Embed Notice

@freemo @avlcharlie It’s not really restricting it to a group of people, but rather to a form of ownership. Not all forms of ownership are permitted or respected under capitalism either, at least not consistently, except for private ownership of capital.

Could you be more precise what you want out of these market pressures? That is, what market pressure is in your opinion missing or not working in a system in which worker cooperatives are the only way of owning means of production? Because if you want enterprises thriving and falling due to them (the main benefit of a market economy, although I have to again stress that I personally do not think it’s worth the trouble), then this works with worker cooperatives. The only market pressure I can think of that is not present is valuing the company itself, but then the argument comes back to private ownership, because only under that assumption this question even makes sense, so the argument becomes circular

If you define free markets as only systems where you can privately own anything then that’s kinda beyond capitalism – under modern versions of capitalism you cannot privately own e.g. people or the right to use violence. If you define them as systems where specifically means of production have to be privately ownable, then I can agree they are equivalent to capitalism, but then talking about the benefits of free markets is a bait-and-switch.