You think of the USSR during the height of communism as an ideal communist state, but of course they were not.

Because if they were an ideal communist state, they would have collapsed and died off instantly because they would have had no economy.

But there's no rational planning because there's no price signal.

So what they did was they cheated.

They allowed some black markets and gray markets to thrive to a degree,

and then they emulated the prices of the West,

which were free market prices generated on a competitive,

kind of quasi-genuine free market.

So the only reason the USSR and communist systems don't collapse instantly is because they're not pure communist, because if they were, they would just, everyone would die.

So it's a good illustration of the general thesis that socialism is counterproductive and unjust.

It's less productive because you can't calculate, but also because it diminishes the natural incentives people have to be productive

in a free market system where you can get the benefits of the outputs of your efforts and your

labor, but you can't in socialism.

It's an interesting thing because there's really no alternative. It's not like this is the,

I mean, I guess there is the alternative, but it doesn't, it's a suboptimal. Everything is

suboptimal to private property rights in terms of aggregate wealth creation.

Yeah. of aggregate wealth creation. Hey everybody. Welcome to The What is Money Show. I am thrilled to have you here joining me on my

mission to help shine light on the collection of money. Now, if this is your first time

listening to The What Is Money Show, I strongly recommend that you go back to episodes one through nine first, which lays a lot of the groundwork for many of the concepts that we explore on the show.

These first nine episodes are my series with Michael Saylor, and thousands of people have told me that this is the best podcast series

they've ever heard, hands down, and that it was instrumental to their understanding of money

and Bitcoin. So if you're looking to start a deep dive into the nature of money, I don't

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