Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • As diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States improve, we wanted to look at

  • the political philosophy behind the long embargoed nation. Cuba is one of the last communist

  • dictatorships left in the world, and since extreme anti-communist sentiments in the mid

  • 20th century, the philosophy has been a regular fixture in political discussions. So we wanted

  • to know, what exactly is communism?

  • Well, there are a number of overlapping philosophies and socioeconomic systems that can be described

  • as communist in nature. But in the most basic sense, communism is when all manufacturing,

  • ormeans of productionare equally owned by all the members of a state. The intended

  • result is to eliminate the capitalist-inspired class system where one class does all the

  • work and the other gets all the money.

  • Although similar ideas have existed both naturally and intentionally since the dawn of time,

  • the most common form of communism comes from the work of German philosophers Karl Marx

  • and Friedrich Engels, in what is today known asMarxism”. In particular, Marxism is

  • focused on the exploitation of the worker. It’s based on the idea that any profit generated

  • by the worker but instead goes to the business owner, is a form of inequality and should

  • be abolished.

  • In recent history, several countries including the USSR, China, Vietnam and Cuba have attempted

  • to institute their own versions of communism. However all can be said to be predominantly

  • socialist, and not communist. The biggest difference between the two is that socialism

  • says that all workers should get an equal share in profit and property, while communism

  • says that there shouldn’t be money or ownership in general, and everyone should get as much

  • as they need, and work as much as they can. Unfortunately, attempts to achieve this political

  • philosophy have led to lower standards of living, government corruption, and in the

  • case of the USSR, total collapse and failure.

  • A number of reasons have been put forth as to why communism hasn’t worked out historically.

  • But the strongest criticism of the philosophy is that communism removes the incentive for

  • people to work harder than they absolutely have to. It also leads to resentment of those

  • who work less hard but receive the same. In general, communism is described as being great

  • in theory, while disastrous in practice. The state of the world seems to agree with that

  • assessment.

  • If you’d like to learn more about political theory, make sure you check out these videos

  • about Libertarianism, and Anarchy. Make sure you subscribe for more, and let us know what

  • you’d like us to cover next on our Facebook or Twitter pages. There are links in the description!

As diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States improve, we wanted to look at

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it