Cuba announces pilot program leasing state restaurants to employees’ independent management

Rent is different from a service.

With rent all you're doing is paying someone to continue holding power over you.

Rent is inherently anti-socialist.

Though Marx did advocate it modern socialists (particularly libertarian socialists) are against it.

I would assume any excess funds above and beyond property maintenance would go to the public treasury. So it is almost more like a tax than rent.

Isn't that a lot better than individual fat cat landlords making a profit off of your need to live and work somewhere?

I can understand a tax, but rent?

I agree it's better that the state is taking the rent, but it's still rent-seeking!

Tax is assessed after deduction of both fixed and variable costs.

"As a socialist I abhor charging rent to the people" ? Does that mean that all private accommodation should be free too ? If so who would build the properties and what funds would they use to do so bearing in mind no subsequent reimbursement of those funds ?

This is distinct from "rent" in that things like cleaning, maintenance, washing linens, taking out garbage do come at a cost. However, the "upkeep charge" should be variable, so that if someone is getting private accommodation and they're washing their linens and taking out their own trash, and indeed, if they leave the private accommodation just as they received it, they should be charged almost nothing (perhaps the cost of water and electrical use; but if it's solar powered and from a well and the "owner" has no cost, it would be negligible).

As far as "who will build stuff" that's simple. Rent takes about a third of my paycheck every month. If I didn't have to pay it within a few years I could literally afford to buy all the materials to build my own house. It also is extended a bit because as far as socialism is concerned wage slavery wouldn't exist, either. So for every input of labor you're getting the full product of that labor and it's not going to a company or a CEO or owner who runs that company and gets paid more.

It's simple math, really. If you wish I can do a breakdown in real world terms (I work construction) and show you how without rent and wage slavery the cost of a house is comparably low. With very low interest banks (1% or under), it becomes actual socialism as opposed to what Cuba has had for so long (which was more a state monopoly capitalism).

Cuba was doing it right in that they did not charge rent for a long time there. The fact that they're returning to it shows a true failure of the revolution.