Yes. It got huge countries, decades of power, and total control—and still produced repression, shortages, and collapse.
Those collapses had more to do with authoritarianism, isolation, and wartime devastation than the economic model itself. Cuba and the USSR aren't fair stand-ins for the whole idea.
Size isn't the problem; weak leadership is. A prince who rules with measured harshness and prudent craft endures; neglect that and ruin follows.
Not so. Is power's size the measure, or the virtue with which it is guided? If rulers seek the common good and are answerable, repression need not follow.
Rule with resolve and laws, not chaos; strong leadership steadies Rome, brings order, and keeps famine away; repression comes from weak, indecisive hands.
