Your second premise assumes that citizens are powerless to effect change, which is sadly more true these days, but in a proper functioning republic, government agencies are accountable and fixable.
In a proper functioning free market, companies are replaceable and reasonably transparent, so people can arrive at decisions and 'vote' with their actions in a practical sense.
I think the key point here isn't the system, but 'proper functioning'. In the event that no system is ever properly functioning, what's causing the least damage?
I'm reminded of the many stories I've seen claiming that people given experience of both, preferred 'bread line' communism to free market capitalism.
These people were never the lottery winners of capitalism: they're always just worker bee types, and their observation was that communism sucked but was stable and consistent. Small dreams, small risks, reasonable safety for the worker bees.
When they experienced capitalism, they had no preparation to competitively attack their fellow workers and win, and as a result they didn't win, they became worker bees under capitalism, and dropped below their previous living standard. Granted, this provided an environment where more ambitious worker bees could prevail and get rich, and that's the system working as intended, but for the less motivated ones, their experience told 'em communism took better care of them… in spite of the litany of horror stories we've all heard over and over (I live in the USA, so I've been indoctrinated against communism all my adult life).
I think it's pretty important to examine how these systems work when they're NOT properly functioning. It seems like free market capitalism produces some pretty spectacular damage when it catastrophically fails, but it's more abstracted. When something like communism catastrophically fails, it's in the form of state genocide, with more intentionality.
I think the key point here isn't the system, but 'proper functioning'. In the event that no system is ever properly functioning, what's causing the least damage?
I'm reminded of the many stories I've seen claiming that people given experience of both, preferred 'bread line' communism to free market capitalism.
These people were never the lottery winners of capitalism: they're always just worker bee types, and their observation was that communism sucked but was stable and consistent. Small dreams, small risks, reasonable safety for the worker bees.
When they experienced capitalism, they had no preparation to competitively attack their fellow workers and win, and as a result they didn't win, they became worker bees under capitalism, and dropped below their previous living standard. Granted, this provided an environment where more ambitious worker bees could prevail and get rich, and that's the system working as intended, but for the less motivated ones, their experience told 'em communism took better care of them… in spite of the litany of horror stories we've all heard over and over (I live in the USA, so I've been indoctrinated against communism all my adult life).
I think it's pretty important to examine how these systems work when they're NOT properly functioning. It seems like free market capitalism produces some pretty spectacular damage when it catastrophically fails, but it's more abstracted. When something like communism catastrophically fails, it's in the form of state genocide, with more intentionality.