"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
"Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye' while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye."
Cuba sounds a little like East Germany except the latter wasn't as isolated or sanctioned and had a significant police surveillance state apparatus (far beyond even the capabilities of ww2 Germany)
Look how Germany has changed from 1989 to today. The past decade their "democratic" experience has been pretty sad especially as so called free markets became hugely influenced by Geo politics and vested interests. 500 skilled German workers losing their jobs per day according to Govt officially admitted figures.
Now the leaders want to turn the European car factories into bomb factories to escalate current crisis and push for full scale war.
You are correct to note that Cuba's latest reforms amount to an implicit admission that extensive central planning has failed. However, the deeper lesson is that modern civilization rests on institutions that were never consciously designed.
The economic and social order of the West emerged through a long process of cultural evolution. Property, contract, commerce, freedom under law, and the moral restraints that make peaceful cooperation possible were not invented by planners. They arose spontaneously through the selection of practices that enabled some societies to prosper and grow. As Friedrich Hayek argued, this "extended order" exceeds the understanding of any individual mind.
This helps explain socialism's appeal to intellectuals. Intelligent people naturally place great faith in reason and design, leading them to believe that society can be rationally reconstructed. Yet much of the knowledge sustaining civilization is embedded in traditions and evolved practices whose functions are imperfectly understood.
Furthermore, I disagree that the West is only now "sliding toward collectivism." That trend has been underway since the nineteenth century, driven by the growing influence of rationalist and socialist ideas among educated elites. Nor is the current reaction best described as fascism. Much of it is better understood as tribalism for being a response to the social tensions and cultural fragmentation associated with mass immigration and multiculturalism, who underestimated the importance of shared cultural traditions, collective identity and, saliently, genetic heritage.
Thus, that hope that Cuba will now be transformed into a bastion of freedom and free market capitalism by riding the wave of capital and enterpreneurship of the returning Cuban exiles is undoubtedly a pipe dream. The only way Cuba turns intself into a developed and wealthy country is if it manages to attract folk of European stock or, alternatively, Eastern Asians, who are the only ones capable and compatible with First World status. Just look at the Emirates, Qatar or even Saudi Arabia to find out how they did it.
Excellent points. I'm not sure about the last paragraph. And it's hard to believe that 3 generations of socialism--basically multigenerational dependency and oppression--will evaporate in any short period of time. More likely, the ones who are able to take advantage of the loss of human function caused by decades of socialism will end up thriving and may end up more like an oligarchy, as in Russia. Particularly if those people who thrive also have low moral caliber, and take over government and use its coercive power to extract more wealth. Cuba's chance for success rests greatly on making government have very little power. Else it may just end up with a different sort of oppressive regime. But socialism or death doesn't seem like a line that will lead rapidly to libertarian paradise.
Good piece, thank you! I saw the whole thing and its effect on Miami, the sleepy Southern town I grew up in. Cubans are very enterprising folks -- and it shows in modern Miami.
Dr. Dave Janda also shares some excellent incites on these issues. The Corporatists and The Central Bankers are key to these developments. Authoritarianism works for them.
Knowledge is hidden/twisted/disguised. We are indoctrinated from birth.
It does not seem that intelligence alone (at least as the word is commonly understood) is sufficient to unlock understanding, and therefore it is probably incorrect to ascribe a lack of understanding to stupidity.
A willingness to trust, and believe the best of, others are not bad traits I think. In fact they are probably essential to a healthy society. It is rather indicative of how evil are those willing to abuse that trust, and an unfortunate paradox that precisely the traits which are necessary for civilization are also those which permit its destruction.
Doug Casey defines stupidity as "an unwitting tendency to self-destruction." Using that definition, I think we can ascribe a lack of understanding to "stupidity." Of course there are other definitions for the term. Unsurprisingly, I find myself inclined to defining stupidity as Doug does.
Nit picking to some extent because I am sure we agree on a great deal :-) - but I disagree that this is self destruction.
We are being destroyed by an enemy who has employed an enormously clever, long term, subtle, multi-faceted strategy (of which socialism is but one facet) which is difficult to detect and understand.
Capitalism is a word which means different things to different people. It was popularized/hijacked by Marx (first used by French revolutionaries) precisely in order to confuse the right to own capital (a good thing and essential to freedom) with a system of regulatory monopoly which forced people off their land into industrial slavery for the benefit of those who wrote the regulations.
Surely better to say that the cure for socialism is freedom? Or if you must use the word capitalism, please at least add the adjective "free market".
Otherwise you are playing right into Marx's corruption of language trap - and many people, indoctrinated from birth, cannot hear anything else you say once they hear "capitalism good".
Corruption isn't just a far left problem!
Let's look at transport in Europe:
High Speed Rail
Spain £13 million/km
Germany £19 million/km
Much smaller UK?
HS2 to save 10 minutes from Birmingham to London
£275 million/km !
https://chriscollins756.substack.com/p/how-corruption-became-legal-in-britain
"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
"Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye' while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye."
Matthew 7:3-5
Cuba sounds a little like East Germany except the latter wasn't as isolated or sanctioned and had a significant police surveillance state apparatus (far beyond even the capabilities of ww2 Germany)
Look how Germany has changed from 1989 to today. The past decade their "democratic" experience has been pretty sad especially as so called free markets became hugely influenced by Geo politics and vested interests. 500 skilled German workers losing their jobs per day according to Govt officially admitted figures.
Now the leaders want to turn the European car factories into bomb factories to escalate current crisis and push for full scale war.
So why are half the people in the West supporting Socialism??
Makes your head really Hurt !
You are correct to note that Cuba's latest reforms amount to an implicit admission that extensive central planning has failed. However, the deeper lesson is that modern civilization rests on institutions that were never consciously designed.
The economic and social order of the West emerged through a long process of cultural evolution. Property, contract, commerce, freedom under law, and the moral restraints that make peaceful cooperation possible were not invented by planners. They arose spontaneously through the selection of practices that enabled some societies to prosper and grow. As Friedrich Hayek argued, this "extended order" exceeds the understanding of any individual mind.
This helps explain socialism's appeal to intellectuals. Intelligent people naturally place great faith in reason and design, leading them to believe that society can be rationally reconstructed. Yet much of the knowledge sustaining civilization is embedded in traditions and evolved practices whose functions are imperfectly understood.
Furthermore, I disagree that the West is only now "sliding toward collectivism." That trend has been underway since the nineteenth century, driven by the growing influence of rationalist and socialist ideas among educated elites. Nor is the current reaction best described as fascism. Much of it is better understood as tribalism for being a response to the social tensions and cultural fragmentation associated with mass immigration and multiculturalism, who underestimated the importance of shared cultural traditions, collective identity and, saliently, genetic heritage.
Thus, that hope that Cuba will now be transformed into a bastion of freedom and free market capitalism by riding the wave of capital and enterpreneurship of the returning Cuban exiles is undoubtedly a pipe dream. The only way Cuba turns intself into a developed and wealthy country is if it manages to attract folk of European stock or, alternatively, Eastern Asians, who are the only ones capable and compatible with First World status. Just look at the Emirates, Qatar or even Saudi Arabia to find out how they did it.
Excellent points. I'm not sure about the last paragraph. And it's hard to believe that 3 generations of socialism--basically multigenerational dependency and oppression--will evaporate in any short period of time. More likely, the ones who are able to take advantage of the loss of human function caused by decades of socialism will end up thriving and may end up more like an oligarchy, as in Russia. Particularly if those people who thrive also have low moral caliber, and take over government and use its coercive power to extract more wealth. Cuba's chance for success rests greatly on making government have very little power. Else it may just end up with a different sort of oppressive regime. But socialism or death doesn't seem like a line that will lead rapidly to libertarian paradise.
Good piece, thank you! I saw the whole thing and its effect on Miami, the sleepy Southern town I grew up in. Cubans are very enterprising folks -- and it shows in modern Miami.
Well said Dr. Hunt.
God Bless
Dr. Dave Janda also shares some excellent incites on these issues. The Corporatists and The Central Bankers are key to these developments. Authoritarianism works for them.
Well written. Thank you.
Those who believe in socialism are either ignorant or evil.
Ignorance is a deliberately engineered state by those who designed and implemented socialism, knowing exactly what it was and what it would achieve.
or a synergistic combination of deliberate planning by sociopaths and stupidity from the sheep and puppets?
Knowledge is hidden/twisted/disguised. We are indoctrinated from birth.
It does not seem that intelligence alone (at least as the word is commonly understood) is sufficient to unlock understanding, and therefore it is probably incorrect to ascribe a lack of understanding to stupidity.
A willingness to trust, and believe the best of, others are not bad traits I think. In fact they are probably essential to a healthy society. It is rather indicative of how evil are those willing to abuse that trust, and an unfortunate paradox that precisely the traits which are necessary for civilization are also those which permit its destruction.
No argument on sociopaths and puppets.
Doug Casey defines stupidity as "an unwitting tendency to self-destruction." Using that definition, I think we can ascribe a lack of understanding to "stupidity." Of course there are other definitions for the term. Unsurprisingly, I find myself inclined to defining stupidity as Doug does.
Nit picking to some extent because I am sure we agree on a great deal :-) - but I disagree that this is self destruction.
We are being destroyed by an enemy who has employed an enormously clever, long term, subtle, multi-faceted strategy (of which socialism is but one facet) which is difficult to detect and understand.
Capitalism is a word which means different things to different people. It was popularized/hijacked by Marx (first used by French revolutionaries) precisely in order to confuse the right to own capital (a good thing and essential to freedom) with a system of regulatory monopoly which forced people off their land into industrial slavery for the benefit of those who wrote the regulations.
Surely better to say that the cure for socialism is freedom? Or if you must use the word capitalism, please at least add the adjective "free market".
Otherwise you are playing right into Marx's corruption of language trap - and many people, indoctrinated from birth, cannot hear anything else you say once they hear "capitalism good".
excellent point. Free market capitalism is very different than crony capitalism. I should be exquisitely careful. Thank you.
Cuba ran out of other people's money.
It's a drug, and they will go through withdrawal.
100%.....
Jim Marshall