Here’s what I wrote…

“Let’s imagine what would happen if representatives worried about the yang of products as well. Rather than you deciding for yourself how much money you spent on books… representatives would make that decision for you… and everybody else. Is this hard to imagine? It shouldn’t be. It’s full blown socialism. China tried it. The Soviet Union tried it. And… it didn’t really work.”

China tried full blown socialism. Yet, in order to prove that socialism succeeds for public goods, you’re comparing charts of US and China after 1990. I was referring to China during Mao Zedong and you decided to show me charts after 1978 when Deng Xiaoping started opening China up to foreign investment.

During Mao Zedong’s full blown socialism… millions and millions people of starved to death. Then, after Deng Xiaoping created a market in China, millions were lifted out of poverty. They weren’t lifted out of poverty because of the socialism that remained… they were lifted out of poverty despite the socialism that remained.

And it’s not like this is some fancy new concept…

The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle, that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often incumbers its operations. — Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

Interestingly enough… the folly of human laws inadvertently facilitated China’s rapid growth and development.

In the 50s and 60s…. businesses were massively plagued by unions and foolish liberal laws. But it’s not like business owners could have moved their factories to China. Why couldn’t they? Because China was being plagued by the epitome of liberal conceit… Mao Zedong. So instead, businesses moved their factories to places like Hong Kong and South Korea…

In 1962 and 1963, Fairchild Semiconductor’s leaders intensified the firm’s movement toward commercial markets and users, even as it continued to address the requirements of their core customers in the military market. To meet the volume and price requirements of commercial customers, Sporck relentlessly pushed for increases in production volumes and a concomitant decline in manufacturing costs. He also played a significant role, with Robert Noyce, in moving the assembly of transistors and integrated circuits to Hong Kong and South Korea as a way of lowering labor costs. System firms serving commercial markets were much more price-conscious than military contractors. — Christophe Lécuyer, David Brock, Makers of the Microchip

As more and more businesses did so… the logical result was that the wages in these countries naturally increased. The wages weren’t arbitrarily increased by foolish liberal laws… they were naturally increased by the increased competition for labor. So as the countries around China quickly began to grow and prosper…. the disparity between socialism and capitalism became more and more stark and apparent.

In 1978 Deng Xiaoping managed to persuade China’s leaders to open the country to foreign investments. Capital started to flow into China and global poverty started to decline at an even faster rate. China quickly caught up to us.

China and the US are now both mixed economies. Both countries have a market economy for private goods and a command economy for public goods. And here you are arguing that socialism works for public goods because China is doing better than the US is. Both countries are mixed economies!

Have you ever lived in China? I have. Their markets were thriving. They were ridiculously packed with people selling and buying a crazy variety of products. And some of the streets were loaded with food carts. It’s a given that they have a lot less regulations than we do.

And you want to argue that China’s doing so well because of socialism. It’s a really stupid thing to argue. China’s current planners aren’t somehow superior to the planners during Mao Zedong’s era. The fundamental difference is that people are now a lot more free to trade with each other.

Like I explained to you… spending money is communication…. so trading is the same thing as communicating. All systems work better with more, rather than less, communication.

Anyways, you seem largely incapable of actually addressing my arguments. I told you how you could prove that socialism works for public goods. All you need to do is provide some solid evidence that stated preference techniques are accurate and reliable. Of course you ignored this. And when I said that we should test the pragmatarian model on Medium… you said that the pragmatarian model had already been tested. Of course when I pressed you for specifics… you ignored my request.

Look… economics is all about the efficient allocation of resources. Whether or not an allocation is “efficient” depends entirely on people’s preferences. Samantha orders a salad. The waiter serves her a steak. Was this an efficient allocation? No. Of course not. But we only know that the allocation was inefficient because we know what Samantha ordered. We know that her preference was for a salad because that’s what she ordered.

This is fundamentally basic economics. You have to understand basic economics before you can effectively evaluate systems and figure out how they can possibly be improved.

Life is too short to waste it barking up the wrong tree…. especially if you have a nice bark. So if you want to write about economics… then it would behoove you to at least learn the basics.