Even CIA statistics show socialist Cuba stands tall
By
Caleb T. Maupin
Published Aug 6, 2010 10:17 AM
The Central Intelligence Agency, a ruthless enforcer of Wall Street’s
drive for profits, publishes “The World Factbook.” It gives updated
statistics for every country, some of which measure quality of life and
societal health, such as life expectancy, infant mortality, literacy,
unemployment and industrial production. In this series, Workers World examines
some surprising conclusions, all using the CIA’s own statistics. Even
though these statistics often understate gains compared to United Nations
figures, they can’t help but show that countries benefit by breaking with
imperialism.
In Latin America, the CIA’s “World Factbook” confirms that
socialism stands triumphant. The island nation of Cuba, having begun
constructing socialism after the 1959 revolution, stands above all other
countries in terms of quality of life.
The infant mortality rate is the count of children per 1,000 live births who
die before reaching one year of age. Not a single country in Latin America has
a lower infant mortality rate than socialist Cuba, which is lower even than
that of the wealthy United States. This is a testament both to the Cuban health
care system, which is publicly operated and controlled by working people and
their organizations, and Cuba’s attention to public health.
The educational system in Cuba, like the vast majority of the economy, is
prioritized by the government and subject to popular, democratic control. As a
result, Cuba stands far above the rest of Latin America in literacy, with 99.8
percent considered literate, even slightly higher than the U.S.’s 99.0
percent.
Compare this to Honduras, where a repressive military dictatorship was recently
installed in a coup d’état backed by Washington. Literacy in
free-market, U.S.-dominated Honduras is 80 percent.
The life expectancy of Cubans is above every other country in South and Central
America, and much higher than in the nearby Dominican Republic. In nearby
Guatemala, where U.S.-backed paramilitaries have brutally put down all attempts
to build a world free of capitalism, the life expectancy is only 70.59 years,
compared to socialist Cuba’s 77.64 years.
Amidst the world economic crisis, Cuba’s rate of industrial production
has dropped by only 1 percent, according to the Factbook. In the United States,
production fell by 5.5 percent, and in the Britain, 9.8 percent.
This is probably due to the fact that the Cuban economy is not dominated by
Western markets, but planned according to human need. As a result, an economic
crisis in the West did not force the Cuban workers to suffer at the hands of
Wall Street.
The statistics confirm what Karl Marx and countless others after him have said
numerous times: that without the chaos of the capitalist market, which he
dubbed the “anarchy of production,” a planned economy can better
serve the people and provide for a good quality of life.
Next: Western domination vs. national liberation in Africa.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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