Of course communism can probably never be implemented successfully, as long as humans are involved, and certainly not on a national scale.
For a small commune, or village scale, perhaps. Perhaps also once technology has advanced far enough for humans to cede leadership to a benevolent AI. Then the humans can be equal, deferring to the AI?
Some are virtually entirely based on trade: Singapore. Hong Kong (as an autonomous region of China), etc.
But the comparison was more one of size and scale of operations.
WalMart has an annual income of $482 billion.[1]
That's more than the annual GDP of Poland, as measured by the World Bank, the 25th largest economy in the world, and of Belgium, the Philippines, Thailand, Norway, Iran, Austria, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, South Africa, Hong Kong, Malaysia, ... and 153 other countries (163 total) in the world.[2]
It carries nearly a third of a million distinct products -- 291,000 unique SKUs across all channels, some 100k per store.
It employs 2.2 million people.[4] That's more than Macedonia (#143), but might better be considered as
It has 11,620 stores worldwide. Each is comparable to the business district of a small town, and in many cases is.[5] Wikipedia only lists cities in the US of 100,000 or more population in the United States, there are 304 such.[6] There are a total of 35,000 recognised place names of cities or towns in the US, most quite small.[7]
Of course, that's being a tad unfair to WalMart, perhaps, and the company has all the advantages of modern computers and such which earlier command economies did not have. Clearly, it would be impossible for an early 20th century or earlier command economy to have claimed a significant share of any national economy, let alone the global economy.
Except of course, for the fact that the East India Company which effectively was the corporate state of India, and comprised half the world's trade at the 18th and early 19th centuries.[8] A prime example some Prussian-born economic critic living in England in the 1840s might well have been aware of.
"... might better be considered as" should have been concluded as "the labour force of a nation, usually ~50-60% of the total population, so closer to 3.7 - 4.4 million total.
A firm's revenues are the monies paid it. A nation's GDP is measured largely as money flows, though Adam Smith (and Simon Kuznets, largely) defined it more specifically as "the annual labour and produce of the nation".
So yes, it's not clear to me that a company which is buying at $n and selling at $n+m should be rated on its revenues. But you'll see that number turning up in GDP as I understand it. See:
"Output can be measured in three (theoretically equivalent) ways: by adding up all the money spent each year, by adding up all the money earned each year, or by adding up all the value added each year. Some economies, including Britain, combine all three methods into a single GDP figure, whereas others, like America, produce different statistics for each. (American GDP is estimated via the spending approach; GDI, or gross domestic income, by the income approach.)"
You're asking why isn't it obvious to me that the two metrics can be meaningfully compared? If I could answer that, I would know whether or not they could be meaningfully compared.
Your post doesn't convince me. Whether that's because I don't know enough to follow the argument, or because the argument doesn't follow, I couldn't say.
I will say that, as I understand it, GDP depends a lot (mostly?) upon things being bought and sold within a country, while a firm's revenues mostly come from sources outside the firm.
No, I'm asking what your reasons for thinking corporate income and GDP aren't equivalent concepts, because I'd like to see and understand your thinking.
As I'd hoped my comment above made somewhat evident, my thinking can go either way on the concept. Your insights might give me a nudge one way or the other.
My quoting the accepted answer doesn't mean I agree with it.
The interrnal production vs. passthrough disttinction has merits. Though what of a mabufacturing company, say, of automobiles of computers?
For a small commune, or village scale, perhaps. Perhaps also once technology has advanced far enough for humans to cede leadership to a benevolent AI. Then the humans can be equal, deferring to the AI?