Conservative writer George Will reminds us that while (f)idel’s brand of “Marxism” has only been able to survive because of the kindness of others as well as by (f)idel’s cruelness to others.
Will, in this excerpt, describes why nothing will change after (c)astro’s exit , stage left:
The departure, if such it really is, of Castro, the weird uncle in the island’s attic, cures nothing.
Cuba’s affliction remains: It is Castroism, which is communism colored by Bonapartism. Communism of any stripe is afflicted by terminal ignorance.
Having no market, which is an information-generating mechanism, communism cannot know what things should cost.
Hence communism’s amazing contribution to humanity’s economic history is “value-subtraction” – products worth less than the materials that go into them. That result is seriously inconvenient for Marxism’s labor theory of value – the theory that labor adds all value to the world’s materials.
That’s just perfect.
A great read. And I learned a new word: mendicant. I can even use it in a sentence!
“Hence communism’s amazing contribution to humanity’s economic history is “value-subtraction” – products worth less than the materials that go into them.”
I love it. Right up there with:
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.”
— Winston Churchill
I like the part where he calls (c)astro the “weird uncle in the island’s attic. . ”
Kudos to you and your expanding vocabulary. =D