I heard someone refer to Cuba as state capitalist.

When I hear the same thing said about China or the old USSR, I can usually tell when ‘state capitalism’ is being used in good faith or not.

But with Cuba, I don’t know enough.

My instinct, based on little knowledge, is that Cuba is not ‘state capitalist’.

Is it?

What kind of economy does Cuba have?

  • Muad'DibberA
    10•1 year ago

    My favorite Lenin quote on this:

    The state capitalism, which is one of the principal aspects of the New Economic Policy, is, under Soviet power, a form of capitalism that is deliberately permitted and restricted by the working class. Our state capitalism differs essentially from the state capitalism in countries that have bourgeois governments in that the state with us is represented not by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat, who has succeeded in winning the full confidence of the peasantry.

    • @redteaOP
      5•1 year ago

      It’s a good quote.

      And it highlights one of the problems. When you’re talking with a comrade, and they use the term in this way, you know you can dig in and figure out, e.g. how the working class exercises it’s power.

      But most of the time, you hear it in the way you describe in your post above, and know to disregard almost everything else the person says on the matter.

      I don’t know enough about Cuba to be able to know the way that it was described as state capitalist – i.e. in the pejorative or as a description of the way the state controls markets, etc.

      My first thought was that as Cuba is cut off from most of the world due to embargos, it’s state doesn’t really control markets so much as it controls distribution and production. I had heard, too, that it’s main currency doesn’t work in the same way as ‘normal’ currencies; and that it recently needed to develop a second currency to ‘do capitalism’ in more of an old fashioned way.

      But then, there must be something I’m missing, as it must participate somehow in foreign exchange, otherwise how do tourists, etc, spend money there?

      • Muad'DibberA
        5•1 year ago

        The US embargo does really harm Cuba, but its not completely cut off from the world; they still export a lot of tobacco, sugar, and nickel . China, spain, venezuela, and russia are their main trade partners.

        They had to diversify their economy during the “special period”, a time of economic hardship when the USSR fell and they had to find new industries besides sugar, and new trade partners. But they came through it, and still have the highest standard of living in the Caribbean and most of Latin America.

        I’m not up to date on the currency stuff, but the US uses its dollar hegemony to wreak havoc on a ton of economies, and have a lot of time-tested currency manipulation strategies they employ against their enemies, especially against VZ rn.