So, for some context:

* This is a world artificially engineered by a single hyper-advanced
precursor in an attempt to rapidly develop some new civilizations and
militarize them in hopes of combating a mysterious foe and
subsequently starting reconstruction across the observable universe.
* As of "present-day", the world is 2056 years post-scarcity, with the
original upgrade coming from a number of "ready" civilizations
on-world being granted precursor technologies by said engineer.
Replicator tech is cheap and common, with even kindergartners having
basic knowledge on how to produce the means of production, in this
case.
* Most governments practice a form of socialist meritocracy, with the
closest thing to a global currency being called "Rep", which is not
unlike Facebook's Like system.
* One state, known as the NOTA Republic, uses a form of representative
democracy / democratic republic. It likewise recognizes Rep.
* NOTA is fairly well-known worldwide due to practicing a form of
capitalism in addition to the socialism - that is, basic human rights
like housing and hormones are provided via the usual tech, but it
also has an extant "material economy" of sorts stacked on top of it,
as opposed to most "immaterial economies" which either utilize
digital currency like Rep above or simply Replicate goods in and out
of existence as needed.

What I'm struggling with at the moment is providing a believable justification for *why* a government would attempt to sustain its own capitalist market(s) in what's otherwise mostly a sea of socialism. Two possible excuses I've thought of are:

* The economy exists as a form of autonomy due to paranoia; just
in case said engineer decides to take away Replicator tech come
reconstruction, they'll have physical goods to work with. That being
said, I'm kind of hoping to have a more... benevolent justification
than this.
* Competitive markets have been established in order to prevent NOTA's
people from "getting soft" leading up to the inevitable encounter
with said mysterious foe.

As-is, I'm not really satisfied with either of those two, though.