You can't treat an economy as if it were an army.

[AztecWilliam]

The fundamental theoretical battle of the late 19th Century and throughout the 20th is this: can central governments command their economies as they do their armies? One would think that the answer to that question was learned decades ago, but it seems there are still some who just don't get it.

Here is an excellent explanation of why an army can be (and must be) commanded from the top down, but an economy cannot.

weeklystandard.com/articles/marching-cliff

AzWm

[The Great Aztec Joe]

An economy can be commanded from the top down as long as it is in a closed system. To command from the top down, the question is how do you create a closed system? Communes are closed systems. Communism tried to have a closed system but never could sway the whole world to their way of thinking.

There is still room for Communism to work, but it appears that it had to be married to some form of free economy for manufacturing and no guarantee of employment for slackers. The biggest downfall for Communism is that in that ideal state, everybody is guaranteed employment regardless of how lazy they are. If you do away with that guarantee and allow non productive "workers" to lose their jobs, the remaining work force becomes very productive. Amazing how that works.