I want an economic system that optimizes the latter, not one that reduces inequality.

Communism is a great example of an economic system aimed at reducing inequality. What it actually achieves is making everyone equally poor.

It creates a terrifying hybrid of the political class and the capital class. Titans of American capitalism are subject to laws because they aren’t the government. And the government butts heads with capital all the time.

Also, markets and money form a distributed concensus mechanism for people to quite literally vote with their money to create a world they want. Unique products, new ways of doing things, tiny shops, giant multinationals, mutual aid organizations and co-ops. It’s all experiments running in capitalism right now.

Central communist planning relies on an infinitely informed class of philosopher kings to run the economy. It doesn’t scale because it can’t. In the absence of information, bean counters and demagogues thrive. That a vibrant world does not make.

Communism just isn’t compatible with incomplete information or human flaws. Capitalism isn’t perfect, but communism is certainly worse.