[lbo-talk] Cuba to lay off 500, 000 state workers: The beginning of the end of Cuban socialism

[c b]

Somebody: This is the crucial point. Capitalist reforms tend to be
self-reinforcing past a certain point. Modest NEP type reforms can be
curtailed, as they were in Cuba following the early 90's (and in the
Soviet Union itself, of course). But, the type of robust market
reforms now being initiated in Cuba are, based upon extensive
historical precedent, essentially irreversible.

^^^^^^^
CB: It's really laughable that  that the historical precedents for
robust market reforms you refer to have existed at the most for 30
years, and based on that you now declare that they are irreversible
for all times.  You sure got a powerful crystal ball.

^^^^^^^

Ironically, the falsification of Marxism as a mode of production also
confirms it's class-struggle perspective - once a new bourgeoisie is
established, it won't surrender it's control without an entirely new
revolution. Which of course, contrary to Trotsky, won't happen. The
workers aren't going to resurrect the ancien régime once it's own
founding fathers have abandoned it.

^^^^^^
CB:  Boo hoo .Your leap to the conclusion and pronouncement of a new
permanence of the capitalist mode of production seems to be based in
subjectivity and personal pessimism.

^^^^^^^

I know Carrol seems to think ideology and a belief in socialism as a
viable economic alternative doesn't really matter, but historical
experience seems to suggest otherwise. Was it a coincidence that the
*only* region of the world to have a resurgence of the left in the
first decade of the 21st century was also the homeland of an enduring
Cuban revolution? Of course not. There would be no Bolivarian left if
Fidel had cried uncle in 1992 and joined the rest of the international
old guard in embracing capitalism. It doesn't take a clairvoyant to
predict what's likely to happen to the Latin American left in the
coming years.