What’s the Right-Wing Beef With Cuban Socialism?

Right-wing American statists are celebrating with great glee the U.S. government’s economic strangulation of the Cuban people through its embargo and oil siege because right-wingers say they’re opposed to socialism, which has long been the economic system of Cuba’s communist regime.

What these right-wing statists and interventionists fail to recognize, however, is that they, like most Americans, fully embrace the socialist principles that undergird Cuba’s socialist economic system. They fail to recognize that communist Cuba has simply carried the socialist principles that underlie American socialism to their logical conclusions.

Let’s examine some notable examples. CUBA COMPREHENSIVE TRA... BARNEY, DAVID Check Amazon for Pricing.

1. Social Security. Like U.S. officials and the American people, including America’s right-wingers, Cubans are fiercely in favor of having the government take care of the elderly with some sort of retirement pension.

One of the big differences is that Cubans fully understand that this is socialism, while Americans have convinced themselves that their socialist retirement system is really not socialism but rather a “retirement fund” or a “trust fund” by which they are simply getting their money back.

In other words, when it comes to socialism, Cubans have a grip on reality, while Americans choose to engage in self-delusion. Social Security is nothing more than a classic socialist program. After all, they don’t call it “Social” Security for nothing. The program is based on the standard Marxian principle “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” In other words, the government forcibly takes money from those to whom it belongs and gives it to those to whom it does not belong. It’s a classic case of political stealing and socialist redistribution of wealth.

2. Medicare and Medicaid. This is another socialist program to which both Cubans and Americans, including right-wingers, are fiercely devoted. With these socialist programs, the government provides free or highly subsidized healthcare to the citizenry.

A big difference is that the U.S. government provides such healthcare only to the elderly and the poor. Cuba provides it to everyone. That’s what I meant by Cuba simply carrying socialist principles to their logical conclusions. As we all know, there is a large sector of American society, principally left-wingers, who want to go the full Cuban route by providing “Medicare for all” — that is, by replacing America’s partial socialist healthcare system with a full-fledged socialist healthcare system, just like in Cuba.

It’s worth pointing out that notwithstanding their ostensible opposition to socialism, American right-wingers are as fierce supporters of Medicare and Medicaid as left-wingers. Oh, sure, they want to repeal Obamacare, which was enacted to address the deep healthcare crisis brought on by Medicare and Medicaid, and, yes, right-wingers want reforms, such as health-savings accounts, which they call “free-market” reforms, but make no mistake about it: The very thought of immediately repealing Medicare and Medicaid themselves and separating healthcare and the state sends shivers of fear down the spine of every single American right-winger.

3. Public (i.e., government) schooling. Both Cubans and Americans, right-wing and left-wing, are fiercely devoted to this socialist program. It would be difficult to find a better example of a socialist program than public schooling. The government plans, in a top-down, command-and control manner, the educational decisions of hundreds or thousands of children. Textbooks are selected by the government. Teachers and administrators are government employees. Attendance is through coercion. Financial support is also coerced, through taxation.

The purpose of public schooling in both nations is indoctrination, which both regimes call “education.” Children are taught the government’s version of things. For example, American children are taught that the CIA’s invasion of Cuba, its assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, and its deadly acts of terrorism were good, “pro-freedom” actions. Cuban children, are taught that all of those U.S. programs were evil and immoral.

Both Cuban children and American children are inculcated with the notion that they live in a free country. Public schooling is characterized by regimentation, deference to authority, blind obedience to orders, false patriotism, and unwavering and patriotic support of whatever the national-security establishment in each country says or does. In both nations, public schooling is essentially “Army-lite.”

4. A central bank, with a government provided paper-money system. Both the Cuban government and the American government, with the full support of their citizenry, favor monetary central planning, a core principle of the socialist philosophy. The thought of a monetary system based on free-market principles is anathema to both regimes. DK Cuba (Travel Guide) DK Travel Check Amazon for Pricing.

5. A government-managed, government-regulated economy. Sure, everyone knows that the Cuban government manages and regulates its economy much more than the U.S. government manages and regulates its economy. But the point is that they both believe in this socialist principle. Again, the Cuban regime has simply carried this socialist principle to its logical conclusion, one that entails having the government owning and controlling all aspects of economic affairs. One of the best examples of U.S. government control over the economic activities of the American people is the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba, which prohibits Americans from freely trading with Cubans or traveling to Cuba and spending their own money there.

6. Immigration controls. Both regimes favor a system of border controls, which is based on the socialist principle of central planning. It’s that socialist principle, of course, that has brought perpetual chaos to the U.S.-Mexico border. Here in the United States, this socialist system is fully supported by both left-wingers and right-wingers, especially right-wingers. The enforcement of this socialist system has produced a vicious and tyrannical police state that is now expanding from the borderlands to the entire nation. Ironically, the immigration police state is converting America into an ugly nation that fewer people want to come to, like with Cuba and its police state.

7. Drug laws. Both the Cuban and U.S. regimes are fierce advocates of drug laws, a socialist program in which government ostensibly takes care of people by punishing them for ingesting harmful or unhealthy substances. As everyone in both nations can easily see, drug laws in both nations are actually nothing more than a harsh, deadly, destructive, and tyrannical means of controlling people’s lives.

Right-wingers who are celebrating the suffering that the U.S. government is intentionally, knowingly, and deliberately inflicting on the Cuban people by pointing an accusatory finger at Cuban socialism need to remember something important — that they have three more fingers pointing back at themselves.

Reprinted with permission from Future of Freedom Foundation.

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