tom, economic power IS power, the power to hire, fire, set prices and salaries, control the economy and influence government is raw, naked, brutal power. it is all that matters. everything else is just middle school civics. what else is left? you are the one who makes the purely arbitrary distinction between economic and political power, because it allows you to define your political opponents and their positions so it suits your arguments. isn't that what they call "reframing"?

there is no communism any more. the world, even china and russia, is now run by corporations and their government appointees and has been for the last 20 years. except for a handful of tiny failed third world states, there no longer are any communists anywhere. even your national enemies are now anti-communist right-wing religious fundamentalists, your convenient ideological bogeyman no longer exists, it is no longer available as an excuse for your personal and national shortcomings. you won the cold war, remember? and what the hell does communism have to do with medical care and environmental protection anyway? that is just ordinary public administration, like enforcing traffic laws and keeping the sewers working. that's what governments do, that and curb the abuses of private business.

you simply can't call anything you don't like "communism" and everyone who disagrees you must therefore be a communist or a moron. you are a conspiracy theorist, a free market jihadist, you see infidel communists everywhere, like the people who moan about alien abductions and cattle mutilations and government plots that are out to keep the truth from us because they want to take over the world. You really should be posting on Mysteries of the Universe.