My 44 oranges and why socialism does not work

Dear John Goodrich I decided to answer this call

“I’d like those who think that socialism can’t work to explain that to me.”
and will focus specifically on this statement you made
“The fact is that there is enough of everything in the world for every human being to be afforded a decent and fulfilling life. The ONLY reason billions are denied that decent life is that we use capitalism as the means of distribution and not human need.”

I was trying to follow your logic about equal distribution to see how that will work now.For example I went to FAO web site

http://faostat.fao.org/site/567/DesktopDefault.aspx?PageID=567#ancor

to get the total number of oranges produced let us say for example in 2009. The number of tons of oranges produced in that year for the whole world was about 67601635 tons. Now assuming and average weight of 200 gram per orange there should be about 4535.92 oranges in a ton. So that makes the total of oranges produced in the whole world in 2009 to be about 3.06636*10^11. Hope you can understand scientific notation. Anyways, if we divide that number by the number of inhabitant on earth right now (presumably more that were in 2009) then we arrive to the quantity of 44.4332 oranges per person on earth.
So far so good. But here is the problem I have with your theory of equal distribution and socialism being better than capitalism. I choose oranges on purpose because is a crop that cuba produces.Unlike you I lived in Cuba for 26 years and I have practical knowledge about what is to live in Cuba and I can tell you that I never ate 44 oranges in any single year. not even 10 oranges a year in fact maybe some years I did not eat any. Because the Cuban regime exported all of them and when we were able to get a hold of some oranges usually they will be in very bad condition probably something they will not be able to sell to any other country because their people will never purchased such substandard and low quality product.
So is this the socialism you are trying to implement all over the world? One that does not care about their own citizens? Is this the equality you talk about?
I could choose other crops that are not as abundant as oranges or products and then the numbers of those products per person on earth will really get to be infinitesimal numbers. (Very very small numbers).
So you see John your theory of equal distribution does not really work for everyone on earth since some will be left with nothing. Do you know what they do in Cuba in such cases?They have priority grouping. The elite of the country gets first pick. That means they get the best doctors and medical care possible. They get the best food available in the country and so on. They have access to all the information and full access to internet etc. I could go on. They have their own cars even their children may enjoy much better status compare to normal cubans. Hey that does not look to me like the equality you were talking about. It looks to me like they replace money for power. So those in power are the new bourgeoisie with all kinds of privileges. To belong to this special class you need to be a supporter of their ideology. You need to be a supporter of those that hold the power and this have to be unconditional support. You will be ordered and you can not be critical. So you see John things are not so beautiful any more. This people are even worst that the bourgeoisie that you detest. Because they do not want people even dissenting. You could end up in prison when that happens.
So I hope that my words reach you John. I hope they could touch you and help you understand in some way  that socialism and communism are not the solution. Capitalism maybe bad but it is infinitely better as economical system than socialism ever was. Socialism have also being by design invariably link to totalitarian and authoritarian systems. Some say that it is imposible to have socialism without a totalitarian system in place. I guess we will never know.

I have a Dream

Yoani Sanchez and other bloggers taken by Cuban secret police.

The well known Cuban bloggers Yoani Sanchez , Claudia Cadelo and Orlando L Pardo were taken by force by the state security police of the Castro regime,

Yoani on telephone interview mentioned

“Fui secuestrada al peor estilo siciliano, con violencia verbal, física, llaves de inmovilidad, rodillazos”.

(I was sequester in the worst Sicilian mafia style, with verbal and physical violence, they immobilize  and beat us.)

They were trying to participate in a march-performance against no violence that was performed in Vedado at 23th street in front of the Yara movie theater.

After been beaten they were release. It seems the intention was so that they will not be able to participate in the peaceful march against No violence.

This is a video of  the non violent performance executed as planned

Freedom beautiful freedom!

Here is a performance in Cuba. Yoani Sanchez and many others use a minute to express freely

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVV1Q6qT8Kk

What follows is a translation of what Yoani Sanchez said.

Cuba is an island surrounded by sea and is also an island surrounded by censorship. Some of the information control and especially the Internet have opened up some cracks with blogs. In the wake of alternative blogosphere and is known to a good part of the Cuban population. We are a … accentuate the awakening of public opinion.

The authorities consider the technology as a wild horse to be tame. The independent bloggers want to run freely. Difficulties in disseminating our sites are many. Passed from hand to hand and thanks to flash memory, CDs, the obsolete diskettes the content of the blogs  goes through the island.

Internet is becoming a public forum of discussion where the Cubans are writing opinions. The real island is starting to be a virtual island that is more democratic and more pluralistic. Unfortunately these winds of free expression in the Internet have only just started to show up in our watchful reality.
Let us not wait for the authorization to enter the internet. To have a blog or to write an opinion.

It is time to jump the wall of control.

See this blog post by Yoani

http://desdecuba.com/generationy/?p=472

and this other blog post by Claudia

http://octavocercoen.blogspot.com/2009/03/one-minute-of-freedom-per-person.html

Bottom of the Barrel.

I wrote two prior posts with statistical information about Cuba

In one I computed the average salary to be equal to 233.00 dollars approximately and in the other I show a map of  with all the countries who’s GDP per capita are less than Cuba’s GDP per capita.

Since the actual average pay for Cubans is 233.00 dollars and since that should equate to the GDP per capita I wanted to know what countries have a GDP per capita of less than 233.00 dollars.

Here is the answer I get from Mathematica

 Select[CountryData[], CountryData[#, “GDPPerCapita”] < 233 &]

{“Afghanistan”, “Burundi”, “DemocraticRepublicCongo”, “Ethiopia”,

“GuineaBissau”, “Liberia”, “Malawi”, “Myanmar”, “Niger”, 

“SierraLeone”, “Zimbabwe”}

 

and here is a map showing in color the countries whos GDP per capita is less than Cuba’s average salary!

 

Comparing Apples to Apples. Cuba versus Chile and Portugal.

 

I am fortunate to have a copy of Mathematica a wonderful software that allows one to make sophisticated computations and that of late contain a wealth of statistical information.

I was very interested to know for example how Cuba compare economically with other countries with similar population.

 If one runs the following mathematica command

 

Reverse[Sort[{CountryData[#, “Population”], CountryData[#]} & /@ 

   CountryData[]]]

We get a list of pairs containing the country population and the Country Name sorted in descending order something like

 

 

{{1.29801*10^9, “China”}, {1.15175*10^9, “India”}, {3.02841*10^8, 

  “UnitedStates”}, {2.28864*10^8, “Indonesia”}, {1.89323*10^8, 

  “Brazil”}, {1.60943*10^8, “Pakistan”},..

 

 

When we look in that statistical table in the Cuban vecinity the list of countries that have similar population are

 

 

{1.64654*10^7, “Chile”}, {1.6379*10^7, “Netherlands”}, {1.53143*10^7, \

“Kazakhstan”}, {1.43585*10^7, “BurkinaFaso”}, {1.41966*10^7, \

“Cambodia”}, {1.37367*10^7, “Niger”}, {1.35707*10^7, “Malawi”}, \

{1.32282*10^7, “Zimbabwe”}, {1.3202*10^7, “Ecuador”}, {1.30286*10^7, \

“Guatemala”}, {1.20725*10^7, “Senegal”}, {1.19684*10^7, “Mali”}, \

{1.16962*10^7, “Zambia”}, {1.12667*10^7, “Cuba”}, {1.11225*10^7, \

“Greece”}, {1.05787*10^7, “Portugal”}

 

 

For comparison then we could use countries like Greece, Portugal and even Chile.

In the following diagrams the red dot is Cuba the diagrams are logarithmic plots of the statistical information using the data contained in mathematica. The source of the data for mathematica seems to be the CIA World Fact Book.

 

The above diagram red dot shows Cuban population and the green diagram Chile’s population the rest of the blue dots are all the population of other countries in the world sorted in decreasing order.

 

 

GDP per Capita comparison between Cuba and Chile

Again in the above diagram the red dot is for Cuba’s GDP percapita (about 4500) and the green dot is the GDP per capita for Chile (about 6832.67) . 

As can be seen two Latin American countries very close on the number of inhabitants the GDP per capita for Chile is much bigger than Cuba’s GDP that is not even counting that the actual mean salary paid by the Cuban government is about 200 dollars a year. If we put that value as the GDP per capita then Cuba would go to the bottom of the list.

Here is a similar comparison between Cuba and Portugal (The poorest country in Europe)

 

Cuba and Portugal population

and below the same diagram comparing the GDP per capita of Cuba to the GDP per capita of Portugal.

 

Cuba GDP per capita versus Portugal GDP per capita

 

 

 

 The lesson we can draw from this is that economically the capitalist countries are better than a communist country.

 

Below I include the mathematica code I have use to produce the graphs 

value := “Population”

countries := Reverse[Sort[CountryData[#, value] & /@ CountryData[]]]

cuba := If[# == CountryData[“Cuba”, value], #, 0] & /@ 

  Reverse[Sort[CountryData[#, value] & /@ CountryData[]]]

other := If[# == CountryData[“Chile”, value], #, 0] & /@ 

  Reverse[Sort[CountryData[#, value] & /@ CountryData[]]]

ListLogPlot[{countries, cuba, other},

 Background -> Black, AxesStyle -> Directive[Thick, Orange],

 PlotStyle -> {Directive[Blue, PointSize[Small]], 

   Directive[Red, PointSize[Large]], 

   Directive[Green, PointSize[Large]]}

 ]

 

And this is the code for GDP per Capita

 

value := “GDPPerCapita”

countries := Reverse[Sort[CountryData[#, value] & /@ CountryData[]]]

cuba := If[# == CountryData[“Cuba”, value], #, 0] & /@ 

  Reverse[Sort[CountryData[#, value] & /@ CountryData[]]]

other := If[# == CountryData[“Chile”, value], #, 0] & /@ 

  Reverse[Sort[CountryData[#, value] & /@ CountryData[]]]

ListLogPlot[{countries, cuba, other},

 

 Background -> Black, AxesStyle -> Directive[Thick, Orange], 

 PlotStyle -> {Directive[Blue, PointSize[Small]], 

   Directive[Red, PointSize[Large]], 

   Directive[Green, PointSize[Large]]}

 ]

Who is stealing the money in Cuba?

I was doing some small and simple calculation with statistical information from Cuba given by the Cuban government and found something very interesting.

If you go to the Cuban government site http://www.one.cu/aec2007/esp/07_tabla_cuadro.htm

there you will find    Average monthly salary in state-owned and mixed entities for each type of economic activity.

The table data is  for the year 2007 the last year that appears on the records

Average salary Cuba

Agricultura caza silvicultura y pesca	420
Explotación de minas y canteras	544
Industrias manufactureras	433
Electricidad gas y agua	508
Construcción	497
Comercio restaurantes y hoteles	353
Transportes almacenamiento y comunicaciones	418
Establecimientos financieros seguros bienes	493
Servicios comunales sociales y personales	398

 

This data will allow us to compute 447 pesos as the average salary paid by the cuban goverment in Cuba. If we assume an exchage rate of 23 cuba pesos per american dollar then that will give us a median salary of 19.44 dollars per month for a total of 233.32 dollars per year.

Now the reported GDP per capita  for Cuba is about 4500 dollars see http://indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?c=sp&v=67 and also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba were the GDP per capita is 4800.

The GDP per capita should be about the same as the average salary and is normally computed as the GDP of the country divide by number of people producing in the country.

So what is so estrange?

Assume the more conservative figure of 4500 GDP per capita we can see that is not equal to 233.32 dollars in fact there are 4266 dollars missing in the average payment for any median Cuban.

Where is that money?

Is the revolution or revolutionary government stealing the money?

Or is that the cost of the so call “free” education and “free” health care? or other supposed gratuities mention by the revolution leaders as triumphs of the revolution?

If those things are free as they claim then where is the money?

Fidel Castro declare himself a terrorist.

In this other speech he declare that he will dedicate to terrorism he will be very efficient at it.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kw3aZ_UBP4

Is Fidel Castro a terrorist?

Comandante. An Oliver Stone Documentary about Castro

To see the other parts  follow each link

2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLUcOqeoKck

2 Using Elian as a political tool. Oliver Stone ask him if he ever used a psychiatrist!

3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB5gtr7DTrI

3 Here we can see Cult to the personality of Fidel Castro. We also see Castro nationalizing United Fruit Company (American company in Cuba) (While now he is begging capitalist all over the world to invest in Cuba)

4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHlphGtNu4c

4 Here he mentioned that in Cuba before the revolution there was 100,000 prostitutes and when ask about how many now he says very few (Very convenient not to mention a number for now! versus before the revolution)

5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pX5rIvkvXc

5 Fidel Talking about Kennedy assassination. In the part he is greeting the students the music is from Celia Cruz a very famous exiled Cuban singer that Fidel Castro never allow to return to Cuba to visit her family! What an irony.The song is about this guys selling remedies for throat ache etc. Basically someone who claims to have solutions for every problem just like Fidel! (This are students of medicine from different countries in Latin America) (here he also talks about abortion in Cuba something they have probably grow to lament now with so few people born and the aging of the Cuban population as manifested by Raul Castro)

6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aJeME5ZLFE

6 talking about Gorbachev follow by scenes of violence perpetrated by the revolution firing squads. You may also see the abundance at the table while most Cubans have almost nothing to eat! Here he also talks about Nixon. Here they also talk about the bay of pigs invasion something that Fidel Castro blame the US for while we know that the invasion was done by Cuban exiled.

7 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL4Qp_dod1c

7 The beginning of the Cuban embargo by the Kennedy administration.

8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=132sKW2LojA

8 Oliver Stone asking about  Cubans in Vietnam torturing Americans.

9 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE07VQep3sA

9 He said he is a dictator! (The background music is from Evita’s musical Don’t cry for me Argentine) There is a very funny part. Oliver Stone asked Fidel Castro that if it is true that in every corner there was a policemen or a security informant. While he is saying that an image of policemen in a corner are shown and at 1:04 there is this funny look by the camarographer because Fidel Castro said that that was in Carlo’s imagination but the film is showing that is true!

10 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k_4cUBLbf0

11 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YTxU8y-i-0

Here he mentions that “the solution to the world’s problems is not military” it is actually very hypocritical statement coming from the same man that has promoted guerrilla movements around the world.

12 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJDxZOo-kaA

L’État c’est Moi (I am the State).

” Le Roi Soleil or the Sun King, Louis believed in the Divine Right of Kings” that is a fragment of Wikipedia’s entry for Louis XIV of France.

He was considered the archetypal absolute monarch of early modern Europe. World history has a way of recycling old cliches and old phrases acquired a new dressing and are rediscover or reinvented and rephrase.

 

I am the revolution

 

 

Just as in France, King Luis came to signified the epitome of absolutism so is in Cuba Fidel Castro in modern days a symbol of absolute and ruthless power. He also as manifested in one of his last reflexion unequivocally that the “honey of power” belongs to him. It is his divine right because he had sacrificed to get it!

“La miel del poder por el cual no conocieron sacrificio alguno, despertó en ellos ambiciones que los condujeron a un papel indigno. El enemigo externo se llenó de ilusiones con ellos.”

“The honey of power for which they had made no sacrifice awoke in them ambitions that led them to an unworthy role. The external enemy was filled with illusions about them.”

This evoke images of conquest of stealing of usurpation, of power, of corruption! and link that to the above image of the poster in red and blue “I am the revolution” gets my thoughts to remember French absolutism.

Must we all humans learn the same lessons over and over again?

It will be nice if people could assimilate lessons from other people’s history but unfortunately it does not happen that way. We are bound to repeat someone else’s error to follow some else’s steps and to draw new lessons.

Let Cuba be a warning to all those who love freedom. A poster case to show the dangers of modern absolute power. None should have the right to rule everyone else with absolute power.