I think this (#msg-1209029)is a good, but significantly flawed (or at least suboptimal) explanation. To its credit, it at least tries to define terms pretty cleanly:

"Capitalism vests ownership of property (along with the means of production) with the private sector. Members of the community are allowed to operate for their own individual interests — and those individuals get to keep the profits from their work.
...
Communism vests ownership of property (and the means of production) with the commune — otherwise known as the state. Members of the commune are expected to work for the benefit of the commune — not themselves.
...
Socialism relies on redistribution (via regulation or taxation) to promote equality."

IMO, One of the key LOGICAL and communication-related problems in the world is use of a FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED left vs right paradigm in politics. Many people have observed that the operation and powers of the Nazi State, Mussolini's "Fascist" State, and the supposed "Communist" States of USSR, Mao's China, Cuba, today's Venezuela, Pol Pot's Cambodia, etc. etc. are remarkably similar. Although the first two are called "right wing" or "Fascist", while the others are all called "left wing", in action the governments rely on othering, centralized power, and VIOLENCE.

The left-right paradigm is GARBAGE...and using it in discussion goes a long way toward GIGOing your own brain...and furthering the status quo.

Premise: It is IMPOSSIBLE to accurately categorize human political systems on less than TWO axes. The Nolan and the Pournelle two-axes systems at least allow pretty clear, distinct categorizations of communist vs. capitalist vs socialist vs. fascist vs. libertarian vs. republican vs. democrat vs. whatever. This article makes more clear just how fundamentally different systems can be. IT ALSO MAKES CLEAR HOW THE USE OF UNDEFINED LABELS PROMOTES THE CONFUSIAN, EVEN AMONG THE SO-CALLED PHILOSOPHERS!

All that is without even getting into STRUCTURAL ISSUES and definitions of "Democracy", "Republic", Monarchy, Oligarchy, etc! You can make the problem even more intractable than that, if Tower of Babel and endless strife...or a PhD thesis...is your goal: http://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffsb&q=pournelle+political+chart&atb=v201-1&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.miraheze.org%2Felectowikiwiki%2Fthumb%2F9%2F9f%2FPolitical_Compass.jpg%2F450px-Political_Compass.jpg

I think the Nolan 2-axis system is okay: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart.
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IMO the Pournelle System is cleaner: STATISM vs. RATIONALISM.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pournelle_chart
--note socialists and libertarians are, ideally, similar in "reason"; but differ dramatically Statism (freedom) as a fundamental VALUE.

That means, you (as a *rational* individualist) are going to have a hard -- but not impossible -- time converting a *rational* Socialist. They, in turn, will try to convert you, and they will reasonably expect you to recognize the limits to individualism when so many things are shared in The Commons (air, oceans, river, lakes, ecosystem, violence, trade, roads, communicable disease, history-of-entitlement chains, etc.).

You may not like it, but they are being REASONABLE if they require you to have reasonable facts, definitions, awareness of values, awareness of history, etc. to oppose their logic.

In this context, CAPITALISM is LESS important than agreeing on frame of reference. We practice a seriously bastardized form of capitalism in today's America, anyway. Our "free markets" aren't free markets, to begin with...so we can't really be practicing Capitalism.

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/sciencefiction/2020/03/03/please-argue-politics-at-chaosmanor-not-on-facebook/
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From the second link, I just encountered the Kopsick chart mapping reward/benefit vs. responsibility/obligation. I also found the following comment on the 2nd link:

Richard White says:
March 5, 2020 at 6:43 am

The original, genuine, card-carrying fascists were a variation on the theme of socialists. Mussolini himself had been a prominent member of the Italian Socialist Party. His genius was that he realized that it didn’t make any difference who actually owned the means of production as long as the state effectively controlled them. He clearly viewed his fascism as the perfection of socialism, in much the same way that Marx believed that his communism was. Both were very strong statists; whether either was much of a Pournelle rationalist I couldn’t really say.

National Socialists, though, were both socialist (which those on today’s Left vigorously dispute) and strongly statist (which no one disputes). When in power, the enacted many programs which modern Leftists would support, so they also should appear higher up on the rational scale. Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism has a lot of details on both.

Frank Pournelle says:
March 5, 2020 at 6:11 pm

Well done, Mr. White.
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Look at that last comment it an note the generally unaddressed chasm between ownership of "PRODUCTION" and control of "DISTRIBUTION".

I'm going to continue this in another thread, but my key points are this:

(1) People who use a one axis system are stuck in the tower of Babel. They are just babbling...whether ignorant or malefic, they INCREASE THE PROBLEM and contribute nothing meaningful to intelligent discussion. Avoid them. Or correct them...and if they persist, then avoid them like the plague, as -- at best - a waste of time.

(2) TERMS **MUST** BE DEFINED. Others don't have to agree with your definition, but if you have a definition at least you are trying to be reasonable.

If others CAN'T define and justify their terms, they are either functional idiots (note the word functional) or trouble-makers/provocateurs. In either case, call them out publicly...and avoid them like the plague, as part of the problem with NOTHING useful to contribute to a resolution.

(3) I suggest ALL good articles LEAD with their definitions and classification paradigms or, again, it is pure Tower of Babel, with no hope of gainful discussion.

(4) By my definition, an ENGINEERING definition and justified by original root words, FREEDOM is the OPPOSITE of GOVERNMENT. A governor REDUCES degrees of freedom in a system; that should be a really straighforward thing to agree upon...interesting that so few want to start with that self-evident premise.

(5) One of my more recent posts said that INDIVIDUALISM and DEMOCRACY are in fundamental opposition. Democracy is a SOCIAL construct; individualism fundamentally excludes recognition of society as a factor. I would also say that FREEDOM is INDIVDUAL, only. There is no such thing as "democratic freedom" except in nuances of what sort of prison cell one lives in.

A person may choose to surrender some "freedom" in order to gain some stability in variables, but the idea that you can get MORE "freedom" via more (forget the word "better") government is absurd. Illogical on its face.

(6) At this point the US is EXTREMELY collectivist and socialist vs. where it started from, or even where it was 30 years ago. Totalitarian is probably also a good word to define, although the term means little unless you are clear about what, exactly, is being TOTALLY controlled.

The US is FASCIST (Large corporations in alliance with Government Collectivists) far more than "Capitalist".. Capitalism means very little unless defined within a larger picture of total freedom vs total "collective" control. Even questions of socialism DEMAND an answer to "which social clique, specifically?"...if you aren't in the clique, you are effectively a slave within a collective.

Just my somewhat rambling thoughts for now. Most of the stuff being written on sites such as "American Thinker" -- and pretty near everywhere else -- doesn't seem to recognize the Tower of Babel problem; it just feeds into it.

That is sort of a non-starter if you are trying to get the communication ball over the net, hoping for constructive debate, with education and, ideally, evolution of consciousness as a goal.