Oddbean

If govt has a central bank that controls interest rates & money creation & they control & regulate all banks, then we basically have communism laundered under "capitalist" labels. With enough regulatory control & taxation & subsidization, nationalization of industry is unnecessary & would produce no significant difference in conditions.

The majority of the negative impact can be achieved via bailouts & regulation & subsidies that squeeze out competitors & transform major corps into extensions of govt that spy & collect taxes via withholding. Everything authoritarian communists want to achieve that isn't already done can be achieved within the oppressive legal & regulatory structures already built. No need for a more honest naming convention if it all works the same either way.

As far as I can tell your description fits the present day United States perfectly. Central bank, subsidies, taxation, etc. And I think that is what you mean to imply. And then you say therefore there is no significant difference in conditions between what the US has now and full blown communism. And that a communist would then not need for any of the other nationalization that is common that we have seen historically in communist countries. And would help us to name it as communism proper. But if that’s all true then why is it so obvious that both in history and in our present that actual communists would not be continent with what has already been achieved in present day US. Your claim is that they have achieved everything authoritarian that they wanted but they wouldn’t have achieved any of the things they claim they are after in Karl Marx’s manifesto. No communist would look around at present day US and say “Congratulations boys, we did it!” A communist would still complain about the present income inequality and the factors of production and want to control both. And they would still complain about prices being set by individual producers and how that puts comrades against each other so prices and private property should be controlled and all those ramifications. If there is no significant difference in conditions between what we have now and full blown “call it by its name” communism then it cannot get any worse than it is. But it clearly can get so much worse. Like the mass starvation, the forced labor and education camps and killing fields. So there must be a significant difference in conditions that remain.

"Everything authoritarian communists want to achieve that isn't already done can be achieved within the oppressive legal & regulatory structures already built." Things can still get a lot worse... I'm just saying we are much farther along the path to communism than most people would believe. The govt has unilaterally fired people & shut down businesses. The govt has violated property rights in so many ways that all supposed limits appear to be gone. Communists are never actually happy with the results their policies produce. Happiness is never actually the goal, their motivation is almost always just to tear down anyone who is happy or successful, or who simply has more than them, until the only people who have more are govt authorities they fear.

First part is right. Last but is wrong. Fullycentrally planned economies do not work. Study the USSR. China realized this and liberalized. It could be much worse under full communism. The mistake most make when thinking about communism is focusing on the politics. The worst part is the central planning. Central banking is easier to hide because of complexity.

Oh it can get worse from where we are, but prices in many ways already aren't efficiently allocating resources because monetary policy IS central planning. They do not have to call it nationalization to effectively nationalize everyrhing & squeeze out all real competition or profit & loss.