No abstract political theory here, just the bottom-line question: does it work? Period.
First there's the obvious question; what does it mean for an economic system to "Work"? That nobody's poor? What's the standard of "Poor"? A certain universal margin of disposable income? A level of GDP? Maybe in a survey of 1,000 random people, 672 of them rated their economic status at least "Satisfactory"? What are the criteria? What's the barometer? How can we know if it "Works"?
What if it did work? If it produced a society of loyal proletarians, happily subsisting on their allotted resources, working limited hours at their communal farms and factories, with plenty of days off, and enjoying their state-approved hobbies with all that spare time? Then I guess you'd be all for it?
Are these platitudes frustrating? Well, anyone arguing that "It doesn't work" has tacitly agreed to the exact same underlying premises.
If you accept these terms, then "It doesn't work" is no counterargument at all.
Did we get riches and happiness for all? Great! It worked! Or an extermination campaign of biblical proportions? Ooops, back to the drawing board.
Any claim against the necessity of these factors can be gleefully met with, "Then that's not real socialism!" If they prefer their ideologies a la carte, by plucking the "Good bits" of socialism and discarding the gulags and mass graves; then they're arguing for something else entirely, a mixed economy, the polluting of the market with some degree of the above tenets.
https://mises.org/mises-wire/socialists-it-doesnt-matter-if-socialism-works-what-matters-power
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