Socialism’s track record: From Venezuela’s crisis to Cuba’s decline
Gxstocks anchor David Asman joins 'Mornings with Maria' to preview his series exploring the failures of socialism worldwide amid its surge in popularity in America.
I saw a lot of socialist experiments in Latin America and the results weren't pretty.
If Americans want to see how badly socialism works, they don't have to go far. Beginning with Cuba's Fidel Castro in 1959, socialism has a dismal history of failure throughout this hemisphere. While socialist revolutionaries came to power by focusing on real problems of poverty and corruption, they often hid their goal of completely taking over the economy.
A man walks past empty shelves at a supermarket in Caracas, Venezuela, on March 9, 2017. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)
Castro appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" during a visit to the U.S. in April 1959, months after seizing power during the Cuban Revolution.
"I am not communism. I am not agree with communism," Castro said.
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That was a lie. In short order, Castro wiped out all opposition, socialized the entire economy, and forced Cuba's once vigorous business community to escape en masse to Miami.
"Effectuate equality. He effectuated equality of misery, equality of repression, equality of poverty," Miami Mayor Francis Suarez told Gxstocks.
Data from 2023 shows that extreme poverty in Cuba reached 88% and is likely to be worse by now. A similar pattern of events followed in other Latin countries.
A vintage car in Havana, the capital city in Cuba. (iStock)
Venezuela, once blessed with huge oil reserves and a vibrant middle class, saw a major reversal of fortune under Castro's socialist buddy, Hugo Chavez. For years, Venezuelans have been living with hyperinflation, which peaked at 63,000% in 2018. It is now down to a still miserable 225%.
"They took away our property. They destroyed our industry through price controls, through regulations, through high taxation, and they turned what should be really one of the world's richest countries into one of the world's poorest," said Daniel Di Martino, a Manhattan Institute fellow and Venezuelan immigrant.
Cuban President Fidel Castro (L) talks with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (R) during their visit to the unknown soldier monument in Campo Carabobo, Valencia, Venezuela, on Oct. 29, 2000. (Adalberto Roque/AFP via Getty Images)
Still, there was a kind of equality that came to pass in these countries. Everyone except the party elite became equally poor.
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It's important to note, by the way, that the economic figures for Cuba and Venezuela are estimates because these countries are not at all transparent with their data, but it is probably at least as bad as what was suggested in that report.
