Germany is a more egalitarian society than the US so the failure idea is overblown.<p>We can treat food, housing, and <i>basic</i> healthcare as public goods without going full communist.  In fact due to the concentration of state power historical communist society&#x27;s are <i>less</i> egalitarian than Germany is today.<p>PS: We also know a lot of things that don&#x27;t work.  Price controls for example cause lot&#x27;s of problems, so free markets are really useful.  The problem is when power is concentrated into the hands of a few you end up with what is effectively a planned economy. ex: Intel&#x27;s on CPU GPU is good for them, but not the wider economy.