What is "socialism"? - An attempt to clear up myths/misconceptions

[DonFerrari]

sc94597 said:

DonFerrari said:

There is nothing preventing the workers to unite and make their cooperatives and whatnot, usually they fail.

Except you know the lack of capital and large-scale poverty of the workers due to the monopolization of land, high rents, low wages, etc all of which are caused by state violence. Not to mention subsidies and regulatory favors for the large corporations which can afford expensive lawyers and lobbyists. Yeah, besides all of that nothing is preventing the workers from uniting and forming cooperatives that have a chance. 

The areas where cooperatives are most successful are those where monopolization is practically impossible, like farming. Many farmers are unable to get loans and/or insurance from profit-seeking investors and therefore form credit unions and mutual insurance groups. This has been immensely successful for those farmers whom joined. 

Without the state setting the rules of the game, I am quite confident that capitalist privilege would be so undermined that cooperatives would be viable alternatives to wage labor, and the bargaining power of labor would match (if not exceed) that of capital. 

Yes those low wages.... those exploitators capitalists that have 5% profit margins of the products are exploring their employees to such indecent degrees.

But I do agree with you that the government favors and conduct monopolies for large corporations. Still a lot of the big companies of today started of without any capital or favor from governments.