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Comment by wu-ikkyu | Hacker News Reader

It's an ideology, not a science

That's true, but a longer title for the article might have been, "The oft-repeated, scientific support for capitalism is shit".

Libertarians and classical economists often use data to support capitalism, so a scientific look at it is warranted.

This isn't a particularly scientific article, though. It's more like "let's cut through all the cynical rhetoric that capitalists use to make it seem like capitalism is good for everyone and not just the wealthy/powerful."

I have a hard time believing that.

There's tons of examples of the failure of overly centralized, planned economies: USSR, N. Korea, China, Venezuela, Greece. I don't need to test a science report. I just need to have lived for the last 40 years.

And they were all suppressed, corrupted and/or destroyed by the same powerful propagandists of monetary value, or capitalists. The version of history that you've been fed conveniently decided to forget that part since it ruins the point they're trying to make. But keep doing the drone-dance for all I care; collectively we are slowly becoming aware of the rules of the game, with or without your help.

He even comes the "No true Scotchman" of Communism, I see.

Of course, socialism/communism is infailable!

Of course, and communist revisionist always do their best to sell this idea that whenever communism fails, it's always a conspiracy and someone else's fault.

That, in spite of the repeated spectacular failures that were caused by communism.

I've also lived for 40+ years, but don't profess expertise from the same experience. :)

Conflating economic with government / ideological constructs is a common trap. Centralised & planned economies are common everywhere, I think, but in 'the west' they're just masked a bit more creatively -- and, of course, they're not planned by the state.

A completely centralized economy in just one narrow area, like phone communication, would be named a monopoly, and likely forcefully split.

Now imagine state monopoly on everything, and you're close to understanding what a Soviet-style centralized planning looked like.

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