The question of who "benefits" in a socialist economy is kind of a hard one for me to wrap by brain around. Who really does benefit? After some thought, my immediate reaction is to say that no one benefits, but that's almost never the case. For a group of people to enact any specific kind of economy, there must be some people or group of people that ultimately benefit. In this case specifically, I would argue that the people who are actively partaking in the economy and its money movement are the ones who suffer, sometimes unknowingly, the most. This leaves the pressing question though, who benefits? If it isn't the everyday people, would it not have to be the government? When thinking in terms of revenue and profit, they might not be financially getting a large advantage/benefit, but they have created a dependency on the government which will therefore benefit them.
From what I understood of their travels, the economy in a socialist society depends almost entirely on the government. The food, specifically, stuck out to me. How is it that a variety of government owned restaurants make the same 20 meals? It's because all of the restaurants are dependent on the government's limited supply of the food to make the meals. Cuba as a whole was the hardest pill for me to swallow. The lack of signage on businesses, the hotels, the food, everything had little to no purpose. Growing up in the United States, we live in an economy where change and improvement is the constant goal, so seeing an economy work so vastly different from ours was a shock. How is it that the people working and living in this economy don't desire to make it better? Is it a blissful ignorance? Is it laziness? How are they okay with the economy that surrounds them?
One thing that intrigues me about this idea is their work ethic. Here, you work for just about everything. You work your way through primary school to set yourself up with the best opportunities in secondary school which you then work hard in to set yourself up for the best career possible. Once you've started your career, you are on this never ending path to improve your life, whatever that means for you. With that idea in mind, where does their drive for everyday life and success come from? This idea of constant improvement in economy is expected in the United States, but also then transfers to every aspect of our lives because that is what's taught to us. This thought, I believe, plays largely into the continued lack of success in Cuba specifically. Their lack of drive/care for the economy stimulates a lack of drive/care in their everyday lives as well.
In summary, I don't know that I truly believe there to be a beneficiary in a socialist society, but if I were to choose one, it would be the government. The lack of societal drive has created a large dependency on the government which then proceeds to snowball and create more and more dependency.
