>Do you prefer everyone (of course with some minor exceptions for higher ups) to be equally "not great, but not terrible"

There's the argument that in a planned economy, things can be terrible for pretty much everyone, like in Venezuela or North Korea.

You also have to account for the central planners choosing to repress people for political purposes.

Maybe you can give us a specific example of a centrally planned society which worked OK according to you? Here's a compendium of case studies to get you started: https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Niemietz-Socia...