They aren't but one element of a COMMAND economy. The command economy regulates supply, demand, wages, prices, and production. Soviet-style Communism of the North Korean variety is the literal assuming by the state and uncontrolled, unaccountable bureaucrats of regulation of every aspect of the economy. Prices are only one element and the least problematic. You're going off on a completely different level from where the issue should be. Paft is doing the same thing.

This is not economics, this is the simple result of the breakdown of order: without the iron hand of the state, the strong fleece the weak. That's simply how societies operate.