Ah, because everything socialist is a slippery slope towards gulags, autocrats, mass starvation and military imperialism. You still haven't given an argument a

Ah, because everything socialist is a slippery slope towards gulags, autocrats, mass starvation and military imperialism. You still haven't given an argument about why "conspicuously splurging is just a waste of resources" and "there's obviously a continuum" means "state capitalism now", though. You also haven't bothered explaining how "every company beyond a certain size or revenue must be organised as a worker's cooperative" leads to state capitalism (or whatever you're trying to express by invoking the Soviet Union as the scary end), but I'd be fine if you at least bothered actually addressing the OP you replied to rather than just a strawman. To reiterate, this is what you say you replied to: > individuals choosing how to spend their earnings is essentially misaligned societal resources (and also, more implicitly "OP thinks OP knows better how those earnings should be spent and therefore advocates a centrally planned economy, i.e. state capitalism") This is what you actually replied to: > Conspicuously splurging is just a waste of resources. > If a wealthy person and all her descendants save their money forever, then there's no harm to the economy. > If she spends it digging holes, on the other hand, then that's wasting real resources. > There's obviously a continuum, but $100 million yachts are probably closer to the digging-holes side of the continuum. Note that this is a refutation of the GP: > Those who invest or conspicuously splurge are a boon to the economy and to workers. I don't see how you can go from "rich people splurging are not actually great for the overall economy" to "state capitalism now", yet that is your interpretation. OP didn't say "rich people shouldn't be allowed to waste resources", OP only said "rich people wasting resources is bad". There's an obvious solution that doesn't require controlling the entire economy: increase marginal tax rates to reduce wealth gain and make it harder for millionaires to become billionaires. But I suppose that too inevitably leads to the Soviet Union?