Hatred of Wealth / Fernando Dámaso

Havana. (Silvia Corbelle)

Fernando Damaso, 15 February 2018 — Cuban socialism started from the premise that stripping the rich of their wealth would accomplish the elimination of poverty. An absurd premise, since the relationship is not less wealth less poverty, but quite the opposite, greater wealth less poverty.

The problem is that poverty is not eliminated by taking wealth from the rich, but by creating more wealth. However, to create wealth, we must unleash the productive forces and let them act, without a chastity belt that limits and interferes with their development.

This truth has been learned and successfully applied by most of the former socialist countries, with the exception of Cuba and North Korea, which currently are precisely the most backward and without real prospects for development.

The obstinacy of the inefficient and obsolete Cuban leadership already reaches the limits of the illogical: it prefers that the country and Cubans continue sunk in misery and backwardness, in order to maintain their absolute power until the last breath.

What happens next does not interest them in the least. Hence their excessive praise of the person most directly responsible for the national tragedy, along with his closest followers, and their insistance on presenting as victories his many and resounding failures.

However, facts and reality conspire against this false vision: it has lost all political credence and very few believe in its stories. All that sustains it is the repression and fear induced in many about the necessary changes, which, in spite of everything, will come sooner rather than later.