I'll be the first to admit that capitalist systems have had their failures, but communist systems have never had a success. Communism was tried in more than a dozen countries across a century, in different cultures, in different geographic regions, in societies with very different levels of technological development. Not once did it create a success like Japan or Singapore or the USA or Hong Kong. Heck, we even split two countries down the middle and ran one side communist and one side capitalist (Germany & Korea). In both cases, the communist side became a hellhole and the capitalist side wasn't a bad place to live.

oh my god, the entire point of my post is that bringing up communism is a red herring that totally derails the conversation and has no relevance.

We should be discussing the economic system we currently have and various ways it is / was / can be structured. Even the justice system, the cornerstone of civilised society, has been corrupted.

For example why is it that we have publicly funded police but not publicly funded lawyers that can actually hold firms to account for contract violations? Why do companies that pay no taxes enjoy priority when it comes to public prosecution over regular Joe. Why is it, that if I owe the state a few grand, I will be hauled before a court within a day, but if BigCorpX owes the state a few billion they get to negotiate a special tax deal with massive 'discounts'? The list is truly endless.