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

It's pretty clear by that statement that you don't understand the government of Cuba or how it has been funded. Most Cubans don't pay taxes, and haven't since the revolution. Only recently have income taxes been put in place, and mostly that's for business owners and comes with significant write-offs.

>Ah but how many Americans really get a shot at medical school? In the most recent year for which quintile census data are available, more than three-quarters of medical students came from families in the top two quintiles of family income. [0]

Ok, so 75% of medical students come from families in the top 50% of incomes. That doesn't seem too absurd to me.

As to your Wired article, the statement that "In effect, Cuba that poor communist country is to a certain extent actually subsidizing vital parts of our healthcare system that happen to be less lucrative"

is a bit ridiculous, because that article mentions a total 100 doctors using the program over a 17 year period. Yes, Cuba may train 6 American MD's a year, (actually, more like 4 - not everyone graduates) but that isn't really subsidizing vital parts of our healthcare system, not in any meaningful way.

They do have a better basic quality of life. That's exactly what they already have. Cuba is not a rich country like the US, so of course the direct comparison without historical context will mislead you. If they opened up free capitalism style trade with other nations, they would be slaves on foreign owned farms and foreign owned factories instead of the government (using this thread's definition of slavery, of course). If they opened up capitalism style free trade internally, some people would get very rich and the majority of people's lives would be much much worse off. The income inequality would skyrocket.

You're suggesting that they're poor because they're communist. That's not the case. They're poor because they're an ex colony whose never became rich from wars, imperialism, natural resources, etc.. And when you consider that and the US trade embargo, they've done amazingly well.

Presumably all states do.

>Who manages the trade between the countries?

Communism is about owning the means of production so presumably the people will act through their government to decide on trade.

>Are the members of a society that claims to be Communist actually so if that society at large is part of a free-market?

Presumably, unless you mean to say that no actually Communist state has ever existed! (I'll accept this of course, I'd just like you to say it.) If you'd like to know more about this conflict I'd pull up the wiki article for "socialism in one country."

>This sounds like not getting rid of exploitation, but rather sweeping it under the rug and outsourcing it to a free-market entity.

Well the end-goal would be world communism without government, democratic everything, "from those... to those..." kind of world. In the interim trade would be necessary and you're right that unfortunately that trade may come from exploitation of the working class in another country. But if we can take our country, go socialist, reduce exploitation then that's still an admirable goal. Hopefully, those elsewhere will see and follow. I wouldn't call it "outsourcing exploitation" because presumably the trade level wouldn't increase dramatically after becoming communist. It's more like fixing our exploitation while admitting we may not be able to end all exploitation.

NOTE: I'm not actually a communist and I only know a little so these are the best answers I can give. A real communist would probably school me on this.

(1) College is cheap, only the few and the wealthy go.

(2) More people start to attend college.

(3) Supply and demand kick in, increasing costs, ensuring that still only the few and the wealthy go to college.

(4) The government doesn't like that poor people aren't able to afford college so they guarantee student loans.

(5) Poor people can go to school now, but price spirals out of control.

This is my timeline.

>The lack of the ability to pay back a loan is a normal check against irresponsible lending, unless you have a printing press backing said loans and can afford to disregard defaults.

You're totally right. The problem here is that it's "irresponsible lending" to give a student loan to a poor student, a black student, and especially say a poor, black student who wants to study history. We as a society though want poor students to get more education and we as a society don't want certain fields limited to just those who are already rich. So we guarantee student loans. Then a bunch of capitalists see that we've broken the loan system, pull out their Gordon Gekko hats and start robbing us blind.

>The lack of a free market in education is precisely what caused the hyper cost inflation. The US Government created a system of lending backed by its ability to print dollars, which stands completely apart from normal economic reality.

The lack of a free market in education is precisely what gave lots of kids who would never have otherwise had the opportunity to attend college that chance.

>Another hint: guess who is making nearly all the money off the student loans? Yep, the US Government. They're yielding tens of billions per year in interest profit, courtesy of their ability to magically make dollars appear and to put an entire generation into vast debt. The US Govt is earning about 20 times what the private sector is making off of student loans.

Sure, I don't like this either. College should be free.

And there's a nugget about income inequality here - Cuba has reduced income inequality by making people more similarly poor. Doctors and managers live side by side with laborers and cooks. Maybe that's good for society, but the average Cuban lives like an American at the federal poverty line. Americans are unequally rich - our poorest are poorer and worse off then the average Cuban but the median American is richer than the median Cuban and the average American is much better off then the average Cuban.

It might be too utilitarian for humanitarians but I don't think income inequality matters on its face. My life wouldn't be worse if there were 10x as many billionaires, in fact, it'd probably be better because those billionaires would have created great things to earn their fortunes - if they earned their fortunes giving humanity cheap power and better health care and tastier, more nutrious food we'd be much better off.

I think the KPI to target is poverty - I simply want fewer poor people to be poor. There's a role for a better safety net, and probably some tweaks to laws that infringe upon the right to work, but historically redistribution works once in society and then you run out of other people's money.