You’re right it’s either/or at a given scale. But if you think in terms of multiscale, the difference between systems stops looking so qualitative and looks mo

You’re right it’s either/or at a given scale. But if you think in terms of multiscale, the difference between systems stops looking so qualitative and looks more quantitative: Either you have an absolute property law system, and a limited commons forms on top of that through land trusts, etc. Or you have an absolute communist system, and a limited free market forms on top of that, within a system of exceptions and exemptions. Technically you could implement identical 50/50 socialized/private systems in both of those schemes. In practice scale matters so which system runs which scale will affect the outcome. But the long term outcome will inevitably be “the right things are socialized and the right things are privatized”... the two systems each do experiments and make concessions when they lose. They’ll end up being quite the same, although in the short term they are quite different. And we need both to exist to run all the experiments.