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I was going to point out that there's a common phrase "Chinese capitalism" but there was never a common phrase "Soviet capitalism", but Google proved me wrong. I guess I'll defer to the judgement of people with actual economic knowledge.


If you consider the abolition of private property, and the central planning of the economy to be the core aspects of a socialist society (which is a rather uncontroversial, though incomplete definition), and the exact opposite of that to be full property rights, and full free market, then you won’t find a single organised society that fits into either of those buckets. All socialist societies throughout history have allowed for some level of property rights, and all have had some level of market economy. Conversely, any society that could be described as capitalist has had restrictions on private property (at a minimum, through taxation, though there’s lot of other ways too), and have had restrictions on free market activity (again at a minimum, through regulation). To say that any of the socialist governments that emerged in the 20th century are not truly socialist is a quintessential No True Scotsman fallacy, and the same reasoning would be equally valid for making the (equally fallacious) argument that there are no true capitalist or free market societies.




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