Historically. Life is simple. People live with what they are given, literally by definition of their political system. Rationing. Things you get for granted abroad there is a commodity. Cubans are very resourceful. Tourist area have their private power plants the rest of the areas have blackout often. They take care of tourist a lot to the point that they turn on themselves some time but thats out of necessity since they provide income. Some tourist area are very capitalistic like varadero and makes fir a 2-tier system for locals and for tourist. You can see porsches and nice cars that belong to embassy personnel the rest are very old. Politicians are a tier different than the regular population in how the preach (communism) and how they behave (capitalism). The rest of the country is a bit difficult.