You’re starting to really get the Imperialism argument, fantastic! To answer your question regarding development eventually evening out, it’s through millitary presense and fostering dependence that keeps these countries underdeveloped. Look to what the Sahel States are doing now for an example of actual resistance to this expropriation, they are nationalizing industries and limiting exports to finished products, rather than raw materials. The Imperialist countries fight this with millitary intervention and sanctions in order to extend the plunder as long as possible, because without it these Imperialist countries would face instability from having its working class suddenly being far more exploited.
As for the rest of your comment, I did read through it. Rather than respond point by point, though, I think our time would be better served by focusing on a few key points. I’d rather start fresh, to be honest, I believe we aren’t getting anywhere as it stands right now.
Land as Capital
I am not saying Land is the same as all other forms of Capital. However, ownership of land is handled in much the same way as industrial and financial capital, and the purpose of land from an economic perspective is to play a role in fulfilling needs and producing goods. It plays a part in the interconnected process. Focusing on land ownership doesn’t mean you ignore other aspects, and that’s not what I was trying to insinuate. However, placing more weight on Land than on Capitalist production in general, land included, seems to me an unjustified focus when land is becoming more of a problem precisely because of Capitalism, and isn’t as much of a problem in Socialist countries.
Private Ownership
My belief is that all markets centralize over time and eliminate competition. This happens at different rates in different sectors, but is nonetheless a constant approach. Market forces create societies where those best guessing the market decide the rules of society, while Socialism allows us to focus on satisfying needs over profits. After revolution, the transformation from markets to public ownership of the whole economy is a gradual one, but a necessary one nonetheless.
Ethics
To make this short, Marxism has nothing against individual freedoms except for the freedom of individuals to dominate others. Socialist societies have all seen dramatic democratizations of the economy not found within Capitalist systems.
Circling back, I really don’t think you and I disagree on much in the final analysis, the reason I seem absolutist in your eyes is because of firm disagreements on how we achieve a better society, as well as analysis of Imperialism. I think a lot of what you see in “successful Capitalism” rides on Imperialism, which is why I’m very happy to see your first paragraph. Marx was wrong on a few things, and also didn’t live to be able to analyze Imperialism as a special stage necessary to Capitalism. He didn’t predict countries using Imperialism as a means to perpetuate Capitalism. However, Marxism is an evolving framework, which is why we can look to see its success in China, as an example.
If you want, I can link sources or readings. However, I opted not to do so, as in my opinion, doing so rarely results in people actually doing the reading.
Thanks for the reply. I think you’re right to stress the violence and coercion that sustains the link between imperialism, underdevelopment, and the global hierarchy of value capture is indeed central.
About your land as capital section, I want to add that if rent didn’t exist (economic rent, Ricardian rent, monopoly rents, political rents etc.), then capitalism would not lead to inequality. Competition would, in theory, balance returns to capital and wages, as reflected in Kaldor’s stylized facts. Land is unique in this context because its supply is fixed, so all land ownership inherently generates rents. By contrast, not all capital ownership results in rents, because competitive pressures can erode excess returns. I think, to speak the language of rents from a socialist perspective, your argument is that: “yes, but in a capitalist system, all of these rents are bound to happen (and increase over time), because the ones with money influence the rules that allow these rents (especially monopoly rents) either through misinforming voters or buying politicians”. I think both of us would agree with this - granted that we allow it to happen.
I think you’re right that our difference lies in what it means to stop this from happening. Both in terms of how do we do it, but also in what needs to be done. I would argue that the rents have increased from 70s to now in the US and many other western countries, but they also decreased from 30s to 50s and remained low for two more decades - and this change happened not through a revolution or seizing all companies. It happened democratically through the creation of a welfare state, through seizing some natural monopolies, unions, insurances, worker’s rights, and through public investment in innovation. These reforms show that systems can curb rentier dynamics without dismantling markets entirely.
I also argue that rent-seeking isn’t exclusive to capitalism. Socialist systems can face similar dynamics through regulatory capture, elite collusion, or state corruption. It’s not just a capitalism problem; it’s a human problem, and any system needs institutional checks to limit rent extraction. Looks like China’s share of wealth accruing to the top 10% has gone from around 42% in 1990s to around 68% in 2024 https://wid.world/country/china/.
Ultimately, I don’t think any system should be purely one or the other. Central planning has deep flaws, and so do unregulated markets. If we can maintain a democratic structure with a well-informed public, then we have a real chance to strike the right balance: limiting rents, promoting equity, and preserving freedom.
Maybe I just have a bit more faith that we can beat the capitalist forces by standing together and remain well-informed. Right now their strategy is to split us apart. In my view, people like you and I are on the same side, and if we push enough, we can win. I think taking a hard socialist stance might be counterproductive as many people don’t identify with this idea, making it harder for us to stand together. An idea could be to focus on reuniting, not under the banner of an ideology, but under the banner of the injustice we are subject to.
Thanks for the response. I want to point a few things out:
I want to add that if rent didn’t exist (economic rent, Ricardian rent, monopoly rents, political rents etc.), then capitalism would not lead to inequality.
This is an impossibility. Capital owners and workers will always be unequal, if there were no measurable benefit for being an owner, then everyone would be a worker. Profit comes from the surplus value created by workers, so the workers are getting their value siphoned through employment.
I would argue that the rents have increased from 70s to now in the US and many other western countries, but they also decreased from 30s to 50s and remained low for two more decades - and this change happened not through a revolution or seizing all companies. It happened democratically through the creation of a welfare state, through seizing some natural monopolies, unions, insurances, worker’s rights, and through public investment in innovation. These reforms show that systems can curb rentier dynamics without dismantling markets entirely.
These happened for 2 major reasons. The first, is that the Soviet Union presented an alternative to Capitalism, and Capital was scared of worker revolution. The second, is that these are always temporary measures, as you noted, these waned over time. They were not granted democratically, but as a consequence of labor organization, these band-aids happened to prevent the system from collapsing under its own contradictions, that were particularly dire after World War I and II.
Looks like China’s share of wealth accruing to the top 10% has gone from around 42% in 1990s to around 68% in 2024 https://wid.world/country/china/.
The real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of the poorest half of the Chinese population increased by more than four hundred percent from 1978 to 2015, while real incomes of the poorest half of the US population actually declined during the same time period. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23119/w23119.pdf It’s true that China’s wealth inequality in their post-Mao era is higher, but with it has come the largest poverty eradication in history.
Ultimately, I don’t think any system should be purely one or the other. Central planning has deep flaws, and so do unregulated markets. If we can maintain a democratic structure with a well-informed public, then we have a real chance to strike the right balance: limiting rents, promoting equity, and preserving freedom.
I don’t really know what you mean, here. What “deep flaws” does Central Planning have? Why is Socialism not democratic enough in your eyes? Any system that leaves Capitalists in control of the State will always fail to deliver on what you say you want.
This is an impossibility. Capital owners and workers will always be unequal, if there were no measurable benefit for being an owner, then everyone would be a worker.
What you’re arguing here is Piketty’s accumulation view. Rognlie and Stiglitz have pretty convincing arguments against this.
First, there is no such thing as a pure “worker” and a pure “capitalist”. Capitalists work and consume and workers save out of their wages (e.g. through pensions). Stiglitz argues “For the wealth–income ratio of capitalists to be ever increasing would require sr > g, but in standard Solow model of growth, where workers save at the same rate that capitalists do, that inequality does not hold in the long run.”
“Secondly, the return to capital should be treated as endogenous. If the increase in wealth represented an increase in “capital,” then the law of diminishing returns would imply that the return to capital should have decreased.” - Stiglitz.
Third, and most importantly, Stiglitz argues that when taking rents (what separates wealth from capital) out the equation, there is no measurable benefit for being an owner. He calls the capitalized value of rents, the “wealth residual”. He mainly focuses on rents caused by land ownership, market power, patents and assymmetric information. After all these rents are taken away, there is maybe one type of rent left that would make being a capitalist worthwhile for those who have a good idea/good understanding of markets - basically who is good at the labor of running a business. It is quasi-rents. They are always temporary, because they are the reward for having an idea and executing it until competition copies it. They are what are often extended through patents, a debatable policy. The temporarity of quasi-rents implies a necessity for a continuity of keeping innovation going, which becomes the labor of the capitalist. If all other rents than quasi-rents disappeared, the only benefit accruing to a capitalist would be the reward for the labor and knowledge required to come up with new products, production methods, etc and succeeding with it. And it challenges your statement “if there were no measurable benefit for being an owner, then everyone would be a worker.” because it would be similar to comparing two jobs.
The first, is that the Soviet Union presented an alternative to Capitalism, and Capital was scared of worker revolution.
Yes, a lot of these policies were inspired by socialist regimes. This does not prove that socialism is better, but if anything it implies that a mix of the two is better than pure capitalism.
The second, is that these are always temporary measures, as you noted, these waned over time. They were not granted democratically, but as a consequence of labor organization, these band-aids happened to prevent the system from collapsing under its own contradictions, that were particularly dire after World War I and II.
These measures were certainly not sufficient solutions to the problem of rents, and in countries like the US, the institutions preventing politicians buying elections were not strong enough, if not non-existent. But these “temporary” measures have sustained in Scandinavia, where democracy is stronger.
Profit comes from the surplus value created by workers, so the workers are getting their value siphoned through employment.
Yes, without competition. But with competition, firms cannot pay less than the market salary without having a shortage of workers.
The real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of the poorest half of the Chinese population increased by more than four hundred percent from 1978 to 2015, while real incomes of the poorest half of the US population actually declined during the same time period.
While this is true, wasn’t this also true for the US, when they had their main growth from 1945-78?
I don’t really know what you mean, here. What “deep flaws” does Central Planning have?
The main flaw is explained by complexity science. Society is a complex, self-organizing system composed of countless interacting agents, each with varying, dynamic, and unique preferences and constraints. As Hayek argues, such systems exhibit emergent order that cannot be planned or predicted in detail. Central planning assumes that outcomes can be engineered from above, but in reality, only general patterns—not specific results—can be anticipated. Just as evolutionary theory explains broad tendencies without predicting exact species, economic systems can only be understood through principles, not precise outcomes. Central planning fails because it attempts specific predictions in a domain where only qualitative ones are possible.
Why is Socialism not democratic enough in your eyes? Any system that leaves Capitalists in control of the State will always fail to deliver on what you say you want.
I never said socialism specifically is not democratic enough. I said that whatever system we have, we cannot trust those in power to act for the social good without proper institution-which there is no country in the history of the world that has perfected. The assumption that a democratically elected government will act in the public interest relies on both a perfect democracy and of altruistic public actors. In reality, there is both government and market failures. Buchanan showed that government actors are more interested in being reelected than improving outcomes for everyone, which are different incentives. A company buying a politician is a likely as a government agent providing benefits to groups they align with purely out of own self-interest. What matters most, whichever system we have, is designing the proper institutions to prevent these from happening. How would you decide who gets what in a socialist system? Under which ethical framework should this be decided? No matter which system you decide, there will be losers and winners. Will your choice depend on your own biases? If it is purely democratically chosen, what will happen to minorities?
What I am arguing is the Marxist POV, which is certified through historical trends. Even before land had been monopolized, the bourgeoisie quickly became dominant financially. You’re confusing the class character of workers and owners as individual judgements and not as a subsection of society with definite relations, a worker can have some savings and an owner can do some labor, but that’s not the point of class analysis. If you aren’t going to actually engage with the Marxist critique, why are you acting as though you know what the Marxist critique is? It’s condescending.
Same with the wild assumptions of workers being capable of saving at the same rate as Capitalists, and the idea that Capitalists turn profits from their own labor, and not through paying workers less than the value they create. You haven’t once engaged with that fundamental critique from the Socialist camp, that Capitalists must pay workers less than the Value they create in order to turn a profit. They can’t be similar jobs, because they have entirely different social relations.
The next part, where you repeat the idea that there can be such thing as “a mix of Socialism and Capitalism,” fundamentally avoids the arguments at hand. Socialism and Capitalism are terms for the entire system, by analyzing which aspect of society is primary, public or private ownership. Private ownership is not capitalism, and public ownership is not Socialism. Further, these safety nets came about because of strong revolutionary pressure, not democratic institutions. These Safety Nets are whithering in Scandinavia, and Scandinavia still funds them with the spoils of Imperialism.
As for workers and surplus value, even at the market rate, they are paid less than the value they create. That’s where profit comes from. Labor power’s value is normalized around the cost of living and reproduction, not the value created nor the productivity of labor. That is why wealth is widening. Market salary is less than the value created by labor.
As for the US vs China, no, not even close. Further, the US is the world’s largest Empire, the vast majority of its spoils come from plunder. China’s do not.
As for Central Planning, this is an extremely poor argument against it. Such an argument ignores that we have irrefutable evidence of Central Planning being far more effective than Private Ownership in many conditions, and argues against a strawman, not actual central planning. The Road to Serfdom came out in 1944, and has been thoroughly disproven in reality through the existence of Socialist economies outperforming Capitalist ones.
The truth is, in developed Capitalist nations, the economy is already planned, just through private institutions. State planning is extremely effective, and allows surpassing the limitations enforced by the profit motive. Hayek’s assertion is one of nihilism, asserting that we can’t develop further economic knowledge, but works by Paul Cockshott and the existence of well-developed economic planning disproved Hayek long ago. Central planning is about broad tendencies as well as reviewing signals from consumption to re-allocate resources, it isn’t about predicting absolutely every single thing. Such is the Strawman.
Not sure about what your China point is.
Your last round of questions is answered by studying Socialist countries. It would be one thing if none existed, but many do, and your concerns don’t pan out in reality.
I was harsh this comment, admittedly so, but because you have displayed a frustrating insistence on arguing against strawmen and asserting your views as though you have a thorough understanding of mine, when your critiques have long been outdated and based upon strawmen. I recommend reading up on Zhenli’s posts, as they are quite simplified and thorough. In particular:
You’re starting to really get the Imperialism argument, fantastic! To answer your question regarding development eventually evening out, it’s through millitary presense and fostering dependence that keeps these countries underdeveloped. Look to what the Sahel States are doing now for an example of actual resistance to this expropriation, they are nationalizing industries and limiting exports to finished products, rather than raw materials. The Imperialist countries fight this with millitary intervention and sanctions in order to extend the plunder as long as possible, because without it these Imperialist countries would face instability from having its working class suddenly being far more exploited.
As for the rest of your comment, I did read through it. Rather than respond point by point, though, I think our time would be better served by focusing on a few key points. I’d rather start fresh, to be honest, I believe we aren’t getting anywhere as it stands right now.
I am not saying Land is the same as all other forms of Capital. However, ownership of land is handled in much the same way as industrial and financial capital, and the purpose of land from an economic perspective is to play a role in fulfilling needs and producing goods. It plays a part in the interconnected process. Focusing on land ownership doesn’t mean you ignore other aspects, and that’s not what I was trying to insinuate. However, placing more weight on Land than on Capitalist production in general, land included, seems to me an unjustified focus when land is becoming more of a problem precisely because of Capitalism, and isn’t as much of a problem in Socialist countries.
My belief is that all markets centralize over time and eliminate competition. This happens at different rates in different sectors, but is nonetheless a constant approach. Market forces create societies where those best guessing the market decide the rules of society, while Socialism allows us to focus on satisfying needs over profits. After revolution, the transformation from markets to public ownership of the whole economy is a gradual one, but a necessary one nonetheless.
To make this short, Marxism has nothing against individual freedoms except for the freedom of individuals to dominate others. Socialist societies have all seen dramatic democratizations of the economy not found within Capitalist systems.
Circling back, I really don’t think you and I disagree on much in the final analysis, the reason I seem absolutist in your eyes is because of firm disagreements on how we achieve a better society, as well as analysis of Imperialism. I think a lot of what you see in “successful Capitalism” rides on Imperialism, which is why I’m very happy to see your first paragraph. Marx was wrong on a few things, and also didn’t live to be able to analyze Imperialism as a special stage necessary to Capitalism. He didn’t predict countries using Imperialism as a means to perpetuate Capitalism. However, Marxism is an evolving framework, which is why we can look to see its success in China, as an example.
If you want, I can link sources or readings. However, I opted not to do so, as in my opinion, doing so rarely results in people actually doing the reading.
Thanks for the reply. I think you’re right to stress the violence and coercion that sustains the link between imperialism, underdevelopment, and the global hierarchy of value capture is indeed central.
About your land as capital section, I want to add that if rent didn’t exist (economic rent, Ricardian rent, monopoly rents, political rents etc.), then capitalism would not lead to inequality. Competition would, in theory, balance returns to capital and wages, as reflected in Kaldor’s stylized facts. Land is unique in this context because its supply is fixed, so all land ownership inherently generates rents. By contrast, not all capital ownership results in rents, because competitive pressures can erode excess returns. I think, to speak the language of rents from a socialist perspective, your argument is that: “yes, but in a capitalist system, all of these rents are bound to happen (and increase over time), because the ones with money influence the rules that allow these rents (especially monopoly rents) either through misinforming voters or buying politicians”. I think both of us would agree with this - granted that we allow it to happen.
I think you’re right that our difference lies in what it means to stop this from happening. Both in terms of how do we do it, but also in what needs to be done. I would argue that the rents have increased from 70s to now in the US and many other western countries, but they also decreased from 30s to 50s and remained low for two more decades - and this change happened not through a revolution or seizing all companies. It happened democratically through the creation of a welfare state, through seizing some natural monopolies, unions, insurances, worker’s rights, and through public investment in innovation. These reforms show that systems can curb rentier dynamics without dismantling markets entirely.
I also argue that rent-seeking isn’t exclusive to capitalism. Socialist systems can face similar dynamics through regulatory capture, elite collusion, or state corruption. It’s not just a capitalism problem; it’s a human problem, and any system needs institutional checks to limit rent extraction. Looks like China’s share of wealth accruing to the top 10% has gone from around 42% in 1990s to around 68% in 2024 https://wid.world/country/china/.
Ultimately, I don’t think any system should be purely one or the other. Central planning has deep flaws, and so do unregulated markets. If we can maintain a democratic structure with a well-informed public, then we have a real chance to strike the right balance: limiting rents, promoting equity, and preserving freedom.
Maybe I just have a bit more faith that we can beat the capitalist forces by standing together and remain well-informed. Right now their strategy is to split us apart. In my view, people like you and I are on the same side, and if we push enough, we can win. I think taking a hard socialist stance might be counterproductive as many people don’t identify with this idea, making it harder for us to stand together. An idea could be to focus on reuniting, not under the banner of an ideology, but under the banner of the injustice we are subject to.
Thanks for the response. I want to point a few things out:
This is an impossibility. Capital owners and workers will always be unequal, if there were no measurable benefit for being an owner, then everyone would be a worker. Profit comes from the surplus value created by workers, so the workers are getting their value siphoned through employment.
These happened for 2 major reasons. The first, is that the Soviet Union presented an alternative to Capitalism, and Capital was scared of worker revolution. The second, is that these are always temporary measures, as you noted, these waned over time. They were not granted democratically, but as a consequence of labor organization, these band-aids happened to prevent the system from collapsing under its own contradictions, that were particularly dire after World War I and II.
The real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of the poorest half of the Chinese population increased by more than four hundred percent from 1978 to 2015, while real incomes of the poorest half of the US population actually declined during the same time period. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23119/w23119.pdf It’s true that China’s wealth inequality in their post-Mao era is higher, but with it has come the largest poverty eradication in history.
I don’t really know what you mean, here. What “deep flaws” does Central Planning have? Why is Socialism not democratic enough in your eyes? Any system that leaves Capitalists in control of the State will always fail to deliver on what you say you want.
What you’re arguing here is Piketty’s accumulation view. Rognlie and Stiglitz have pretty convincing arguments against this. First, there is no such thing as a pure “worker” and a pure “capitalist”. Capitalists work and consume and workers save out of their wages (e.g. through pensions). Stiglitz argues “For the wealth–income ratio of capitalists to be ever increasing would require sr > g, but in standard Solow model of growth, where workers save at the same rate that capitalists do, that inequality does not hold in the long run.” “Secondly, the return to capital should be treated as endogenous. If the increase in wealth represented an increase in “capital,” then the law of diminishing returns would imply that the return to capital should have decreased.” - Stiglitz. Third, and most importantly, Stiglitz argues that when taking rents (what separates wealth from capital) out the equation, there is no measurable benefit for being an owner. He calls the capitalized value of rents, the “wealth residual”. He mainly focuses on rents caused by land ownership, market power, patents and assymmetric information. After all these rents are taken away, there is maybe one type of rent left that would make being a capitalist worthwhile for those who have a good idea/good understanding of markets - basically who is good at the labor of running a business. It is quasi-rents. They are always temporary, because they are the reward for having an idea and executing it until competition copies it. They are what are often extended through patents, a debatable policy. The temporarity of quasi-rents implies a necessity for a continuity of keeping innovation going, which becomes the labor of the capitalist. If all other rents than quasi-rents disappeared, the only benefit accruing to a capitalist would be the reward for the labor and knowledge required to come up with new products, production methods, etc and succeeding with it. And it challenges your statement “if there were no measurable benefit for being an owner, then everyone would be a worker.” because it would be similar to comparing two jobs.
Yes, a lot of these policies were inspired by socialist regimes. This does not prove that socialism is better, but if anything it implies that a mix of the two is better than pure capitalism.
These measures were certainly not sufficient solutions to the problem of rents, and in countries like the US, the institutions preventing politicians buying elections were not strong enough, if not non-existent. But these “temporary” measures have sustained in Scandinavia, where democracy is stronger.
Yes, without competition. But with competition, firms cannot pay less than the market salary without having a shortage of workers.
While this is true, wasn’t this also true for the US, when they had their main growth from 1945-78?
The main flaw is explained by complexity science. Society is a complex, self-organizing system composed of countless interacting agents, each with varying, dynamic, and unique preferences and constraints. As Hayek argues, such systems exhibit emergent order that cannot be planned or predicted in detail. Central planning assumes that outcomes can be engineered from above, but in reality, only general patterns—not specific results—can be anticipated. Just as evolutionary theory explains broad tendencies without predicting exact species, economic systems can only be understood through principles, not precise outcomes. Central planning fails because it attempts specific predictions in a domain where only qualitative ones are possible.
I never said socialism specifically is not democratic enough. I said that whatever system we have, we cannot trust those in power to act for the social good without proper institution-which there is no country in the history of the world that has perfected. The assumption that a democratically elected government will act in the public interest relies on both a perfect democracy and of altruistic public actors. In reality, there is both government and market failures. Buchanan showed that government actors are more interested in being reelected than improving outcomes for everyone, which are different incentives. A company buying a politician is a likely as a government agent providing benefits to groups they align with purely out of own self-interest. What matters most, whichever system we have, is designing the proper institutions to prevent these from happening. How would you decide who gets what in a socialist system? Under which ethical framework should this be decided? No matter which system you decide, there will be losers and winners. Will your choice depend on your own biases? If it is purely democratically chosen, what will happen to minorities?
What I am arguing is the Marxist POV, which is certified through historical trends. Even before land had been monopolized, the bourgeoisie quickly became dominant financially. You’re confusing the class character of workers and owners as individual judgements and not as a subsection of society with definite relations, a worker can have some savings and an owner can do some labor, but that’s not the point of class analysis. If you aren’t going to actually engage with the Marxist critique, why are you acting as though you know what the Marxist critique is? It’s condescending.
Same with the wild assumptions of workers being capable of saving at the same rate as Capitalists, and the idea that Capitalists turn profits from their own labor, and not through paying workers less than the value they create. You haven’t once engaged with that fundamental critique from the Socialist camp, that Capitalists must pay workers less than the Value they create in order to turn a profit. They can’t be similar jobs, because they have entirely different social relations.
The next part, where you repeat the idea that there can be such thing as “a mix of Socialism and Capitalism,” fundamentally avoids the arguments at hand. Socialism and Capitalism are terms for the entire system, by analyzing which aspect of society is primary, public or private ownership. Private ownership is not capitalism, and public ownership is not Socialism. Further, these safety nets came about because of strong revolutionary pressure, not democratic institutions. These Safety Nets are whithering in Scandinavia, and Scandinavia still funds them with the spoils of Imperialism.
As for workers and surplus value, even at the market rate, they are paid less than the value they create. That’s where profit comes from. Labor power’s value is normalized around the cost of living and reproduction, not the value created nor the productivity of labor. That is why wealth is widening. Market salary is less than the value created by labor.
As for the US vs China, no, not even close. Further, the US is the world’s largest Empire, the vast majority of its spoils come from plunder. China’s do not.
As for Central Planning, this is an extremely poor argument against it. Such an argument ignores that we have irrefutable evidence of Central Planning being far more effective than Private Ownership in many conditions, and argues against a strawman, not actual central planning. The Road to Serfdom came out in 1944, and has been thoroughly disproven in reality through the existence of Socialist economies outperforming Capitalist ones.
The truth is, in developed Capitalist nations, the economy is already planned, just through private institutions. State planning is extremely effective, and allows surpassing the limitations enforced by the profit motive. Hayek’s assertion is one of nihilism, asserting that we can’t develop further economic knowledge, but works by Paul Cockshott and the existence of well-developed economic planning disproved Hayek long ago. Central planning is about broad tendencies as well as reviewing signals from consumption to re-allocate resources, it isn’t about predicting absolutely every single thing. Such is the Strawman.
Not sure about what your China point is.
Your last round of questions is answered by studying Socialist countries. It would be one thing if none existed, but many do, and your concerns don’t pan out in reality.
I was harsh this comment, admittedly so, but because you have displayed a frustrating insistence on arguing against strawmen and asserting your views as though you have a thorough understanding of mine, when your critiques have long been outdated and based upon strawmen. I recommend reading up on Zhenli’s posts, as they are quite simplified and thorough. In particular:
The Comedy of Mises, about central planning critiques
Bad Philosophy: Responding to a Free Market Fundamentalist
Addressing Common Criticisms of the Labor Theory of Value, addresses surplus value and rents
Free Market Absolutism
Prices in a Planned Economy addresses central planning, and how it works
How to Calculate Value
Falling Rate of Profit, why Capitalism is inherently unsustainable and monopolization a necessity
Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism
Why Public Property?
Fiat Money: Global Theft.
These should all help you develop an understanding of what the Marxist position is, so you don’t need to argue against strawmen.