[brc]

It's ironic how in the failed communist centralized economies, the economic policy was dictated by "elected" nomenklatura and it was BAD

It was bad because the only effective way of determining which goods should be produced and which should not is via the price system. It's a fatal conceit of planners that they can predict and determine what people want - even right down to how many loaves of bread they want.

It's the whole reason why some startups fail and others succeed, but nobody really knows why at the outset. Replace the dynamism of Silicon Valley with a government planning board and the whole thing would be dead in 2 years.

The actual idealogy behind it doesn't matter - if you think you can plan an economy, you're already creating trouble.

Control of the economy is most definitely not in the hands of 'unaccountable private banks'. Banks rarely even feature in most startup stories - the market innovated around them by forming venture funds and employing individuals who were skilled at allocating the capital in them. It's simply not true that banks control the economy, and anyone is free to start their own bank or perform their own lending if they like.

[leaveyou]

Again, I agree with you with one exception: banks have an unfair advantage and a monopoly over money creation. With the fractional reserve banking, banks take interest on money they don't have and in partnership with large corporations (in which banks may have vested interests and which are dependent on banks), banks can "determine which products should be produced and which should not" before the market has any word about it (by buying competitors, buying critical suppliers of competitors, patents..). Banks do control and steer the economy more than any other actor.