There's a big range between living in a dictatorship and having only private entities allowed to invest in things.

Is take the American system every day. What is the moral justification for a state stealing private property?

Billionaires get to invest however they want because it's their property. What you see as a vanity project actually employs workers, feds families, and generates tax revenue. They are massively contributing to the economy.

> What is the moral justification for a state stealing private property?

I think it'd be good, is why. Non-intervention with private property is extremely low on my list of moral priorities. If someone's starving, I don't think you really have a right to keep food away from them.

> What you see as a vanity project actually employs workers, feds families, and generates tax revenue.

…and are they actually making anything useful? Or are they wasting everyone's time? Workers could be employed doing any number of things. For a rich person to "creating jobs" means nothing if those jobs are pointless. We could easily take that money away and create jobs doing something more important.

> If someone's starving, I don't think you really have a right to keep food away from them.

I believe in private charity, which would solve this. But I do not believe the state gets to steal from some people to give to others. The only reason for taxiation is to fund public goods.

> …and are they actually making anything useful? Or are they wasting everyone's time? Workers could be employed doing any number of things. For a rich person to "creating jobs" means nothing if those jobs are pointless. We could easily take that money away and create jobs doing something more important.

Who gets to define importance? This argument always devolves into state controlled economies which are charactetized by deadweight loss, corruption, and poor incentives. I'll take my access to private property every time.

Taxation in a sovereign state doesn't fund anything. The state creates the money to pay for stuff. The tax frees the resources so they can be purchased and simultaneously imbues the currency with value, which makes people want to accumulate it.

As an aside, do you also believe in private knocking-you-on-the-head-to-take your-food-you-don't-think-they-deserve?

As a matter of accounting, all the net money in the system was first created by the state before the private sector could accumulate it. You're welcome.

The money in the system was created by the state, but all it does is ease exchange. Value in the system, which the money represents, was created long before the system created money and will continue to exist after the system ceases. The value is created by private individuals trading freely.

As an exercise, I invite you to trade without money: barter your goods or services with others. It's more work but completely doable. But remember the state is still expecting taxes on that transaction. And then ponder upon whether state-issued money is truly the source of private sector asset accumulation.

Money is and always has been a tool of the state in order to exercise power, backed by coercive taxation. The barter myth is contradicted by historical evidence. The broader point is that the money has value precisely because it is inside a system of coercive taxation.

The public sector produces plenty of wealth - security, public goods, law and order, environmental protections, public health measures...

Nobody is obliged to accumulate state pegged money, yet most people do. Feel free to accumulate cheese if you wish.

> A lot of government funds have also been looted by CCP honchos.

Yeah, because they're corrupt and undemocratic. I certainly don't endorse China. But they do put to rest the idea that the freer the market, the stronger the economy.

No they don’t. China got richer when they implemented free market reforms, proving the idea.

Unfortunately Xi is now focused on saber-rattling about national security and bullying neighbors. He has cracked down on free markets, and China’s economy is suffering due to his incompetence.

It's not a binary. If we say market freedom is a spectrum with the USSR at 0 and the US at 10 (reductive, but let's pretend) then China moved from 0 to 5 and became a global power within a couple decades. This is a strong argument in favour of a level-5 economy, not a level-10 economy..

What are your reasons for thinking that the Chinese economy is well-performing? Chinese per-capita income is slightly less than that of Mexico, and you wouldn't use Mexico as an example of a well-performing economy.

China is strong because of its massive population combined with an economy that performs better than the only other country with a similarly massive population.