Atlas / Comparisons / Castroism vs American Fusionist Conservatism
Castroism and American Fusionist Conservatism
Measured distance across six axes
Opposite ends of the recorded space. They agree within three points on ID. They diverge by eight points or more on EC, AU, SC, CH.
Axis by axis
| Axis | Cuban Communism | Buckley, Meyer | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | −09 | +08 | 17 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| CU · Social and cultural order | −01 | +06 | 7 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| AU · Organisation of power | +09 | −04 | 13 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| SC · Scale of decision | +09 | −04 | 13 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| ID · Rule of membership | 00 | +03 | 3 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
| CH · Method and tempo | +07 | −06 | 13 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →
The evidence behind the widest gaps
A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.
Cuban Communism · EC −09
Coded −9: state ownership of nearly all production with limited private licences since 2011.
- Documented act or statuteAround 500 categories of self-employment were legalised from 2011 and expanded in 2021.
Buckley, Meyer · EC +08
Coded +8: free markets treated as morally rather than merely technically superior.
- Programme textFrank Meyer's In Defense of Freedom argues liberty is the political precondition of virtue.
Cuban Communism · AU +09
Coded +9: a single legal party with no competing candidates.
- Documented act or statuteThe constitution names the Communist Party the superior guiding force of society and the state.
Buckley, Meyer · AU −04
Coded −4: constitutional originalism and limited federal power.
- Documented act or statuteThe Federalist Society, founded 1982, made originalism the movement's judicial method.
What this comparison does not establish
Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.
Castroism
1959– · Cuba
Anti-imperial national sovereignty plus socialist transformation, led by a guerrilla-derived party-state.
American Fusionist Conservatism
1955–2000 · United States
Free markets, traditional morality and anti-communism fused into one movement; liberty as the political means to a virtuous end.
Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.
Open in the atlas