Marx and Cuba

In Philosophy class on friday we started to discuss Marxism and communism in general. This week has really made me think about government systems. Marx ideas are extremely interesting and tempting, but flawed in that I don’t think he accounts for human’s ambitions and human’s craving for advancement personally and professionally. I traveled to Cuba last year and saw first hand a country with marxist ideas. My Political Thought teacher this week conveniently started teaching Karl’s Marx and asked a interesting question. Karl’s Marx believed that we need civil servants, people that actually want to do there job for the good, and not because of a money incentive. He posed the question, is it possible to have civil servants?

In Cuba I stayed with a doctor who had chosen his career because he wanted to help his people and not because of the money. In Cuba doctors get paid the same amount of money as any other public worker would. Some jobs working for the government give you more than others, but not much. Their pay checks are just enough to pay rent and buy enough food to live. Some Cubans don’t go to college and get jobs as taxi drivers or bartenders because you can make more money than being a engineer or doctor and you need no education. He explained to me that this was becoming a big problem for their country, because there was a shortage of young Cubans wanting to take important cilvil service jobs. Marx creates a perfect environment for the creation of civil servants but his system will not satisfy the people forever. With the recent introduction of internet to Cuba the Cuban people are finally able to read about what life is like outside a communist state. Cuban students that we met traveling talked about wanting another revolution and wanting their country to become democratic. Will their words ever become actions I don’t know, but with the recent revolutions it does not seem to far fetched.