Castro Says Cuban Model Does Not Work for Cuba

The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg reports on his recent interview with Fidel Castro during which Castro made a stunning admission. As Goldberg describes it

I asked him if he believed the Cuban model was still something worth exporting.

"The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," he said. 

So at the precise moment when the United States is adopting policies similar to the Cuban model--government ownership of firms like General Motors and the socialization of the health care system and financial markets--Castro is admitting that such a system is a failure.

I have an entire chapter of my book Foundations of Economics devoted to explaining the disastrous economics and ethics of socialism. In a society in which the state owns all of the factors of production, central planners cannot calculate profit and loss, so have no guidance in making sound economic decisions, and socialism's severance of income from productive activity kills the work ethic. Socialism does not usher us into the economic promised land. It results in poverty, death, and cultural decline.

You can read more about Cuba's socialist experiment here and here. Castro's admission should serve as a warning to us all. Economic law cannot be thwarted forever.