[kavabean]

They do absolutely apply. And they work. Look at two incredible examples. Russia, post 1917, went from a third world feudal economy (albeit with incredible land resources and considerable intellectual institutions) to the second largest industrial economy in the world in 30 years. China: I will leave off their incredible growth curve over the last 40 years.

There are obviously downsides to top-down centrally controlled economies but to say they don't work is ridiculous.

I don't want to live in a top-down economy. It's too oppressive. I would prefer bottom-up socialism based on worker cooperatives.

But there are some services that are so critical that they cannot be left to the market with it's wealth-centralisation and pay-to-play politics leaving the vast majority in destitution.

Housing is one of these critical services.

[enoch_r]

For the USSR, what is the counterfactual? In retrospect, economic growth in the USSR was not particularly impressive compared to other poor, industrializing economics (which historically have often performed very well due to catch-up effects).[1][2]

Yes, China has experienced dramatic GDP growth over the past 40 years. By coincidence, 39 years ago, Deng Xiaoping began reforming much of the Chinese economy based on market principles.[3] Not necessarily a glowing recommendation for top-down, centrally controlled economies, especially considering the preceding few decades, which featured more central planning as well as economic stagnation and famine death tolls in the tens of millions.

[1] https://artir.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/all19301.png

[2] http://voxeu.org/article/stalin-and-soviet-industrialisation

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform

[evgen]

I volunteer you to be one of the millions who perish in such a great leap forward.

The bloodbaths required for such endeavors literally boggle the mind, and in the end they still only managed to go from mass poverty and serfdom to a point where they are clinging to middle income by their fingernails. If that is what counts as working out for you then it is no wonder the far left has no credibility whatsoever. Better for you to use examples like Singapore or Korea, and I wonder why you avoided them as examples?