Norm wrote:
>US has no EFFECTIVE change in govt in 41 years, but Cuba has NONE whatsoever
>in that time span.
The presence or absence of changes in political representatives a la
liberal democracy does not tell us much about a given nation's
political direction. Cuba has undergone much social change without
changing its head of state; read, for instance, Lois M. Smith and
Alfred Padula, _Sex and Revolution: Women in Socialist Cuba_, New
York: Oxford University Press, 1996. The most momentous social
changes in the USA, too, have been made _by non-electoral means_
(e.g., the Civil War, urbanization & industrialization, labor
movements, civil rights movements, women's movements, gay & lesbian
movements, etc.). Change of regimes is of world-historical
importance, however, when it effects the transition from one mode of
production to another. In this sense, Cuba has undergone more
world-historical change than the USA.
>right, US has more income inequality, but the poorest are far better off
>than the "middle class" in Cuba.
By "middle class" in Cuba, you mean doctors, artists, engineers,
university professors, and the like? Socialism in any nation, _while
the rest of the world economy remains capitalist_, probably makes its
intellectuals worse off than its counterparts, and perhaps even makes
them worse off than some of the poor, in imperial nations, as you
argue. However, Cuba would _never_ have produced so many doctors,
artists, engineers, university professors, etc. from peasant or
working-class family backgrounds to begin with, _but for the
socialist revolution_. So your comparison appears to me to be moot.
Yoshie
