I know that there has never been so much as a single VALID comparison made between a pure capitalist economy and a pure socialist economy, because there has never been a pure capitalist or pure socialist economy.
More significant, I don’t think there has ever been a single VALID comparison between any of the actual partly capitalist societies and partly socialist societies that we DO have, because the task of making a VALID comparison between any two, is so complicated as to be functionally impossible.
Think about the details a little. Have you ever REALLY found out why ANYTHING costs whatever it does? It’s not as simple as the basic economic theorists describe: it isn’t a simple matter of adding up various costs of materials and labor and adding profit margin. Anyone who tells you it is, is either extremely ignorant of real life, or is purposely lying to get their way (or is purposely oversimplifying it all because you are a rank beginner at school, and need a cartoon to chew on first).
In a capitalist situation, something small, like maybe a light bulb, costs whatever it does for a TON more reasons than cost of materials and labor plus profit. Woops! You forgot the cost of keeping the factory going before and after the bulb was made. That’s got to be in the price too, if you want to have another bulb after this one burns out. And there’s the cost of locating new materials when the existing mines are tapped out. And there’s the real cost of keeping your underpaid workers available, including replacements for the future.
Switch over to the Socialist situation, and you can’t MAKE a one-to-one comparison, because everything is figured differently. The cost of labor is calculated differently, the cost of materials likewise, and the cost of managing it all as well, and so on and on.
Most people who want you to choose the capitalist model, will pretend that most of the real costs never existed on their end of things, even though they are included on the other list that they are using for their checklist.
And then there are the many what we could call “social assumptions.” The socialist version includes the cost of the entire lives of all the participants. The capitalist system assumes that the laborers spring into existence full grown and fully trained, and then disappear and add zero cost after they reach a certain age. In order to appear to be cheaper, the capitalist systems examined always pass all sorts of real costs on to other people or other generations.
Anyway. I hope you can see the point. I know the fanatic anti-socialists and the fanatic anti capitalists will purposely miss the point, but that’s always true. The point is, no one ever HAS made a true and valid comparison, because it’s so complicated, and more, because no one yet has actually WANTED to make a fair comparison.
Side note, just FYI: I am NOT a pro-socialist OR a pro-capitalist. If anything, I am a “use the system that works best for the application” person, just as the forefathers of the US were, and as 99% of the people who have run this country have always been (even when they didn’t realize they were).
Just think, after all: since inception, our armed forces have ALWAYS been run using SOCIALIST processes. Whenever capitalist processes were tried in the military, it went to crap, as rich people bought off their responsibilities, and promotions were based on bribes rather than military competence.
The mail system has always been mostly socialist. You pay what you pay so that EVERYONE can mail letters. Otherwise, sending your paycheck to you or your bank, would cost whatever it does to hire an armed man to travel from your bosses office to your bank and back.