None of those things should be illegal. It is really annoying to see how a leader class kills people of hunger and make everything illegal so that now everyone is a criminal for trying to survive.
What I've seen is this: Those who have access to tourists or to the government are rich. Corruption is rampant as I've seen people bribing police right at the airport to have their things sorted out.
The mainstream corruption in society revolves around casa particulars and taxis. Essentially, you have right to rent a room and you have right to ride a taxi but there are strict limits on how much you can do it. So what more entrepreneurial people do? Simply distribute the business ownership to their friends and relatives on paper and keep growing and running their enterprises.
Also, there are two different types of shops and businesses: Locals only shops, locals only restaurants, locals only buses that are at very poor quality and I believe they are free or heavily subsidised and there are better quality versions that have prices similar to the European countries(prices way beyond a person with a salary can afford). So who do you think eats at these expensive restaurants? Yes, tourists - but also people who have access to tourists and people who work for the government.
One day a wandered around my casa particular in Havana and ended up in a place with very nice houses quite close to governmental buildings. I took some photos, enjoyed the place and ate at a restaurant. Then I noticed that the restaurant got very busy with military personel and well dressed people. Those were definitely not tourists, those were people from the nearby governmental buildings having a dinner after work.
Very interesting experience overall. Almost completely positive, full of life lessons about so many things including classes in the society where they are not supposed to exists. I'm also convinced that consumerism is not the only way to a happy life and abundance and excess are not necessarily the answer. The first week was hard, the second week I was completely happy to have only 2 options for beer and 1 option for chocolate.
Because I didn't know and maybe I should. I spent half my life unaware of the origin of "capitalism".
In the early 20th century, "consumerism" was supposedly used to mean something like "consumer protection".
But in the mid 20th century, it was apparently adopted as a preferred term to "capitalism" in order to contrast Western economies with communism.
Then, by the 60s or so, it morphed into something like the modern sense of "a policy of encouraging consumption".
In order to raise our lives level there were previous savings that were reinvested in process improvement, which eventually kept raising our life standards. Capitalism is exactly about that: same product at better price or higher quality products.
We humans always try (yes, left wing people also!) to buy at the lowest price and sell at the highest price (in general terms). That is why competition is good, because it does not let business abuse a monopolistic position and the prices drop.
People try to associate excessive consumption to capitalism. I do not think it is a trait of capitalism per se.
From what I read, consumerism did not have the negative connotation mid-century, whereas capitalism did.
I don't know how it happened, but seemingly "consumerism" acquired a similarly negative connotation, which is a Sisyphean cycle with euphemisms.
As I understand it, "capitalism" was an invention of the writers of the Communist Manifesto, while ironically "communism" was not. When a concept is developed purely for oppositional purposes, it can and often does attract people to defend it.
But in some sense, I feel like it doesn't really exist due to its origin. It amounts to the status quo, plus a word that lets people feel like they are opposing (or supporting) some one or thing rather than fog.