Comment by jszymborski

I do feel like you've framed this as dichotomy: you either have a capitalist system or you have an autocratic centralized government.

Many socialist democrats (or democratic socialist, whatever your flavour) believe that collectivism need not be autocratic and all encompassing. The negative aspects you're describing, in my opinion, are the results of the fascistic elements of an autocratic communist regime. "The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing..." and so on.

The liberty that open democracy promises is resistant (but not immune) to the kind of coercion you've correctly identified as being characteristic of the Soviet system.