Public Policies Are Not Socialism
HAVANA TIMES – In all the capitalist countries of Western Europe—Germany, Austria, Italy, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, etc.—people have universal healthcare, public education, pensions, paid vacations, and labor rights that actually work. And none of that is socialism. None of it.
That is well-done capitalism, capitalism that understands that human beings are not disposable and that a serious country doesn’t leave its population abandoned. But we Cubans are so mentally screwed up, marked by decades of communism, that when we hear “public health” or “social assistance” we immediately panic and start the rant of “that’s socialism, the US Democrats are socialists.”
Real socialism is not providing public services; socialism is taking away your private property, turning everything into “state property,” and killing the free market.
If there is private property, if there are private businesses competing, if there is a market, that is NOT socialism—no matter how painful it is for the traumatized. That is capitalism, period. Capitalism with social policies. Exactly what works in half the world and what we Cubans, out of ignorance, still fear as if we lived in a cave.
And that’s where the manipulation comes in. As a people who have lived under 66 years of brainwashing, now any mediocre politician can manipulate us as they wish. They plant the idea that if the State helps the poor, that’s communism and “supporting freeloaders,” and we, like idiots, believe it. And in the end, what do we support? Politicians who only work for the rich while they sell us the childish fairy tale that “if you work hard and become an entrepreneur you can become a millionaire.” Sure, right.
Because the truth is: most rich people were born rich, inherited wealth, inherited the family name, inherited capital.
And those born poor have a very high probability of dying poor no matter how much they break their backs, because the system is built so that those at the top stay at the top.
It’s because we are ignorant that they manipulate us. Because we are ignorant that we confuse capitalism with communism.
Because we are ignorant that we repeat stupidities. Because we are ignorant that we remain a people who don’t understand how the modern world actually works. And because we are ignorant we have ended up with the crappy country we have. What destroyed Cuba wasn’t “European socialism”; it was a system that rips away your private property and controls your entire life. And even so, many Cubans are afraid of anything that smells like social justice, because communism damaged our minds.
The truth is simple: the goal is not to seek socialism. What we have to seek is capitalism with a heart, capitalism with guts, with decency—where people can start businesses, grow, and live, without abandoning those born at the bottom.
A system where there is a market, private property, and competition, but also a State that doesn’t let society rot in inequality. That is what works. That is what exists in the countries that actually move forward.
Not the shitty caricature of a “minimal state” and the cheap libertarianism that some people spread. I’m sick of these stupid Cubans.