1955 Cuba had similar or worse levels of economic and social development compared to other capitalist Latin American countries of similar demographic distribution. Cuba’s life expectancy was 59.5 years, shorter than Paraguay (62), Argentina (62), and Uruguay (66), the countries with the highest life expectancies in Latin America. During that same year, Cuba had an infant mortality rate of 81 deaths per 1,000 live births, higher than Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina, the countries with lowest infant mortality. Furthermore, in the 1950s, Cuba had dreadful living conditions. Only 35 percent of the population lived in homes connected to water supply systems. This same figure was 63 percent for the Dominican Republic, 80 percent in Honduras, and 44 percent in Argentina.
These conditions can be attributed to Cuba’s inability to self-determine due to American imperialism. Four years after the Spanish-American war, Cuba gained its independence, but was really a protectorate of the US. This status was formalized through the Platt Amendment to Cuba’s constitution, which allowed the US to intervene in Cuba at will and prevented Cuba from making treaties with countries other than the US. As an American protectorate, Cuba was plagued by untrammeled foreign investment and the tourist industry. In 1956, American investors owned 50 percent of public service railways, 90 percent of telephone and electric services, 40 percent of raw sugar production, and 90 percent of the mines in Cuba. Additionally, 7 of the 10 largest latifundias (large land estates) were owned by American interests. It would be appropriate to say that Cuba was mostly owned by anyone but Cubans. Tourism was also a rampant problem for Cubans. Despite it being a boon to the Cuban economy, it brought corruption, the mob, and prositution. As an example, prominent mobsters in the US such as Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky relocated to Cuba to escape US law enforcement. A strong connection between the mob and the Cuban government grew to the point where Batista’s government financed the construction of mob-owned hotels, while ignoring the vast amount of poverty in the country. From the American government to the mob, Cuba was stripped of it’s right to determine its own destiny from the outside.
These deplorable conditions were rectified after a successful revolution led by Fidel Castro. Following the overthrow of the Batista regime, Fidel Castro initiated an expropriation program which stripped American investors of their property and turned it over to the public sector. Consequently, national health, education, and employment campaigns were undertaken by the new government. The results? Cuba’s life expectancy rose to 75 years in 1985, the highest in Latin America. By 1985, Cuba’s infant mortality rate was 13/1000 live births, the lowest in Latin America. By 1980, 74 percent of the population lived in homes connected to water supply systems, and 91 percent of the population had access to flush toilets. The commitment of Cuba to the well being of its people is shown in its constitution which gives Cubans the right to employment, healthcare, shelter, and more. Cuba ranking at the top of various quality of life indicators when compared to other Latin American countries is especially impressive considering that it achieved these feats in less than three decades.
But what about now, what does Cuba look like today?
By all means, Cuba is still considered a poor country. It has ⅛ the GDP per capita as the United States and many Cubans supplement their income by working a second job outside the public sector. Food is scarce, as Cubans have to go through a rationing system to obtain food. Despite the guarantee of housing, shanty towns still persist. Cuba also faced economic hardship after the dissolution of the USSR and the fall of socialism in Eastern Europe, which constituted 85 percent of Cuba’s exports and imports. This is coupled with a genocidal embargo the US has on Cuba — that 184 countries have voted in favor of its abolition — which has become more vicious as time has gone on. The embargo prohibits American companies from trading with Cuba, but also effectively prevents non-American companies from trading, since ships from other countries are not allowed to dock at US ports for 6 months after visiting Cuba. Consequently, Cuba has limited access to food and high quality medicine, among other valuable goods. The US embargo was undertaken in the name of “advancing democracy” even though Cuba is far more democratic than the US.
Through it all, Cuba has been able to pull through with many advances that are worthy of praise. Cuba’s achievements in public health are especially noteworthy. First, Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than the US and a life expectancy at birth that is on par with the US. Furthermore, Cuba has produced the Abdala COVID-19 vaccine which has a 92.28 percent efficacy rate. When considering factors such as poverty, food scarcity, and less advanced medical technology compared to more developed nations, these stats are truly remarkable. Outside of public health, Cuba is a leader when it comes to building environmentally conscious societies. Given that Cuba is a victim of long-lasting droughts and vulnerable to hurricanes, it is easy to see why Cuba prioritizes ecological sustainability. One way Cuba does so is through the use of biodigesters, which use organic matter such as cattle manure and human feces to create renewable energy. Use of biodigesters is part of Cuba’s plan for renewable energies to provide 24 percent of electric power by 2030.
Overall, I hope showing a small bit of Cuba’s success as a socialist country in spite of everything it’s gone through has warmed you up to the possibility of a socialist future for the United States. When considering Cuba’s circumstances and the US’ immense amount of wealth and resources, there is no reason why the working people of the US cannot establish a society in which everyone has the necessities to realize their full potential. Everything is there for this type of society to be built, but the will of the American working class must be developed in order for this to happen.
