PinKushin1

I haven't seen anyone mention the critique by Ludwig Von Mises yet. "Socialism" by Ludwig Von Mises is still one of, if not the, best critique of Socialist, Communist, and Keynesian economics to ever be written. Not a single socialist or communist has been able to answer the question of the economic calculation problem, Keynesians try but their answers leave much to be desired. You want to know why neither can work and is considered a bad word, read Mises and Rothbard. Marx also advocated for violence to be used against peaceful people by a dictatorship. The "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" ring a bell? Materialism, that Marxism is based on, is also completely incorrect in it's main assumption that history is linear. Marx's critique was also not against a free market because he never experienced or understood a free market. The economic system of the time was not free market capitalism, it was mercantilism. Marx also assumed, and it was central to his critique, that in a 'capitalist' economy, profits were destined to fall and costs destined to rise. This assumption is false and has been known to be false for almost 100 years. This assumption didn't even pass muster when Marx was alive, but no one had the data yet to show it. Marx's theory is also based on the assumption that Labour/cost of production creates Value, Carl Menger and the other Marginalists were able to disprove this and come up with the modern understanding of value (which has withstood all scrutiny for the last 100 years, and has empirical & rational proofs) by 1871. When practically all the base assumptions his critiques are based on are proven false the critique itself becomes worthless. I also have to laugh at the idea Marx wanted equality for all. The Man was an anti-Semite who's personal correspondence with his detractors sounds almost exactly like the propaganda Hitler used against the Jews. He railed against the "capitalist jew" constantly in his personal letters and his daughter even admitted it when she published some of his unpublished works after his death. The free market is the only thing that can answer the economic calculation problem and leads to freedom and equality of opportunity for all. I also have to laugh at the OP for trying his hardest to manipulate, through irrational framing of the argument, the conversation by saying the real world places where these economic hypothesis were tried shouldn't be used in the argument. You'll notice though I didn't need to bring them up, nor did Mises. TLDR: Economic and Natural law makes any sort of Communist or Socialist economics an impossibility without causing mass shortages and likely death due to those shortages. If you want to learn proper economics and economic history check out https://mises.org/ They have free digital copies of practically every writing I referenced in my post, plus many more.