My favorite quote: "A fraying system of cradle-to-grave benefits keeps Cubans living in a kind of state-administered, socialized poverty, earning high scores on U.N. human development surveys but little for Cuban wallets."
But but but with Bernie in charge, he will make it work in the U.S.
Inequality is growing in Cuba, threatening the legacy of Castro’s revolutionThat is the subtitle. Further down:
Communist Party elders want to keep a lid on market forces, but with every incremental opening, yawning income gaps emerge. The owner of a small private restaurant can earn hundreds of dollars a day, or more, in a country where three-quarters of the labor force works for the state and the average government salary is $20 a month. Tour guides and hotel chambermaids make more than scientists and doctors.Oh, that evil capitalism creating income inequality. If only the revolution were not betrayed!
Younger Cubans do not seem too troubled. But these disparities, authorities fear, bear the seeds of social tensions, resentments and crime. …
Yep, the Pest finds communism doesn’t work, but I notice there seems to be a mournful tone to the story. A wistful “oh, what could’ve been” theme. Liberals have wet dreams over arrangements like that Alamar project. Everyone is “equal,” all right.. equally miserable.
“Long and rectangular, five stories tall, their facades have been stripped by the ocean air and re-pigmented in curlicue patterns of mildew.”
For a moment, I thought the author was describing the scenery along the Dan Ryan in Chicago. Wait, no ocean in Illinois.
Even where enforced equality “works”, it takes an oligarchy to enforce and administer it. In other words, equality never works, ever.
Demanding equality is demanding a king to rule you.