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Pretty ironic the USA won't trade with Cuba because they're communist, but their biggest trade partner is also communist.
by _yb2s 2y ago
Pretty ironic the USA won't trade with Cuba because they're communist, but their biggest trade partner is also communist.
- fragmede 2y agoThe Chinese Communist Party is about as communist as the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea is democratic.
- _yb2s 2y agoThey are as close as it gets- the "economic calculation problem" makes an actual centrally planned communist economy impossible, hence the mass famines. Cuba also in practice has a free market capitalist economy nowadays. From what I've heard, in practice North Korea also feeds people through a capitalist black market.
- gspencley 2y agoEven the USSR tolerated small business like mom & pop shops. Historically what we've seen in communist countries is that major production is under extremely heavy government control. Things like raw materials, shipping, energy, banking, agriculture and manufacturing are what the dictators care about. This is echoed by contemporary left-wing thinking in "the West." Small business is often championed while "big pharma", "big tech", "banking" and other industry giants are derided and viewed as shady at best, criminal at worst (note I'm not calling all left-wingers communists! I'm just saying that this dichotomy in left-wing thought is very common... heck, it's even common among many right-wingers). I'm not defending communism by saying that, while "black markets" undoubtedly exist, small trade is not typically looked at as "black market capitalism." As I understand it the idea isn't to prohibit trade itself but to "control the means of production" in an attempt to achieve prosperity by removing the profit motive from industry.