Re: standard of living

Fri, 23 Jan 1998 20:25:23 -0500
Adam Kessler (adkes@pipeline.com)

>>
(Also relevant here is the annoying -- to U.S. >capital -- refusal of
Cubans to overthrow Castro. Cubans enjoy much higher levels of education
and health care than anywhere else in Latin America, and although they are
not totally happy, reject the alternative in store for them. So the
equality/abundance trade-off is not as
>straightforward as the triumphant capitalists would like.)

>Richard Hutchinson
>
>
>
>Simple question--how do you *know* that they (the Cubans) *reject the
alternative in store for them*? After all, the essence of dictatorship is
that the dictator does note permit anyone to find out what the people
*really* want. Just before the fall of the Berlin wall Western leftists
described with great confidence what the East Germans *really* wanted and
how they enjoyed the great benefits of *free* this and that -- education,
health care, vacations and *worker housing*--boy were they (you?) surprised.