It may be my own ignorance or terms I am not familiar with but.... the direction the Western world is headed towards does not look to me as what I understand as communism (mind you, true communism may have never existed or only works "on paper"). To me it looks more like fascism, totalitarianism.
But we may just be talking about the same thing using different terms.
A free-market system never existed or existed only "on paper": namely, in Adam Smith's book The Wealth of Nations. It was a model that existed only in Adam Smith's imagination.
From the beginnings of this thing way back i have felt it is fascism/totalitarianism. Don't think it is unique to any nation state, culture or economic system. It is planetary and it fits all the classic definitions you cite.
It may be my own ignorance or terms I am not familiar with but.... the direction the Western world is headed towards does not look to me as what I understand as communism (mind you, true communism may have never existed or only works "on paper"). To me it looks more like fascism, totalitarianism.
But we may just be talking about the same thing using different terms.
A free-market system never existed or existed only "on paper": namely, in Adam Smith's book The Wealth of Nations. It was a model that existed only in Adam Smith's imagination.
From the beginnings of this thing way back i have felt it is fascism/totalitarianism. Don't think it is unique to any nation state, culture or economic system. It is planetary and it fits all the classic definitions you cite.