Wishing for communism to control the market: why the claim falls apart
Economist Sarah Santaolalla said live on Spain's RTVE: "If only there were communism to control the market." We look at what that statement actually implies.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
The phrase is a hyperbole: calling for "communism" to control the market confuses interventionism with the abolition of private property. Markets are already managed through taxes, interest rates and regulation, without any need to change the system.
Sarah Santaolalla, an economist, blurted out on a live **RTVE** broadcast a phrase that has been shared thousands of times: "Where are the communists? If only there were communism to control the market." She said it in the context of a televised debate, not at a rally, and the quote circulates cropped.
## What "controlling the market" means
Controlling the market means using public tools to correct prices and allocations: taxes, interest rates, tariffs, rent regulation or competition policy. That happens in mixed economies such as Spain's, where public spending is around **42% of GDP** (Eurostat, 2023). Communism is not needed for that. Communism, in its classic definition, entails collective ownership of the means of production and central planning, not just regulation.
## The "100 million dead" figure
The post that spread the clip adds that "more than 100 million dead" precede that call. That figure is used in debates about victims of communist regimes, but it is not an official or unanimous figure: it comes from contested historiographical estimates, such as those in *The Black Book of Communism* (1997). It is not a figure verified by statistical bodies.
## Why the phrase matters
The problem is not that someone calls for more public intervention: that is debated every day. The problem is labelling that intervention "communism", because it drains both terms of meaning. If everything that regulates the market is communism, then almost no country in the world is capitalist. And if communism only means "intervening", the word stops being useful to describe what peine in the **USSR** or in Mao's **China**.
The phrase works as a TV soundbite. As economic analysis, it is imprecise. And it is worth remembering that figures for victims of political regimes should be handled with care: there is no single record and estimates vary widely depending on the source.
Sarah Santaolalla, an economist, blurted out on a live **RTVE** broadcast a phrase that has been shared thousands of times: "Where are the communists? If only there were communism to control the market." She said it in the context of a televised debate, not at a rally, and the quote circulates cropped.
## What "controlling the market" means
Controlling the market means using public tools to correct prices and allocations: taxes, interest rates, tariffs, rent regulation or competition policy. That happens in mixed economies such as Spain's, where public spending is around **42% of GDP** (Eurostat, 2023). Communism is not needed for that. Communism, in its classic definition, entails collective ownership of the means of production and central planning, not just regulation.
## The "100 million dead" figure
The post that spread the clip adds that "more than 100 million dead" precede that call. That figure is used in debates about victims of communist regimes, but it is not an official or unanimous figure: it comes from contested historiographical estimates, such as those in *The Black Book of Communism* (1997). It is not a figure verified by statistical bodies.
## Why the phrase matters
The problem is not that someone calls for more public intervention: that is debated every day. The problem is labelling that intervention "communism", because it drains both terms of meaning. If everything that regulates the market is communism, then almost no country in the world is capitalist. And if communism only means "intervening", the word stops being useful to describe what peine in the **USSR** or in Mao's **China**.
The phrase works as a TV soundbite. As economic analysis, it is imprecise. And it is worth remembering that figures for victims of political regimes should be handled with care: there is no single record and estimates vary widely depending on the source.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (1 replies).
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