> that you shouldn't conclude that communism doesn't work[...]
I haven't concluded that, and as I think I conceded in the original post (or at least somewhere anyway), I'm not entirely convinced that we've discovered what the true path forward is. Regardless, I agree that there hasn't been a fair application of communism, where both its recipients and its administrators were all held to equal benefit.
> couldn't you say that it's just true capitalism working its way as "intended"?
Well, no, and for two reasons. Either the money shouldn't matter, and no amount of money poured into democracy shouldn't have any bearing on legislation, or the results of said legislation shouldn't contradict the tenets of the Constitution, and would be subject to the same degree of public scrutiny that all laws do.
The former is obviously not true because politicians are corruptible, which is a situation that is potentially not fixable. The latter is obviously not true because it isn't primarily legislation that money buys, but regulation. The regulations imposed by the hundreds of federal agencies aren't done in public, they're simply bought, paid for, and then enacted without public input or scrutiny, to the advantage of those that paid for them.
In short, I think what you implied is that the problem with communism is its unfair application. I would agree with that, and further assert that unfair application, or put more bluntly, corruption, is the only big problem with capitalism as well.