Every communist country except for Cambodia saw massive, rapid, improvements in quality of living, to an unprecedented degree. Life expectancy in both China and the USSR more than doubled in only a few decades.
There's also a middle ground between consumer cooperatives which are more on the communal side and worker cooperatives that are more on the libertarian socialist side with Worker Consumer Cooperatives that align both kinds of stakeholders with ownership and management reducing exploitation on both ends.
That's what I would consider left, but not far-left. I suppose Socialism with Liberal Democracy, as opposed to a more direct or decentralized version of democracy, would be left but not far left as well. Capitalism ends where left begins.
It's not linear. Anarchist or Libertarian Socialist systems like Syndicalism, Mutualism, Georgism, and Distributism are just as Socialist as Marxism in that they prevent the exploitation of capital accumulation, but they favor direct stakeholder ownership of firms in place of a state or other more communal systems that create an inherent hierarchy of power.
I'm aware that it's not linear, but it's also not a 2 axis grid, either. There are generally groups of ideologies based on what class they represent, and the methods they use.
Neither. The left/right divide is Socialism/Capitalism. There are various Overton Windows, ie what is considered left or right when compared to an areas median, like Liberalism being left of the American median despite being a right-wing, Capitalist ideology.
Anarchism, Communism, Marxism, and other forms of Socialism are leftist, while Liberalism, Social Democracy, and fascism are rightist.
Uh. Okay. If you say so. I wasn't going to say anything about the No True Scotsman fallacy, but you really did force my hand with that last one. That's outright silly, and a pretty vile attempt to coerce conformity out of of other progressives who don't align with your perspective on economics by thinking you can label them "right-wing" for it.
Not wholly opposed to that, markets can serve the purpose they're designed for, and I could see an evolution of cybersyn that helps run the economy using simulated markets.
As a Mutualist, while there are a few things that could be better centralized, I'm in favor of a full worker consumer cooperative economy. Housing, groceries, and, utilities all work better as cooperatives, but capitalist have enough wealth to often push cooperatives out in other markets.