It wasn’t tried at scale is what’s being argued. Maos china was not really communist even though they called themselves the communist party. Maybe something like totalitarian state capitalists
Oh, I get that. I’m saying, it barely works at even small scale, like 100 people (there are innumerable failed communes in the US), let alone a small state of a few million. I don’t think the Chinese under Mao implemented communism in any meaningful way, but that’s not proof of communism being unworkable. Its manifest failure on any scale beyond a large family is why I think it’s just not workable for society.