And, it is a stupid question.
The real question is Oppressive govern-cement or Stifling govern-cement.
Only in academia do we get to talk about Capitalism and Communism. You get TOLD what kind of govern-cement you have to bow down and worship.
What really sucks is that academia doesn't even keep it pure. They discuss the idealized Communism vs corrupted Crony-Capitalism. Or idealized Capitalism vs tyrannically enforced Communism. Either system would work if everyone was pure of heart, and we didn't have greed, envy, sloth… but humans are not such.
The actuality is do you want an oppressive, controls everything govern-cement, or do you want a corporation + govern-cement control grid?
No govern-cement actually talks about free markets. That only comes from the people telling the govern-cement to butt-out. The BIG problems is many people want the govern-cement to "protect" them, and that means market manipulation. And, once you let the nose of the camel in, the camels is now in the tent.
It is only a matter of how much control the govern-cement has.
Do we allow snake oil salesmen or not?
To "protect" the people, we get the sheriff to run the dirty, low-down, snake out of town.
Or, the snake oil salesman buys off the sheriff, congress, the medical industry, and builds Big Pharma (true story)
A free market only exists when you have many, small time, suppliers. Once a big one shows up, the market is no longer free. Even if it is only advertising, the market gets skewed. Think about it, most of what you know about any industry is propaganda.
The free market is an illusion.
Capitalism means the largest group, the one that controls the most money, is in charge.
You build up a company. You now have a dozen employees, and good equipment to build the things. Pretty good.
A person who is in good with the banksters, borrows money to BUY even more equipment, and BUY a factory in 3rd world country for cheap labor, and hire hundreds of employees. And this money to buy everything was just printed out of thin air.
This is fair competition, right? Not even close.
The one with the money printer wins. And if there are several with money printers, the competition is an illusion. Its like Lowers vs Homey Despot, or Targette vs Wallymart. There is no real difference between these corporations.
Real competition is bought up, or shut down. StarBuckins goes into an area, buys a MUCH better property (because they can easily afford it. Free money) and then launches a campaign of coupons that makes StarBuckins coffee cheaper then the competition, until the competition goes out of business.
If you like what the bankster backed corporations provide, then capitalism is great.
Bean Counters have taken over.
It is supposed to be super efficient, but a bean counter can only do this in an old system. One that has been studied thoroughly and geniuses have already taken apart and worked out everything in.
The bean counters are lost in anything actually innovative. And so, they resist innovation like their lives depend on it.
This would be fine, except that innovation, growth, trying new things are done by the super-productive people. People who create 80% of the goods. The Pareto Principal is real, and you better respect it, or you will live on 20%. 20% of food, phones, cars…
Bean counters are also great at lowering moral in any system. When you reduce wiggle room, when you make people into tight, little cogs, resentment increases. When you put a cow into a too tiny cage, the cow will start pounding its head against the wall until it breaks, or the cow breaks. Cows let roam around in a bigger cage are much happier and more productive. People are the same.
Communism only works where people can join in or not. Only works where you have a leader who actually cares about the people. Govern-cement bean counters do neither.
Governments are supposed to protect us from monopolies. But, govern-cements are made of people, corruptible, bribe-able people, who are either narcissists (so can't care about you) or are very ego-centric, so caring about you is somewhere below 4th place.
Which makes govern-cement neutral at best, tyrannical and oppressive about mid-way.
This means that govern-cements often become monopoly choosing entities. Not, a hindrance to their forming, just a gate-keeper about which gets to be THE monopoly.
And, while govern-cement is like it is, Capitalism is only better because it doesn't stop the top 20% from creating the extra 80% that is needed to feed everyone.
Fortunately, this becomes a non-issue as we start to manufacture stuff ourselves, in our garages, and we start the road towards real money that doesn't allow printing/inflation. And further, allows people to keep the fruits of their labor.
