You don't know José. I chose him out of a host of "guides," stalking tourists outside hotels in Havana for his complete and utter pitifulness. A godforsaken sole making a last stand for Communism totally against his will. I felt sorry for him. I told him point-blank that I wanted to understand how Communism works and love the sea. He was smart enough to start with the ocean and took us to see the Caribbean.
On the dilapidated promenade, he tried his best to explain how what apparently does not work works. We were making no progress. Exasperated, he sat down on a rusting piece of metal with the remanence of what used to be a beautiful city in the backdrop and tried a fresh approach.
"You want to understand Communism, let me tell you what communism is…" he charged ahead with renewed vigor. "Let's say I have two houses, and you have none. What do I do?" he asked and, without waiting for me to reply, said, "I give you one." "And if I have two cars and you none, what do I do?" this time, he paused for me to answer. "You give me one," I said. "Yes," he sounded cheerful for the first time since we met. "Now let's say I have two T-shirts, and you have none. What do I do?". "Give me one," I answered with confidence beginning to lose interest. His face lit up, and he gave me a big smile exposing a set of broken brown teeth. "NO," he almost shouted with excitement, "A shirt I will never give you!". "Why," I asked and saw in his sorry face a growing concern that, out of all the tourists who stepped out of the hotel this morning, his luck got him a dumb one. "Because a shirt I have!" he said and observed me closely as if to see if the medicine I was just administered would have the desired effect.
It took me a minute (you are welcome to yours), but I eventually got it. In Communism, sharing is saved for the non-existent. The meager possessions people actually do have are never shared.
In contrast to José, Jeff, I am sure you have heard off. He built Amazon, and we can safely say that he is filthy rich. If you want to understand Capitalism, Jeff is a great place to start. Borrowing from nature - if an ape had hoarded a vast amount of bananas while other apes around him were starving to death, scientists would have launched a study to explain how such behavior can evolve and be tolerated. When this happens with humans, we put the ape on the cover of Forbs.
Between José's explanation of Communism and Jeff's demonstration of Capitalism, the human race has frozen in time. They should either change the model or bring in new apes... in the meantime, take a banana, bananas I've got.
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