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Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

nytimes.com

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Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#151

Post by microcolonel »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #133
microcolonel wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're in it to have a good life. To some extent that enjoyment can come from serving patients, but they would also like to have a good life at home. Is it so much to ask that people who spend all day saving and improving lives (yes, for pay) should be paid pretty well relative to the supply? In any walk of life in a capital system, your pay is determined by how you serve people. Doctors serve the very basis of thei…

I think everyone working an honest job should be payed pretty well (not sure what you mean about 'relative to the supply'), at least enough to have a good life, for sure. Is it too much to ask that everyone have enough to live a good life? Who doesn't deserve a good life because of their occupation? Nobody. I don't know there's any reason doctors should get exceptionally high incomes (except that in the U.S. they hav…

By "relative to supply", I mean that if there are far more than enough doctors in a given region or scenario or specialty, the price could go down and it would be fair.

If you don't think that doctoring should earn especially high incomes, then you have not seen a doctor work, and perhaps you've never been gravely injured.

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#152

Post by etplayer »

adventured wrote: post #146
etplayer wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The US isn't even remotely close to being a free market system and hasn't been for decades. Where exactly did GP claim that it is? And why is regulation incompatible with a capitalist system? You are making the confusion that capitalism means "free market", when it doesn't.

Capitalism is inseparable from a free market system. They are in fact the same thing and have been regarded as such for a century across all the writings of every modern proponent of free market economics. From Hayek to Mises to Friedman. To the extent you have regulation, is the extent to which you lack a Capitalist economy. All systems opposite to Capitalism make use of extreme State control of the economy through…

>Capitalism is inseparable from a free market system.

No, it's not; there exists market Socialism, for example. There also exists mutualism. I don't know where you're getting this from other than the idea that authors in favour of capitalism also tend to prefer free market economics.

>Whether we're talking rudimentary Socialism or its derivatives, including Fascism and Communism.

Communism is actually the complete lack of state control but also the lack of commodity production and therefore the market.

>Regulation is antithesis to Capitalism because it imposes State control over the economy.

You have still failed to explain why lack of regulation is central to capitalism other than to name Hayek, Mises and Friedman who were in favour of free-market capitalism. Other authors who sought to describe capitalism prior to them didn't include "free market" as a core principle of capitalism.

There is no denying that the epitome of capitalist production is completely unencumbered by a State, but there is also no denying that the state must intervene in a capitalist economy to protect property rights on a large scale. There is also the idea that the the State itself cannot be a capitalist actor which is totally false; we see the State engaging in the employment of wage-labour and selling on the national and international market. This makes the state as capitalist as Microsoft or Google.

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#153

Post by colomon »

varjag wrote: post #135
colomon wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am willing to believe that, but I don't have any way to calculate what the number should be, so I took a generous estimate. (Average US post-medical school debt is $18x,000 according to a quick search I did.)

Cuban education lacks major cost components like practice/internship insurance and U.S. level income healthcare professionals in the teaching: their professors are also paid $30/mo. They also have no top-tier equipment, use run-down facilities, don't stick to expensive regulations and protocols and (if their communism is anything like communism of the place I grew up) most likely employ the students for all kind of m…

Well, working with your assumption, $20,000 loan 10% interest over FIVE years is $424.94 a month.

Somehow I doubt all the Cuba-defenders here are going to accept your assumption, though, as it makes the outrageousness of the whole thing much more explicit.

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#154

Post by Arcaten »

wooter wrote: post #130
asdfjklasdfjkl wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more nuanced critiques of either of the predominant systems discussed in this comment section. If you want to throw unfair death totals for what are at best regimes loosely approximating their underlying communist or capitalist ideologies, you can just as easily claim capitalism kills tons. https://i.redd.it/h0l4hqcf5inz.jpg but honestly, I don't think body counts are the right way to judge either. Makes fo…

none of those things have to do with capitalism. those were all acts of government and the antithesis of free enterprise.

In what way, shape, or form does slavery have nothing to do with capitalism?

The millions of American Indians that were murdered because they wouldn't give up their valuable land?

How is throwing away good food because no one pays for it, and thereby letting poor people starve, not capitalist? How is it the "antithesis of free enterprise"?

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#155

Post by jules »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #142
selectodude wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't a single communist country that wasn't a dictatorship. There are plenty of capitalist societies that aren't dictatorships. I find these discussions always fly into the "no true scotsman" fallacy.

Are you saying communism cannot exist separately from (evil) dictator? Lots of the ideas do (there are plenty of functioning highly socialist countries). Theoretically at least communism could exist peacefully (although it seems you would need everyone in the country to agree and remain agreed to the principals for that to work). Also - dictatorships can work. There have been several 'benevolent' dictators who made c…

> Are you saying communism cannot exist separately from (evil) dictator?

History does seem to bear that out.

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#156

Post by notyourday »

oh_sigh wrote: post #123
throwawayknecht wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The causality is not obvious. For example, throughout the 70s and 80s, organizations shipping medicine and other supplies to Cuba were regularly bombed or attacked (e.g. Hispania Interamericana). Anti-Castro terrorist organizations (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_66 ) operated openly in Miami. So does Cuba lack medicine because they're communist? Or are they communist because the US worked against broad pro…

Ok, that was 30 years ago. What's the explanation for why they haven't gotten aspirin to be readily available in the meantime?

Same reason why the "technical debt" never gets fixed... Got to ship features, man!

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#157

Post by duckingtest »

etplayer wrote: post #126
duckingtest wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American medical system is not capitalist but mercantilist. It's illegal to offer services without explicit permission of the medical guild. It has the exact same effect all historical guild systems had: price gouging and reduced supply. Taxi licenses are another good example. Capitalist medical system would mean the value of a particular medical certification would be set by the market, ie. everyone would be able to…

>American medical system is not capitalist but mercantilist. This distinction is made on the fallacious idea that "capitalism" is equal to a totally free market. This is a common confusion but false nevertheless. There is no reason I see why a capitalist system cannot include intervention by the government, and indeed it must deal with this to uphold property rights as even libertarian authors tell us. Capitalism is…

>There is no reason I see why a capitalist system cannot include intervention by the government

You're attempting to redefine the meaning of words to create a strawman where 'capitalism' can have any property you want, which then allows you to misrepresent an attack on a $random_negative_thing as an attack on 'capitalism'.

A system with state intervening in the market is called a mixed economy.

>It has also resulted in much higher rates of exploitation, as the workers of countries with more lax or unenforced labour laws suffer greatly for it.

The more protected against 'exploitation' people in a particular country are, the more likely they are to risk their lives trying to escape their socialist utopias.

If you weren't a hypocrite you would renounce your citizenship and relocate to a 'better' place, like Cuba or Venezuela.

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#158

Post by microcolonel »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #137
microcolonel wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems weird to come from a country which is explicitly organized around giving everybody a chance to succeed and then upon success saying, yeah but I don't like paying for it. Succeed at what? What success do they gain from being a doctor in a country which prevents them from being rewarded for it? Their returns are fixed by the government, and even when they're working overseas (earning way more money) the governm…

>Succeed at what? What success do they gain from being a doctor in a country which prevents them from being rewarded for it? I would say the success of being a doctor at all but it seems that to you success is purely a function of wealth. In that case these people could have left Cuba before using it's free education. It's highly hypocritical to use all the benefits of the Cuban system and then be upset when you also…

> Every working person in Cuba, peasants, mechanics, and seamstresses alike, chips in to train you as a doctor. Everyone, including the doctor, continues to chip in to train the next generation of doctors.

They're not chipping in, they don't have a choice in the matter. I think Cubans would rather have a better basic quality of life, than spend so much of their income training doctors who probably won't even operate near them, and who are used basically as indentured servants by the government, a government which pockets most of the money (as evidenced by the mansions and secret wealth of the despots).

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#159

Post by huac »

nslav wrote: post #45
Klockan wrote: post #19

> The pastor was outraged to learn that, under the terms of their employment, Cuban doctors earn only about a quarter of the amount the Brazilian government pays Cuba for their services. This is how Sweden finances their free education as well, it is called taxes. The problem isn't with how Cuba treats specifically doctors but how Cuba refuses to let people emigrate in general.

Yes that confused me a bit as well... I work for a US-based engineering company and they bill clients 3 - 4x what I earn for my work. Am I misunderstanding something about the article?

I think consulting is a reasonable comparison. Most management consulting firms (Big 3 for sure, and probably Deloitte, Accenture too) will pay for your MBA if you commit to working 2 more years for them. The Cuban government also paid for these doctors' education and is billing them out similarly to consultants.

The Cuban people should have more freedom of choice and freedom of movement, but economically, these kinds of arrangements present themselves under capitalism as well.

Re: Cuban Doctors Revolt: ‘You Get Tired of Being a Slave’

#160

Post by huac »

jules wrote: post #150
curun1r wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I somewhat agree, but any connection between Communism and Socialism needs to similarly find its way to that trash heap. Communism's failing is its seemingly inescapable combination with totalitarianism and despotism, which was a significant problem with Nazism as well. It's not the principle that society is responsible for caring for and providing for it's citizens. For too long, we've resisted more socialist polici…

That is not what socialism used to mean. European countries are capitalist with a welfare state. This was first set up in Germany by Bismarck, and the socialists were opposed to it. Socialism used to mean that the means of production were in the hands of the government, and by that standard Europe is certainly not socialist. The capital is privately owned and the decisions about how to use that capital are made by th…

What is the percentage of non-defense GDP spending? I'd guess that the delta is larger.
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