YPT are no strangers to communist, or socialist states, with nations such as North Korea, China, Vietnam and Venezuela coming to mine, but is in fact Nauru communist to a degree that it is the most left-wing state in the world?
YPT analyst the situation after our 2023 trip to the country.,
A brief history of Nauru
We will give a brief history of Nauru, quite simple because we have already written a longer one. Basically though, colony, colony, phosphates, independent in 1968 and briefly the richest country by GDP on the planet.
A sovereign wealth fund was created, people were employed by Air Nauru and the state and things were good. Sadly this status quo did not last with money not exactly being well managed.
Nauru became skint, the phosphates ran out and there really was no other industry on the island until they were adopted to host refugees for Australia in a fairly controversial scheme known as the Pacific Solution.
The Government system of Nauru
To ask if Nauru is Communist is to do so from an economic standpoint rather than a political one. There is of course no vanguard party and the country is s very functioning democracy.
Elections are held every 3 years for all of the constituencies with one guy getting elected President by parliament, although in a true Westminster System, he would be more of a Prime-Minister.
There is though very much democracy and a free press and all that jazz. Outside journalists are though less well thought of, particularly with their reporting of the past refugee issues within the country.
You can read about Socialist States here.
What is communist about Nauru?
The Nauru communist thing comes from deeds not words, for as Tyler Durden once said sticking feathers up your ass does not make youa chicken.
Nepal for example is dominated by communist parties, but is not that good at communist. The Nauru communist part comes from the fact that people for the most party receive a very generous living wage, big pensions, owns their own housing and generally do not really need to to work.
This is something very evident in all but a few fields, which we will delve into next.
The Nauru Socialist Sector
So, to analyze if Nauru is communist, or indeed socialist lets look at the public sector, which for an island of 13,000 people is huge. You have the hospitals which are free, many state run sectors and of course government agencies.
These include the new tourist administration, who are in charge of 125 people who come every year, as well as Nauru Airlines, a grate airline and one many people want to work for. These government jobs come with many perks…..
The Nauru Private Sector
Whilst nowhere near as important as the state run sector Nauru does have a vibrant private sector largely dominated by two groups. The first are the Chinese who make up ten percent of the country, but have almost all of the shops and the restaurants. I am not personally a fan of their style of Chinese food, but each and all to their own. One might even argue that without these immigrants Nauru would struggle
And then you have the local entrepreneurs which can largelly be boiled down to the Capeli Family. They own supermarkets, a hotel and have fingers in a bunch of other pies. Again fairly important to the local economy.
So, to sum things up, is Nauru communist? It depends on how you define the subject and while you will not find a hammer and sickle at every turn, there is enough politically that makes the Republic of Nauru not just unique, but one of the most interesting social experiments in the world.
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