> free market is the _only_ system that is capable of rationally allocating resources in a society That's a mighty strong claim there. Rationally... Except f

> free market is the _only_ system that is capable of rationally allocating resources in a society That's a mighty strong claim there. Rationally... Except for food. Except for gas. Except for land. Except for scarcity. Except for... And the biggest part here that speaks against what you say, is that information asymmetry is the biggest reason why this doesn't work the way you portray it. And right now, you have giants who provide "Free" services, that only want your social graph, your realtime positioning data, content of your chats, who you are, and your metadata about everything. And on the upside, you get free email and chat! > The proposed solutions always boil down to some form of common ownership of the means of production. Counterpoint: GPL. And yes, that does work. > Without prices there is no economic calculation, and the best pricing system is one that is based on private property. Again, completely wrong. Current prices distill every possible dimension down to one, that being price. Organic? price. Company was union? Price. Company treated people with respect and dignity? Price. Company treated the rivers like their own personal trash transfer? Price. Company uses prison slave labor? Price. It doesn't matter what metrics are being compared against. We have the almighty dollar. It doesn't matter if the environment is being trashed to save a nickel - hey, I saved a buck. > Socialism _always_ fails because a central authority cannot, objectively, plan an economy better False premise. Central authority was only an idea regarding socialism/communism. It is not the ground truth.