So this is not a new argument, and the rhetoric is intended to be inflammatory clickbait. Somehow it evokes a dichotomy between "communism and capitalism", des

So this is not a new argument, and the rhetoric is intended to be inflammatory clickbait. Somehow it evokes a dichotomy between "communism and capitalism", despite having essentially no definition for either of these things. So let's give it a shot. Roughly speaking, Communism is where no one is allowed to have private property, and Capitalism is where all property is privately held. This is a nice definition because it defines a whole family of government structures, partially ordered by what a person is allowed to own, and it also demonstrates that the top and bottom elements of this order are both terrible, and therefore serve as perfect strawmen for people advocating moving "up or down" the order. Owning other people, or private armies, is not in the best interest of society. On the other hand, not having a mechanism by which you express preferences is a disaster of efficiency. Likewised not having any personal incentive to work prevents people from exchanging labor in ways that benefit each party, and is also obviously not in the best interest of society. No one worth listening to disagrees with any of this, but they always imagine their opponent to be advocating for the top or bottom element. "Capitalism vs Communism". Pick a set of things you think people should be able to own, and how the government should go about allocating the rest, and then do yourself an intellectual favor, and never use the words Capitalism or Communism again, except in explaining the problem with the dichotomy. Government is a much more subtle problem than that, and you're not participating in that subtlety in good faith when you use argue against the strawmen.