A planned economy is great when you have a few well defined tasks to really worry about. But you can't really become dynamic and resilient like a market economy can. So certain goals, like getting everyone to read or building a spaceship work reasonably well but it simply can't compete with a market economy in the longer run and dies a death of a thousand capitalist cuts eventually.
The Chinese probably have it more right than the Soviets in that they manage a few big things and then let the market more or less self manage to a point so long as the CCP is getting their cut and gives their blessing.
Socialism is a perfect system. I mean: socialism is probably the system that God uses to rule his Angels in Heaven. It has only one tiny flaw: in order to work it requires the society to be perfect as well, and most importantly completely selfless. But for less than perfect societies capitalism works better, because it can turn people's flaws (i.e.: greed, ambition) for the common good.
Yes, I agree. Consider the greatest flaw in capitalism: Greedy people want greedy money for greedy people. The problem with greedy money is that it turns everyone into a greedy person. Similar dynamics exist for housing. People clearly want a gold style asset that they can greedily hold onto. The problem is that this greed gets in the way of the utility of the asset. Money exists as a medium of exchange (i.e. a means to repay debt) and real estate exists to house people.
It's funny how Bitcoin was created as a response to 2008 but all it merely did is replicate the flaws of conventional fiat currencies that lead to 2008 in a much shorter time span. All it shows is that the demand for greedy money is unstoppable.
