Consider this: the distinguishing economic characteristics of socialism are income redistribution, and centralized planning. Marx’s argument, in part, was that the chaos of free markets needed to be tamed, and central planning instituted. All vital industries, like energy production, railways, ship-building, and agriculture, were to be overseen by the State. Needless to say, this doesn’t work, since it fails to account for local information. Basically what happens is the systematic and inevitable exit of otherwise available information, which makes production irrational and inefficient.
To my point here, though, the Federal Reserve is in fact a means by which wealth is redistributed from ordinary Americans to the rich, and it utilizes central planning in the production of MONEY. How much to lend, to who, at what interest rate: one would think Congress could provide input on such large decisions; one would think voters would somehow be able to influence it; but we don’t and can’t. Such is the nature of the Beast.