A Command Economy has the Ability to be the most effective economic system

I would like to start off by pointing out that you stated that the government gets rewarded in a command economy, but this is untrue. Society as a whole gets rewarded in a command economy. The harder society works, the more they ALL benefit. Unlike in a free economy where upper class and business owners reap a largely disproportionate amount of the wealth. For example, a factory worker in Malaysia works a 10-hour shift and gets paid eight dollars, while the boss somewhere in a different country far away is probably making over 200,000 dollars a year. The idea in a command economy is that the government has complete control over the economy for the good of the people. They mostly deliver on this promise, as income inequality and unemployment are eradicated. (Plus, You said that not all of the citizens in a command economy willingly participate in the economy, but if there are no alternatives except unemployment, I am pretty sure the majority of the citizens were pretty willing to be employed by the government rather than face starvation and unemployment. ) Also, I never said the general populace could not rejuvenate a struggling sector of the economy, or manage a successful economy themselves. In societies such as Anarchist Catalonia, they have been able to do this using a socialist/ syndicalist economic system and a virtually nonexistent government, but in a capitalist/ free market economic system most businesses don't really care about the rest of the economy, so long as their business is doing well. So as long as their sector of the economy is prospering, it doesn't matter if other parts of the economy are faltering, struggling, or even failing. So the classic capitalist inevitability of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer ensues. In a command economy, the people place the hands of the economy into efficient, reliable hands for the greatest possibility for growth and increase in the standard of living. One example of this could be Maoist China, before the Communist party took control of China, eighty-seven percent of Chinese families lived on small, individual plots of land in farming villages. China was torn between the reactionary nationalist Kuomintang, several warlords, and about six different cultures and languages. The average Chinese individual lived to be fifty four, had never ventured more than twenty miles outside the house they were born in, made around 300 dollars a year in modern U. S money, and women could not vote, get divorced, participate in politics, sometimes not choose their spouses, and foot binding was extremely common among upper class families. Mao Zedong increased the average Chinese citizen's life expectancy by about thirty years, gave equal rights to women, unified china under one government and ideology, opened up soup kitchens where food would be freely given to Chinese citizens, provided comfortable apartments where the population could live, and completely modernized China. Also, Mao and his complete control of the economy led to China becoming the economic powerhouse it is today. Did you know China produces about 80 percent of the world's air conditioners, 70 percent of its mobile phones, and 60 percent of its shoes. Also I am aware China is not a true command economy anymore, as it has been opened to western corporations and foreign investors. The only difference between China's economy in the Mao era and now is that in the Mao era the working man's work benefitted him and the Chinese nation collectively, not western corporations. I will counter your arguments on the Soviet Union. First off, you must realize that Stalin's planned economy was just getting started in the 1930's (yet daily life was still slightly better there than it was in the U. S in the 1930's) It took time for Stalin's planned economy to build momentum, but when it did it was highly effective. By the 1940s the plan was had greatly increased in momentum, and by the beginning of the fifties everyone's standard of living had increased substantially. By then a family would have had a 2 or 3 bedroom apartment to themselves, as well as clothes made in Russian factories, and a substantial supply of food. Of course by then the U. S standard of living was higher, but the Soviet Union was more impressive in the way that they were able to provide their people with a decent standard of living without exploiting less developed nations. If there were any Shantytowns in the USSR in the 1930's (which I am not sure there were), there were definitely not any by the time Stalin died. Even the early stages of Stalin's economic plan you are mentioning, the Standard of living was still higher than in modern day third world African countries.