The Family Farm
POSTED BY: AnthonyT
UPDATED: Monday, September 19, 2011 23:24
VIEWED: 2704
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Hello,
My grandfather on my mother's side was a kind of policeman. He enforced the laws in his community. His job included making sure the butcher kept his scales set correctly and the milk-man didn't add water to the milk. The butcher would consequently offer him free meat if the scales could be overlooked, and the milk-man would offer free milk if the watering could be overlooked. He lived a life without free meat and milk.
But this is not his story.
This is the story of my gradfather on my father's side. He worked for the sugarcane company. He was a welder. I do not know if modern production factories or food refineries need a welder on hand, but this one did. During sugarcane processing season, my grandfather had weekly employment at the company.
Back in those days, places like sugarcane factories/refineries had entire towns pop up around them. Company towns. Some basic housing would be provided by the company. There'd be a company store of some kind to provide for the worker's needs. It wasn't the only store in the area but it was the only store in town at first. One may imagine that until closer competition cropped up, the situation may not have been entirely equitable for the workers in the company town.
Housing was basic, and one was expected to pay something to the company for using it. This didn't leave a lot left. By the standards of modern society, you would consider the occupants of this company town to be somewhat poor. The employees got by, but they didn't really propsper. It was enough to live on and not much else... and sometimes it wasn't quite enough to live on.
The sugarcane factory wasn't a year-long concern. It only operated when the cane was in season. There was more than one harvest of sugarcane per year, but even so there were periods when no cane was being harvested, planted, or processed. During these times, the occupants of the company town had to find ways to get by. Many people took second jobs. My grandfather was one such person. He worked odd jobs during the off-season. He was always working. There wasn't always need of a welder. Sometimes he would wash dishes at a restaurant in a big town far away. Whatever it took to feed the family. Living happened under a thin margin of success. Somewhere within that margin, he managed to save a little bit of money.
There was a railroad that operated in the region of the sugarcane factory. I've never been clear on whether the railroad owned the factory or whether the factory owned the railroad. Either way, the entity of the factory and the railroad owned most of the land around the site. From time to time, land would become available for sale. Perhaps this was another revenue generation stream of the company. I'm not sure what their motivation was, but they sold land to their workers. These workers would no longer be living in company housing. They'd own a piece of land of their own. In the long run, this provided quite a savings.
How much land? A lot of it, by modern city standards. Maybe a whole acre. How big is an acre? Almost a whole football field. Almost, but not quite.
When my grandfather saved up enough money, he was able to buy one of these plots. It was a big deal. Of course, it was just a plot of land. Unimproved, as they say in the Real Estate business. He built a house on that land with some help from his brothers. The materials were haphazard. Pieces of rail, pieces of discarded wood. He acquired a cement block mold, which was a big deal. Whenever he had some extra money, he could buy some cement, mix it up, and pour it into the mold and make blocks. A few at a time. Over weeks. Over months.
Plumbing was an improvised business, but he eventually managed it. It didn't come all at once. It took years. He had to get pipe. He hat to dig a well. He had to buy a pump. A hand pump. He had to build a tank and position it on the roof. My father remembers the morning routine at this house. He'd go out in the morni
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"Now they all had the least possible- the government mandated minimum guarantee."
Please note that this is not a result of failure of the idea - it is a result of a very large and powerful country nearby making a concerted effort to grind a small poor and powerless country down for business reasons. It is official US policy.
That is a vital part of the narrative you left out. One can only speculate how things would have been different without that 50-year effort by the US, which continues to this day.
Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?
Yeah, me neither....
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Perhaps he should get a girlfriend.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
"Now they all had the least possible- the government mandated minimum guarantee."
Please note that this is not a result of failure of the idea - it is a result of a very large and powerful country nearby making a concerted effort to grind a small poor and powerless country down for business reasons. It is official US policy.
That is a vital part of the narrative you left out. One can only speculate how things would have been different without that 50-year effort by the US, which continues to this day.
Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?
Yeah, me neither....
Hello,
The U.S. restrictions on travel and trade with Cuba have been incredibly hurtful to the people of Cuba. However, they do not stand alone as failures of the system.
--Anthony
_______________________________________________
"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner
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Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Perhaps he should get a girlfriend.
That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.
Hello,
I do not understand this comment.
--Anthony
_______________________________________________
"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner
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The Soviet Union was strong enough and far enough away from the U.S. that no such embargo could be enforced. It's likely that the Soviets did do better than Cuba because of this, and the GDP was higher in 1989 than the US, and the USSR had more laborers put to work than the US.
Yet because of corruption that happened among local party planner liaisons, often goods and services were in short supply. Only the rich members of the inner party could be said to live comfortably and securely, using the GNP of the Union for imports, an arms race, and to fund other cultural revolutions. Eventually a secondary underground economy began to take form due to the average citizen having difficulty securing goods needed to make ends met, and the economy was decentralized in 1965 out of necessity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1965_Soviet_economic_reform
A similar problem can be found in China.
This is not to say that capitalism is good or planned or socialized economies are all bad - the idea was invented with good intentions. The problem comes in with giving only certain individuals the power to determine the course of that economy. (Which of course is a problem that exists in capitalism as well)
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
The Soviet Union was strong enough and far enough away from the U.S. that no such embargo could be enforced. It's likely that the Soviets did do better than Cuba because of this, and the GDP was higher in 1989 than the US, and the USSR had more laborers put to work than the US.
Yet because of corruption that happened among local party planner liaisons, often goods and services were in short supply. Only the rich members of the inner party could be said to live comfortably and securely, using the GNP of the Union for imports, an arms race, and to fund other cultural revolutions. Eventually a secondary underground economy began to take form due to the average citizen having difficulty securing goods needed to make ends met, and the economy was decentralized in 1965 out of necessity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1965_Soviet_economic_reform
A similar problem can be found in China.
This is not to say that capitalism is good or planned or socialized economies are all bad - the idea was invented with good intentions. The problem comes in with giving only certain individuals the power to determine the course of that economy. (Which of course is a problem that exists in capitalism as well)
Hello,
An astute observation, Byte. It is notable that there are still some rich fat-cats in Cuba, either in government or in close association with government bigwigs. And there is still a black market for the acquisition of goods outside the official economy.
Corruption in government, Incompetence in government, and a failure to represent the needs and desires of the citizenry appear to be common themes of failure in any system of government.
I must imagine that if the hero of the revolution had been a benevolent man, things would have worked out much better from the start.
However, he was not benevolent. And even when he tried to help, he enacted reforms based on ideology rather than information, and made a series of disastrous choices that thoroughly screwed over the citizenry in the long run. Had he made choices with the informed input and consent of the citizenry rather than arbitrarily made decisions based on what he knew to be best in his heart, the people would have fared far better.
--Anthony
_______________________________________________
"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner
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I may not have read this closely enough because I was not expecting what appears to me to be an immigrant success story. I was expecting to see something that explained to me your obsession with Freedom, and specifically how it seems to be threatened almost daily.
"My grandparents retired, eventually. They owned their home free and clear. They owned their car free and clear. There were two fruit trees in the back yard, but they were there for pleasure, not survival. My grandfather had a quarter of a million dollars in the bank when he retired, invested in rotating certificates of deposit."
It ends "worse" for a lot of people, especially given from where your very resourceful grandfather started from.
Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com
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Well, it certainly explains why Tony is so interested in protecting the wealthy.
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Quote:
Originally posted by pizmobeach:
I may not have read this closely enough because I was not expecting what appears to me to be an immigrant success story. I was expecting to see something that explained to me your obsession with Freedom, and specifically how it seems to be threatened almost daily.
"My grandparents retired, eventually. They owned their home free and clear. They owned their car free and clear. There were two fruit trees in the back yard, but they were there for pleasure, not survival. My grandfather had a quarter of a million dollars in the bank when he retired, invested in rotating certificates of deposit."
It ends "worse" for a lot of people, especially given from where your very resourceful grandfather started from.
Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com
Hello,
Success did not come to everyone who came over from Cuba. However, the Cuban immigration experience is among the most successful I know of in recent history. There are, of course, destitute Cuban Americans who live lives no better than what they had in the old country.
I think the success of the Cuban immigration experience stemmed from the fact that the community held strong bonds of mutual support, even outside of families.
For those still in Cuba, they have had an interesting experience with the concept of Freedom.
They went from an oppressive, corrupt capitalist society that ground them down to an oppressive, corrupt communist society that ground them down. I could go into some detail about the lack of freedoms in Cuba, but suffice to say that you can and will be harassed/imprisoned/killed for saying the wrong thing. The government network is insinuated deeply into every neighborhood, where one of your neighbors is an official government snitch, and any number are unofficial snitches.
If ten people meet to talk about something, there is government interest in what is being said.
The Cuban experience in Cuba has been the experience of having a parade of leaders who take turns screwing you over.
The experience in the United States, while far from perfect, has been a substantial improvement in almost every quarter.
But the idea that you can lose your freedom is not an abstract concept to Cuban immigrants and their descendants. It is History, and History informs the Future. There is constant vigilance and concern.
It is not forgotten that in the old days, when it was capitalism that ground down the people, such capitalism was informed by U.S. interests and policies. That oppression is not forgotten.
And it is not forgotten the oppression that followed. The one the people invited upon themselves with open arms and cheers of revelry. A revolution and reformation that was worse than anything they had experienced prior.
Freedom is threatened daily. The only thing that changes from person to person is how you react to it, and how much you let it worry you. For some people, it is a faraway concern that will sort itself out. For others, the threat feels like a personal presence. The shadow of yesterday threatening your current life.
--Anthony
_______________________________________________
"In every war, the state enacts a tax of freedom upon the citizenry. The unspoken promise is that the tax shall be revoked at war's end. Endless war holds no such promise. Hence, Eternal War is Eternal Slavery." --Admiral Robert J. Henner
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