[omegaword]

Methinks the Castro regime would not survive today if the US embargo had been lifted 50 years ago with "free trade" serving as a corrupting influence on the Communist regime. China used to be communist; when they were able to trade freely with the USA, they became a single party Capitalist system instead.

The reason that china went capitalist is that in his death theirs Mao decided to try to regain some influence with policies which destroyed the economy and killed millions. At the time it had nothing to do with greed, but any progress that had been made economically in china had to be rebuilt quickly, so they initiated capitalist reforms similar in principle to lenins nep.

[Oakwood]

@Oakwood

I'm just reporting what has been observed in all similar cases. You can argue against that but then you're apparently arguing against human nature. Perhaps Cuba will be the exception, but it probably won't. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Cuba should remain communist, just that there will be some downsides to going capitalist.

That's fair enough - we just have to remember to question the validity of certain reports and observations. Most of the time I don't even like hearing facts and figures that support my own viewpoints. With regard to your last sentence, I would say yes, exploitation is one of the major downsides of capitalism.