I've often wondered about the contradiction wherein it's argued that the economy thrives on competition and yet corporations larger than many nation states never apply the same model internally.
(I'm aware there are efforts in some companies at creating "internal markets" but never close to the scale of market forces that exist externally to the company)
Except withering and dying for a company is not a humanitarian crisis, but it is for a country. A company can also fire an underperforming team member, or ditch an entire department. Where as terminating underperforming citizens, or unneeded communities is generally frowned upon.
Free market or centralized economy, at the end of the day someone is making an executive decision about how resources are allocated. Whether you believe that executive person (or committee) should be acting in the best interests of the public or a group of shareholders is a matter of principle, not logistics.
In theory, a failing government is replaced by a different government. In practice, whether voters successfully identify problems and pick a better winner is an open question.