Hell Freezes Over: Communist Cuba Recognizes Private Property

Hell continues to freeze over.

Or better yet, Heaven is breaking through the dark clouds of decades past.

Francis Fukuyama analyzed these increasingly welcome realities.

Communist regimes do not stay communistic for the long run, even under their communist leaders.

The first dictator is the harshest, the most brutal.

Then the successors start to ease away from such hateful, stringent, bloodthirsty policies because the second tier of leaders want to live with some sense of peace and liberty.

Cuba has been a communist hell hole since 1959.

60 years later, we have witnessed Fidel Castro inviting religious institutions to speak to the Cuban people. Orthodox churches have opened up on the island, too.

Then Castro stepped down in favor of his brother Raul.

Then Raul moved aside to allow for elections.

The elections were not a true contest of ideas and political visions, but they took place.

A new President is now governing Cuba.

For the latest development, the Cuban Constitution will now recognize private property.

REUTERS: Communist-run Cuba to recognize private property in new constitution

— Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) July 14, 2018

Here's the full report from Reuters:

Communist-run Cuba to recognize private property in new
constitution

HAVANA (Reuters) – Communist-run Cuba will officially
recognize private property, something it has long rejected as a vestige of
capitalism, under a new constitution that also creates the position of prime
minister alongside the president, state media reported on Saturday.

State media has reported this further liberalizing element, but such moves are inevitable withing command-control countries, since communistic policies cannot sustain any society for long.

Consider what happened to the Pilgrim settlers during the first winter, when they worked with a common store instead of allow for individual liberty and responsibility through private property.

Cuba’s current Soviet-era constitution only recognizes
state, cooperative, farmer, personal and joint venture property.

But former President Raul Castro’s market reforms, aimed at
trying to boost the economy and make Cuban socialism more sustainable, have
prompted hundreds of thousands of Cubans to join the ranks of the island’s
self-employed since 2010, in new privately-owned businesses ranging from
restaurants to beauty salons.

"Making socialism sustainable" is nothing short of impossible. Free markets, free enterprise, and free people are the only ways for any state, any society, any community to remain sustainable.

I can't believe that we haven't read more about what Raul Casto had initiated. It's particularly telling that while Cuba's economy is opening up, Puerto Rico's economy has completely collapsed.

Ruling Communist Party newspaper Granma published a summary
of the new constitution on Saturday, saying a draft it had seen included 224
articles, up from 137 previously.

Details were not immediately available, and Reuters did not
see the draft. But Granma said it enshrined recognition of both the free market
and private property in Cuba’s new Magna Carta.

 

A new Magna Carta … which we cannot see.

That could mean enhanced legal protections for Cuba’s
fledgling entrepreneurs, and foreign investors too, even though Granma said the
constitution reaffirmed that central planning and state enterprise are the
pillars of the economy overall.

Watch the central planning unravel. One individual citizens get a real taste of liberty, they will never settle for bondage and statism again.

It also noted the Communist Party would remain as Cuba’s
dominant political force.

That would last long. Of course, the Communist Party is the dominant party, but the country is authoritarian, not communistic anymore since business is booming, and Donald Trump is finally talking tough and hitting the country's products with hefty tariffs.

Cuba expert Luis Carlos Battista at the Washington-based
Center for Democracy in the Americas cautioned that the acknowledgement of
private property did not mean the government wanted to give private enterprise
a greater role.

Of course. We get that this is a baby step. Most likely the Cuban government is taking the step because they fear military sanctions from Trump, the United States, and the rest of the Western World. I think it's worth noting that under President Trump's watch, North Korea has moved to denuclearize their weapons, China is forced to play fair (or at least fairer).

Now we have Cuba backing away from its communistic past. I don't think any of this would have happened under the weaker leadership of Crooked Hillary.

Earlier this week, he noted, the government published a set
of regulations tightening control on the self-employed and hiking possible
fines to include property confiscation.

According to Granma, the government commission revamping the
constitution will present its draft to the national assembly when it meets next
week. It will then be put to a national referendum, expected later this year.

A National Referendum? I bet that there are plenty of black market operations at work throughout Cuba, and there's nothing that the Cuban Communist Government can do to stop it.

The commission is headed by Castro, 87, who remains head of the
Communist Party.

Miguel Diaz-Canel

New President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who sits on the commission,
is also expected to announce his council of ministers at the assembly meeting.

This will be interesting.

Apart from introducing the position of prime minister,
dividing the roles of head of state and head of government, the new
constitution makes the president head of the assembly and imposes a term limit
on the presidency of two consecutive five-year periods.

Let's see if the people of Cuba remain vigilant enough to keep the powers that be honest to these promises. Again, once they get a taste of freedom, they will be less likely to tolerate any return to the statist authoritarianism of the Castro regimes.

Castro, who together with his older, late brother Fidel
Castro ruled the country for nearly 60 years, had proposed the limit in 2011,
as part of a bid to modernize the political system.