wizofaus,

I can't remember where I read the statistic of 80% Cuban home ownership, but the article for which you provided a link appears to confirm that.

Whatever one thinks of private home ownership, this would surely disprove the notion that Cuba is run by completely rigid Marxist ideologues.

One reason that home ownership is not, instead, well below 50%, are the laws described in that article designed to prevent the buying and selling of housing for speculative gain.

The bureacratic hurdles, whilst painful for some, seem like defensible measures to protect Cubans against the ravages that a privatised housing market would bring.

No doubt, better ways of achieving what those controls are intended to achieve could be found in a more open and democratic Cuba, but what they must not do, under any circumstances, is to allow the private trading of housing for speculative gain. In no time at all, the coastal neighbourhoods, now inhabited by poor Cubans will be sold off to wealthy foreigners for holiday homes and luxury resorts.

Personally I would prefer government-owned housing and security of tenure, but either system has been shown to be vastly cheaper than the private property market, which only serves to divert, and very inefficiently at that, vast amounts of the wealth of the rest of society to a large socially unproductive caste comprising land speculators, landlords, property developers, real estate agents, housing financiers, mortgage borkers, conveyancers, advertisers, etc.

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wizofaus wrote, "I would think that at least 99% of Australians have a roof over their head, ..."

Of what value to this discussion is such a figure plucked out of the air?

Presumably you are guessing that 1% are homeless?

Well if it is as high as 1%, that's 200,000 Australians. As far as I am concerned, if even one Australian is involuntarily homeless, then that's one too many.

There are indeed homeless people and way too many. It is a direct and predictable consequence of the privatisation of the housing market begun by Menzies back in the 1950's.

James Sinnamon (author)

"and has not, in any of his many hundreds of speeches, revealed any overt signs of his fanaticism?"

Nope, as I am not fanatical enough to read hundreds of his speeches,
but judge him by his results. Actions speak louder then words sometimes. If Fidel was not a control freak and cared about Cuba's
people, he would allow them to decide through an election and allow
a free press, so that Cubans actually can say what they think.
Not so on either count, but then control freaks want to control
everything. It happens in marriages and it happens in countries.

That URL that Wiz posted, showed what a disaster housing is in
Cuba. Hehe, I'd like to see how Australians would respond, if
a Govt introduced that kind of legislation here :)

Australians now live in the world's biggest houses. The 3 by 1 won't
do anymore, no wonder many houses have risen in price.

Govts are free to release more land for housing. If they did then
housing costs would drop. Instead I gather then on an average
block in NSW, they impose something like 150k$ in charges.
So the problem of expensive houses in Aus is squarely at the
feet of State Govts. Some of their chardonay set legislators tried
to enforce high density housing by restricting land release.
Duh, so of course the cost of housing blows out. Building a house
is still not expensive in Australia and we are not short of land.

My only point was that I doubt Cuba's homeless rates are better than Australia's. And if homelessness in itself isn't much of a measure of anything - I'd much prefer to be happy and homeless than miserable but living in a hovel that disqualified me from being seen as homeless.
Cuba may have some achievements to be proud of, but given that's about the best that state-imposed socialism has ever managed to produce, it's not a particularly compelling argument in favour of such a system. Have you considered moving there?

Yabby,

I am not going to discuss Cuba with you any more on this forum. If you wish to continue venting your ill-informed prejudices about issues which are highly tangential to the topic under discussion, then I suggest, once again, that you do that elsewhere.

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Rhian,

I think your post misses my point.

In any case, your comparisons between different capitalist and 'socialist' economies fail to acknowledge the different degrees of access that different countries have had to the world's non-renewable natural resources.

Cuba, which consumes vastly less petroleum that it once received from the USSR would have to be a highly efficient economy if viewed in that regard, certainly far more efficent than the US which consumes a disproprotionate quantity of the world's natural resources.

They also fail to take into account the fact that the 'socialist' economies had to overcome the devastation inflicted by war at the outset, particularly in the case of North Korea. The extreme Stalinist nature of the North Korean regime, largely the result of the horrific destruction inflicted upon that country in the course of the war, would be an illustration of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The popular guerrilla movement which had its genesis in the struggle against the Japanese became largely what the US had falsely claimed to have been fighting against. A similar point could be made about Pol Pot's Cambodia.

My essential point still remains, that is that in market economies policies intended to extend prosperity to all members of society are being progressively scrapped at the behest of neo-liberal ideologues.

That many have accordingly suffered in this country as a consequence of the policies of the neo-liberal Howard Government is indisputable.

The true consequences of these polices will become apparent to many more when this ecologically unsustainable resources boom or the world economic boom ends, that is if Howard is not first removed and his iniquitous 'reforms' scrapped.

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Incidentally, a hallmark of Singapore is state intervention in the economy. Optus, for example, is largely owned by the Singapore Government.

James Sinnamon (author)

Dagget, I'm 100% with you on "market economies policies intended to extend prosperity to all members of society are being progressively scrapped at the behest of neo-liberal ideologues". You (and other readers) may be interested in the following recent articles, the first regarding Australia and the latter the U.S.:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/money-not-the-only-thing-making-the-world-work/2007/10/03/1191091193307.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1003/p09s01-coop.html

While both articles have an undeniable left-wing bias, the fundamental points they make cannot be dismissed out of hand.

In the end, democracy will be what determines that raw laissez-faire capitalism is not what is best for us - economically, socially or environmentally. People will only continue unwittingly voting against their own interests for so long. But not giving them the chance is inexcusable.

Daggett,
You may be right that “policies intended to extend prosperity to all members of society are being progressively scrapped” but the key word here is “intended.” Many of these policies were scrapped or changed because they failed to achieve their intended objectives, or because they had other adverse consequences that caused more harm to society than their putative benefits.

The program of reforms you call “neoliberal” is also “intended to extend prosperity to all members of society“.

Loosening labour market regulation is intended to raise real wages by raising productivity, and also open new job opportunities.

Removing tariffs and signing up for free-trade negotiations is intended to give consumers access to more diverse and cheaper goods and services. So is competition policy, deregulating the financial sector, floating the exchange rate, removing marketing monopolies etc.

Privatising some government business organisations is intended to free government resources to provide services the private sector won’t supply, such as social infrastructure.

Contracting out of non-core services is intended to achieve better service at lower cost.

You might argue that advocates of these policies are mistaken in expecting them to deliver benefits to the community. But you are wrong to assume that their advocates do not intend to do good.

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I don’t deny that Singapore’s society and economy are highly state-directed. Both laissez faire capitalism (Hong Kong) and state-directed capitalism (Singapore) have proved successful in delivering prosperity. The common thread is capitalism.

I repeat my question - Can you name a single non-capitalist country whose citizens enjoy either the freedom or the prosperity that we do?