A state-run economy would be one where the state ensured that certain values appeared in the economy, that certain items were valued more, others less, and that resources circulated in precise accord with the acknowledged values. Because the appearance of the values is guaranteed by the state, however, the connection to people's expression of their values in the economy is voided. The closest connection to the values of individuals one could possibly obtain would be if the people voted on how to set up the economy, but this would not represent the values of the people as economic agents.
A laissez-faire economy, however, while ensuring that the economic actions of individuals is what determines what values are represented in the economy, fails to ensure that the values represented are those expressed. The economy easily loses the ability to represent nuance in the evaluative views of consumers, and tends to represent extreme views. Some individuals lack the buying power to express their values beyond the value which a low cost has, others find that certain values are represented so extremely in certain areas that, though other values are a factor, those other values never make a difference in what they buy. The represented values thus skew in two directions: cheap and toward the values of the rich. Only in places where the cost is low and further values are brought in to the mix to differentiate products can the poorer classes of society have an economic vote in the values represented.
The political divide with respect to economics, it seems to me, runs roughly on these lines. Both sides seek the same aim. The left focuses on the end product: what values the economy represents; the right focuses on the process: the ability of economic transactions to have an effect on the values which the economy represents. By dividing in this way, both leave out a concern that all individuals have an equal economic vote. Neither focuses on the dignity of economic agents as such. The right fears that regulations will keep them from expressing themselves economically. The left fears that deregulation will allow disproportionate impact by the rich and powerful.
As an aside: there is something very Hegelian about the way in which the left and the right seem to be identical, just in different domains. Here the right, rather than the left, is obsessed with self-expression at any cost.
The point of this post is to show where the conflict lies. By seeing that both aim at the same end, we locate a shared point of reference with respect to which we can argue about particular views. I am not confident about any particular solution (I am not an economist), but an excellent solution would be one which clearly enabled all classes to have an economic vote while keeping corporations from doing things which would keep particular classes' economic actions from making a difference in the values represented. One approach, then, might be to provide a basic income to all. In theory, this would protect consumers from being forced to buy from companies which are otherwise too big/cheap to avoid and re-create something of the situation which Alexis de Tocqueville noted in America when he said,
"the workmen have always some sure resources which enable them to refuse to work when they cannot get what they conceive to be the fair price of their labor." (Democracy in America, Vol.2, p. 189 in the Bradley edition).Whether the theory would work out in practice is, of course, debatable.
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