They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin Amer... — Fidel Castro

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

Author: Fidel Castro

Insight: This question hits at something most of us never get asked to think clearly about: when we judge an economic system as failed or successful, are we actually measuring the same thing? Castro's point isn't defending socialism so much as asking why we hold different standards. Capitalism has dominated Africa, Asia, and Latin America for centuries—through colonialism, trade deals, foreign investment, extraction of resources—yet poverty and inequality remain stubbornly entrenched in much of the world. Yet we rarely hear it called a "failure" the way we discuss failed socialist experiments. The real insight is about visibility and narrative. A centrally planned economy that collapses is obvious, undeniable, a clear target. But an economic system that enriches distant shareholders while local populations struggle? That gets explained away as "not enough capitalism yet" or "bad governance" or "insufficient development"—never as a flaw in the system itself. We're more willing to declare socialism dead after a few decades than to seriously question why capitalism, given centuries and global dominance, hasn't lifted billions out of hardship. This doesn't settle which system works better. But it does reveal how we tend to keep score: we blame systems we're skeptical of for their worst outcomes, while blaming circumstances or corruption when systems we accept produce similar results.