Of course it can. Cuba is an island nation and relies on trade to acquire the vast majority of the goods those of us in the West take for granted. Block that trade and you basically stifle all economic growth.

From wikipedia:

>>Cuba produces sugarcane, tobacco, citrus, coffee, rice, potatoes, beans and livestock.[2] As of 2015 Cuba imported about 70-80% of its food.[51] and 80-84% of the food it rations to the public.[52] Raúl Castro ridiculed the bureaucracy that shackled the agriculture sector.[52] Before 1959, Cuba boasted as many cattle as people. Today meat is so scarce that it is a crime to kill a cow without government permission.[53] Cuban people suffered from starvation during the Special Period.[29]

Hacker News is not the place for fighting political battles, which this account has been doing much of. We have to ban accounts that post primarily this way, so please stop.

Fair enough. Can I at least suggest, though, that if you don't want political fights going on at HN it would be a good idea to swiftly remove "stories" such as this one that are purely political and are guaranteed to bring out every ax-grinder on the Internet in the comments?

China

China had to abandon the economics of Communism in order to produce an economic boom finally after decades of extreme failure. They had to adopt systems of the market economy: private property, stock exchanges & stock ownership, real estate ownership, privatization of the means of production, wealth accumulation, business formation, etc. etc.

They hold on to the politics of the Communist party dictatorship as a means to continue their power and wealth extraction (China's political elites are by far the wealthiest politicians on earth, they make the US Congress look like paupers).

Trying to apply communist ideology directly in China led to famines nearly as deadly as a decade and a half of war, both civil and against the Japanese.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine

If Cuba had a capitalist economy the result would be the same. Or do you believe that capitalism has the ability to generate essential goods out of thin air?