Object Lesson: Cuba

Can the U.S. learn anything from Castro's Cuba?

Yes, says Nicholas Von Hoffman. In a short piece in The Nation, the old lefty stalwart compares and contrasts the fates of Cuba and North Korea after the demise of the Soviet Union. As the Eastern Bloc fell apart, both countries were left politically isolated and petroleum-starved.

In response, North Korea turned to pillaging its natural resources, burning biomass and neglecting its soils until the populace starved and the country collapsed. Cuba was a different story. As discussed in previous posts, the island nation reinvented itself, turning to small-scale organic agriculture and ultimately becoming self-sufficient -- a country that feeds itself.

With the world's petroleum reserves dwindling, these examples should serve as lessons to us, argues Von Hoffman. To wit:

As the age of oil ends, a society that clings to the social and economic institutions and practices of the early twenty-first century will go the way of North Korea. The lesson to be learned from these two Communist states is change or die.