Quote from: droogOn the contrary, the line is absolutely clear. Are the means of production privately owned? Is labour-power a commodity? Then you have capitalism.

You are missing the point droog, and since I lack either a chalkboard or a really good way to paint a picture with words I'll try again.

You have a line

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On one side of that line you have pure, market driven capitalism with no state control. Call it Captialism (clever I know)

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On the other you have a pure, state controlled economy where market forces have no play whatsoever.  Call it, for the sake of convienence 'Communism'.

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Now, almost no economic system of any complexity (the modern nation-state) ever gets close to either *.  These closest to the first * we call capitalist nations, those closest to the second * we call 'Socialist' or 'Communist'.  Now, remember we are talking purely economic terms here, not governmental or ideological.  Where exactly does one stop being Capitalist and start being Communist? In the middle somewhere?  Only, since no one is actually looking at the fucking line when they lay out their nations economic system, it's awfully damn fuzzy where that 'exact middle' is.  

Now, my professor was pretty biased against the Controlled Economy, based off his personal expirences with them.  But the outline above makes no moral judgements whatsoever (unless you count the dubious honor of having the first * some sort of advantage...). It's just a way of demonstrating that the casual terms we use are not absolute in actual practice, not by a long shot.