英語リスニング - No.331 Cuba and Japan
Ben compares the economic systems of Cuba and Japan.
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英語リスニング - 本文
OK, I'd like to talkabout consumerism in capitalist and communist countries. I don't knowif anyone has actually noticed but Japan is very, what's the word, "consumerized."Everything is built for the consumer. You've got huge adverts, you'vegot talking trees, you've got people with microphones outside the shopscreaming "Ireshaimase" at everybody as they go past. Everythingis built for advertising, for consuming, for buying, for competing,for constantly making newer and better goods so people buy them. A completereverse of this is somewhere like Cuba, which is one of the last sortof communist states around, and probably the only place where communismhas actually worked. In Cuba everything is owned by the government sothere's no companies competing with each other for advertising space,sort of trying to out do each other, and driving prices up, everything'sdone by the government, any adverts are for the same products ownedby the same people. When I was living in Cuba we tried to explain howin a capitalist society, how consumerism would work, so I'd like togive you a quick example.
In Cuba there are manypeople selling really cheap orange juice on the street. Um, they makeit from like a, like a cordial, like a powder which they add water toand they dilute it and keep it cold and they sell it for the equivalentof about 10 yen a glass. Many people sell this. I tried to explain tomy host family, OK, if this was, if we wanted to sell this orange juicein the street, we would find out the supplier, buy all of it, and thenopen up shop charging three times the price as anyone else. No one wouldbe able to sell any because they couldn't naturally get a hold of it.The Cubans have no idea this would be a good idea. We received questionssuch as, "Why would you do that? But that would mean no one elsecould sell any. That would mean you would get all the money and no oneelse. We were like, "exactly!"