On Castro

So, as I assume many of us know, Fidel Castro has finally kicked the bucket. Some people love him, some people hate him, I have very mixed views of him, but after analyzing his life, my views lean toward the negative.

As far as the positive stuff goes, I don't think he was wrong for overthrowing Batista. Batista was a puppet of our own American imperialism, and did a lot of great harm toward the Cuban people. I think that the outrage of what imperialism did to his country justified his opposition to capitalism, and I do think our own foreign policy is harmful and tends to make a lot of enemies we later have to deal with when they turn on us.

As for his governance, I think the Cubans got some good things out of it. Poverty is a lot lower than other nearby islands like where Haiti and the Dominican Republic are, and he established a pretty good healthcare system by third world standards.

However, my positive things to say end there. The guy was basically a tyrant. Let's be honest. He was a tyrant. He persecuted a lot of people he didn't like. He destroyed his country's economy in a lot of ways. In a lot of ways, reading into his administration, it reads like a list of what not to do for the most part. He squashed all business (even small businesses), denied people human rights, and honestly, I think he suppressed his economy's growth through his top down command economy approach.

I might be critical of capitalism, but most of what Castro did seems to be a mistake. I do believe in democracy and civil liberties. And despite my criticisms of capitalism I think that some elements of it are necessary to achieve the greatest good. I mean, the only forms of socialism I actually support are like worker coops acting within a market economy, after all. The command economy stuff isn't that great, it's actually quite harmful. I'm for mixed economies, not "communism" as tried in various countries around the world. There are way less heavy handed ways to achieve just as much as or more good than what Castro did.

That being said, my opinion of Castro is pretty mixed and nuanced. He did some good, he also did a lot of bad. I lean toward a negative view of him than a positive view of him. One thing I will say is I don't think he's among the worst dictators we've ever seen. I respect him more than Kim Jong Un and his family. I respect him slightly more than Pinochet. I respect him more than Hitler and Stalin. But that doesn't mean he isn't a tyrant or that much of what he did wasn't bad. I just think a nuanced view is necessary to really evaluate his life, and that American views on the guy are likely a bit hyperbolic, that's all.