"Capitalism is using its money; we socialists throw it away"
About this Quote
A startling confession from a revolutionary leader who built his legitimacy on rejecting capitalism, the line pivots on irony to expose a practical problem. Capitalism, he suggests, treats money as an instrument, disciplines it, and expects returns. Socialism, at least as practiced in Cuba, too often behaved as if money were an inexhaustible public good, disconnected from responsibility and consequence. The remark cuts through ideology to reach incentives: when enterprises are shielded from loss, when price signals are blurred, and when ownership is collective but accountability is thin, waste creeps in.
The background is decades of Cuban experiments with central planning, mass mobilization, and moral incentives. After the revolution promised a rational and humane economy, reality brought stubborn bottlenecks: the failed 1970 ten-million-ton sugar harvest, chronic shortages, and bureaucracy that multiplied forms rather than productivity. Even during years cushioned by Soviet aid and favorable sugar prices, Castro frequently lambasted inefficiency, theft, and what he called bureaucratism. His mid-1980s Rectification campaign was an explicit attempt to confront habits of waste and mismanagement without abandoning socialist goals.
The sentence functions as rhetorical jujitsu. By conceding a capitalist advantage in the use of capital, he frames a call to reform socialist practice: tighten control, demand results, align incentives, and cultivate a culture of care for public resources. It is also a warning. Socialism claims the moral high ground, but squandering scarce resources erodes public faith and hands opponents their strongest argument. After the Soviet collapse plunged Cuba into the Special Period, the point became urgent: without external subsidies, every peso mishandled carried real human costs.
Underlying the quip is a sober recognition that systems are judged not only by ideals but by their capacity to organize scarcity. Treat money as nobody’s money, and it disappears. Treat it as a tool for collective ends, with responsibility attached, and it can sustain the very social aims that justify the system in the first place.
The background is decades of Cuban experiments with central planning, mass mobilization, and moral incentives. After the revolution promised a rational and humane economy, reality brought stubborn bottlenecks: the failed 1970 ten-million-ton sugar harvest, chronic shortages, and bureaucracy that multiplied forms rather than productivity. Even during years cushioned by Soviet aid and favorable sugar prices, Castro frequently lambasted inefficiency, theft, and what he called bureaucratism. His mid-1980s Rectification campaign was an explicit attempt to confront habits of waste and mismanagement without abandoning socialist goals.
The sentence functions as rhetorical jujitsu. By conceding a capitalist advantage in the use of capital, he frames a call to reform socialist practice: tighten control, demand results, align incentives, and cultivate a culture of care for public resources. It is also a warning. Socialism claims the moral high ground, but squandering scarce resources erodes public faith and hands opponents their strongest argument. After the Soviet collapse plunged Cuba into the Special Period, the point became urgent: without external subsidies, every peso mishandled carried real human costs.
Underlying the quip is a sober recognition that systems are judged not only by ideals but by their capacity to organize scarcity. Treat money as nobody’s money, and it disappears. Treat it as a tool for collective ends, with responsibility attached, and it can sustain the very social aims that justify the system in the first place.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
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