Well, we here in the Northeast US are snowed in today. Thankfully, my work decided to close for the day... They told us as last minute as possible. Last week in class I was asked to assemble some statistics for us: the literacy rate of a capitalist nation and a socialist nation. Now, while I technically don't believe there are any socialist nations, even if they call themselves that, I'm just going to play ball for right now. In this case, our capitalist nation will be home sweet home, the United States of America and our socialist country will be our friends to the south -- Cuba! You may have heard that relations between our nations thawed lately. Some on the Left were concerned this would impact the number of former American radicals who had fled to Cuba after state repression in the 1970s and 1980s (notably former Black Panther Assata Shakur).
Anyways, those statistics (taken from our friends at the CIA):
The United States of America - 99%
The Republic of Cuba - 99.8%
Additionally, it is probably worth noting that according to this infographic, the United States achieves 99% literacy with $7,743 spent per child annually. Meanwhile, this one shows that Cuba achieves their with only $834 per capita spent on each student. Education takes up 12% of their GDP. For the US it is 5.4% of its GDP.
The more you know.
thanks for playing along Cam :). Yes, there are no truly socialist nations but we should recognize that there are also no truly capitalist nations where the economy and distribution of goods is solely determined by free market forces.
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