Are you familiar with what a primary election is? In the electoral process here in the US, one where there is “democracy”, the parties have primary elections and then each put forward a candidate for the general. You can call the primary “intraparty competition” and the general “interparty competition” in this case.
In the upper offices (I think Cuba, like most AES states, is tolerant of other parties in lower offices), there is no interparty competition, so the election that decides the winner, the equivalent of the general in the US, is intraparty.
For all intents and purposes, this is mainly a difference on a formal level. In either case, you have a collection of candidates and you vote on them. If you want to run for a high office in China, say, and we are imagining everyone had to be a member of the one party, just join the Communist Party of China and engage in intraparty competition with the other Communist Party members.
It’s more complicated in Cuba, but it’s more complicated in the direction of being more permissive.
A much more substantial argument is required to make a plausible case that there is anything wrong with a process like this. Are you worried that the Communist Party of China in that earlier hypothetical won’t let you join or run under them and you want the freedom to make your own party? First of all, that’s absurdly idealist to claim is substantially different – if you look at the US senate, the only third parties that are tolerated (a single independent and a single libertarian) are comfortably within the D and R voting blocs, respectively, and do not in any way represent a substantial political force, just empty gestures at being peace doves.
Secondly, I will repeat to you that even this distinction is basically just one of procedure. What parties have rights and what gets you on watchlists or having a tank drive up to your house is not in the jurisdiction of a single party’s arbitrary will, correct (except on the state level, where that often is exactly the case), it is in the jurisdiction of the arbitrary will of two parties that mostly agree with each other except on culture war issues and as a matter of cynical opportunism. There is still no useful difference established here between having one party and two.
I will furthermore say that the basic type of entity that the Communist Party of Cuba is – as an organ of the government itself – should be much more agreeable even to a left-ish liberal than the DNC and the RNC, because those two groups are private entities for who don’t answer to anyone! So much of US politics is not just controlled by private entities (by merit of campaign finance, etc.) but the entire goddam platform consists of private entities! Do you know why those interparty debates that the circus of election coverage pivoted on stopped happening? Those were also run by a private entity that just decided not to because negotiations broke down. It’s pathetic, and don’t get me started on how the DNC just skipped the primary process this time because they won’t accept Joe being replaced.
Anyway, this is all very separate from the conditions in Cuba, but that’s because most of the objections people make are grounded in hazy generalities that don’t even hold together internally, much less survive contact with the target of their criticism. I’ll let other people who are more educated on Cuba itself handle those aspects, which I admit are somewhat more important.
Are you familiar with what a primary election is? In the electoral process here in the US, one where there is “democracy”, the parties have primary elections and then each put forward a candidate for the general. You can call the primary “intraparty competition” and the general “interparty competition” in this case.
In the upper offices (I think Cuba, like most AES states, is tolerant of other parties in lower offices), there is no interparty competition, so the election that decides the winner, the equivalent of the general in the US, is intraparty.
For all intents and purposes, this is mainly a difference on a formal level. In either case, you have a collection of candidates and you vote on them. If you want to run for a high office in China, say, and we are imagining everyone had to be a member of the one party, just join the Communist Party of China and engage in intraparty competition with the other Communist Party members.
It’s more complicated in Cuba, but it’s more complicated in the direction of being more permissive.
A much more substantial argument is required to make a plausible case that there is anything wrong with a process like this. Are you worried that the Communist Party of China in that earlier hypothetical won’t let you join or run under them and you want the freedom to make your own party? First of all, that’s absurdly idealist to claim is substantially different – if you look at the US senate, the only third parties that are tolerated (a single independent and a single libertarian) are comfortably within the D and R voting blocs, respectively, and do not in any way represent a substantial political force, just empty gestures at being peace doves.
Secondly, I will repeat to you that even this distinction is basically just one of procedure. What parties have rights and what gets you on watchlists or having a tank drive up to your house is not in the jurisdiction of a single party’s arbitrary will, correct (except on the state level, where that often is exactly the case), it is in the jurisdiction of the arbitrary will of two parties that mostly agree with each other except on culture war issues and as a matter of cynical opportunism. There is still no useful difference established here between having one party and two.
I will furthermore say that the basic type of entity that the Communist Party of Cuba is – as an organ of the government itself – should be much more agreeable even to a left-ish liberal than the DNC and the RNC, because those two groups are private entities for who don’t answer to anyone! So much of US politics is not just controlled by private entities (by merit of campaign finance, etc.) but the entire goddam platform consists of private entities! Do you know why those interparty debates that the circus of election coverage pivoted on stopped happening? Those were also run by a private entity that just decided not to because negotiations broke down. It’s pathetic, and don’t get me started on how the DNC just skipped the primary process this time because they won’t accept Joe being replaced.
Anyway, this is all very separate from the conditions in Cuba, but that’s because most of the objections people make are grounded in hazy generalities that don’t even hold together internally, much less survive contact with the target of their criticism. I’ll let other people who are more educated on Cuba itself handle those aspects, which I admit are somewhat more important.
GOOD post, comrade