this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2025
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"Communism" in this case means a centrally planned, command economy, administered by a Marxist-Leninist state. Essentially, the system that existed in the Soviet Union until it collapsed in 1991.
I don't think very many people are advocating for that exact system. Even the few countries that are still run by a communist party don't have that exact system anymore, China and Vietnam being the most obvious examples. They have hybrid, or mixed economies, that I think could best be described as "state directed market economies."
I don't know how you, personally, would rank that economic system, but it's hard to argue against its success. Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty under a state directed, mixed, market economy.
Perhaps not, but a state is involved in every market economy on the planet, that I'm aware of. There is no stateless, laissez-faire, completely free market economy anywhere in the world, again, to my knowledge. If you know of one, please enlighten me. Frankly, I don't see how a market economy can exist without a state, to enforce private property rights, issue and maintain a currency, provide public infrastructure, and prevent the establishment of large monopolies.
Unregulated markets tend toward monopoly. We saw that in the 19th century, during the gilded age when a few robber barrons took near total control of several, entire key industries, like steel production and the railroads. The gilded age was also a time of massive inequality and major economic crises. The state had to step in and break up the monopolies, and enact laws to prevent new monopolies from forming.