Recently, United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio harangued the government of Cuba for not making any effort at meaningful reform but instead ‘continuing to prioritise perpetuating their own total control over the Cuban people and their dogmatic adherence to their failed and morally bankrupt Marxist ideology’ (Daily Express, Trinidad & Tobago, 13/07/2026).
I also believe that Soviet-type Marxism/Leninism with its notions of creating ‘new socialist men’, and the organisational principle of ‘democratic centralism’ is inevitably dictatorial. And that something needs to be done to address the longstanding issue of autocracy/democracy in Cuba. But it should be done within the international rule-based system and not by the use or threat of force.
Similarly, the pervasiveness of unaccountable governance in Guyana has led to multiple voices demanding fundamental constitutional reforms that must go well beyond those that took place at the turn of this century if they are to be useful. One must attempt to go behind the reform process and locate the normal system of governance in a holistic macro vision of what is achievable, particularly in terms of the actual expansion of freedom and the equitable distribution of wealth. Here I will argue that both liberal democracy and Marxist/Leninism are morally bankrupt and that the restrictions contained in both approaches to governance need to be properly understood and successfully addressed.
In 2022, Oxfam reported that the 10 richest men had 6 times more wealth than the poorest 3.1 billion people on earth. According to one American study, workers are now over 400% more productive than they were 50 years ago but, adjusted for inflation, the weekly wages of the average American worker are lower than they were 50 years ago, while the incomes of CEOs are now nearly 400 times more than their employees’. (‘Given Enough Time, Capitalism Limits Freedom: Capitalism’s Unequal Distribution Deprives You of True Freedom’ Richard Wolff, LA Progressive, 09/08/2024)
Further, ‘While capitalism can provide opportunities, it does not guarantee freedom for all. The disparity in resources means that the wealthy enjoy far greater freedom to act, consume, and make life choices, whereas the majority face constraints due to limited access to capital and opportunities. … to say that capitalism makes each of you free ignores the reality that capitalism’s unequal distribution of wealth makes you unfree relative to the rich capitalists’ (Ibid).
Today, everywhere, the ever increasing environmentally unsustainable levels of production and consumption that are a hallmark of capitalism are being globally propagated as prerequisites for the good life. Indeed, in the near total absence of the kind of ‘soft power’ i.e. the rule of law, separation of powers, federalism, devolution, various forms of multiparty governance, independent social organisations, etc. available to liberal democracies, most autocratic governments, such as in Guyana’s, have nothing but material outcomes with which to placate their populations. It is assessed that even allowing for future scientific development generated by AI etc., it will take about 5, 2.5 and .7 earths for each of us to live the lifestyle of the average citizen of the USA, UK, and India respectively. It would be reckless to consider one’s constitutional future without some vision of how the global commons is to be successfully inclusively managed.
Particularly in Western Europe, efforts are made to balance market freedom with government intervention to protect workers, prevent monopolies, ensure public welfare, and promote environmental sustainability. Progress? Yes, but the struggle for human liberation does not end with ‘regulated capitalism’.
A few weeks ago, on one of his podcasts, USA’s socialist-orientated Senator Bernie Sanders suggested that since work is an important aspect of the human condition and AI is about to take away most of our jobs, it is likely to have a deleterious effect upon the human personality. This is a common belief that is rampant among the political elites in Guyana, but this is so because it fails to properly differentiate between ‘labour’ and ‘work’. AI is destined to be a major contributor to the development of ‘human freedom.’
‘Just as the savage must wrestle with nature in order to satisfy his wants, in order to maintain his life and reproduce it, so civilised man has to do it, and he must do it in all forms of society and under all possible modes of production.’ However, unlike other animals, humans do not only produce under pressure of immediate physical needs: ‘man produces even when he is free from physical needs and only truly produces in freedom therefrom.’ And herein ‘begins the development of human power, which is its own end, the true realm of freedom. The shortening of the working day is its fundamental prerequisite’ (Karl Marx, Das Capital. 1909).
Studies have generally found that both productivity and workers’ satisfaction improve with the introduction of shorter working hours. A USA study assessed that 35 million workers – 28% of the total workforce – could have a four-day workweek within a decade due to AI-led productivity gains. And as part of the reforms mentioned above, the Netherlands has a working week of 26.8–29 hours and Norway, 27-34 hours. A recent four-day week pilot program of 3,000 workers at over 60 companies in the United Kingdom showed that over 70% of workers reported greater satisfaction with their time and feeling less burnt out, while participating businesses saw a 35% average increase in revenue.
Notwithstanding his initial position, as Chairman of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Senator Sanders has brought to the US Congress a Thirty-Two-Hour Workweek Act to reduce the official work week in the USA from 40 to 32 hours. (www.sanders.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/32-Hour-Workweek-Act_Fact-Sheet_FINAL.pdf)
But democracy is freedom in any social setting and while political freedom in liberal democracies is much more expansive than in autocratic states largely because of the former’s ‘soft power’, democracy is absent in the economic sphere. Wolff noted that ‘the lack of democracy inside workplaces or enterprises is both a cause and an effect of capitalism’s unequal distribution of income and wealth’. And I dare say the unequal distribution of freedom.
Perhaps we need to differentiate between autocracies. Most of them are run-of-the-mill dictatorships in which the state is captured by political elites that are empowering and enriching themselves. Where elections are held – which these days is almost everywhere – they are merely camouflage.
But the Cuban and Chinese autocratic variety is somewhat different. Their official statements suggest that they still are socialist-orientated, seeking after the welfare of their people, although they have had to adopt to survive in the market- orientated global order. Indeed, China was enthusiastically encouraged to join The World Trade Organisation in the hope that it would gradually ascend/descend into the liberal democratic mould.
Just as ‘the true realm of freedom’ will only materialise in liberal democracies when the economic systems are democratised, it will only be realised in the socialist autocracies when the political systems are democratised. However, in recent times, the capitalists have been able to amass so much wealth and power, that given the political will and the existing power relations in both types of countries democratisation might prove easier to accomplish in the existing communist societies.
We live in the 21st century and if the available constitutional and other checks and balances are sensibly utilised, the future of freedom and a good life do not depend upon unbridled capitalism or a one-party state.
