Socialism impossible to implement on a large scale.

""socialism has never worked anywhere. " To that I say, Neither has unregulated capitalism. Like "socialist" societies" Perhaps unregulated Capitalism has only existed in the poverty ridden places, But that statement does nothing to support the claim that capitalism hasn't worked. The criteria for the failure of socialist systems has to do primarily with the change in the living conditions of the citizens. The conditions in which the societies were in when these systems where realised are useless except when compared to conditions after the system came to an end. "Any employee-owned business, Or startup where the owners do all the work, Are socialist in structure. " No, These are syndicalist systems not strictly socialist systems. Syndicalism is more of an in-between. It does not include Central or Society-wide collective control over the means of production, But it also doesn't advocate private property at the level of the individual, But rather at the level of the firm/company's workers. This, I would be willing to concede, Suffers from fewer shortcomings than classical socialism. Since there is a degree of competition between firms and thus economic calculation is possible. However, There are still issues, How exactly do you determine how much of a say each employee has in the running of the company? How do temporary workers factor into the equation? How does such a system deal with the unemployed, The sick, The old and the disabled? How do Unions factor into the system? "The employees are the shareholders, And they vote for their own CEO and board of directors just as shareholders do" If the employees being shareholders makes this a Socialist system, Would the system be socialist to a greater extent if the larger society could be shareholders as well? Why limit the ownership of the means of production to employees? "Many employees have 401k or pension plans that entitle them to the profits of the companies in their investment portfolios. If this concept were expanded to include all people, Wouldn't that be a form of collective ownership of the means of production and distribution? The government wouldn't own anything, But would insure that such assets be available as an entitlement rather than a privilege. " It would still be a privilege, Since not everyone has a job. Again, What does one do about the unemployed or the sick and the disabled? When you say the system could be expanded to include all people, Your claim is misleading. It would still not include all people as there are still unemployed people. If you were to call upon the state to tax people in order to tax people in order to support the disenfranchised, Would your system fail to be socialist, Since "socialism. . [means] the worker was entitled to the market value of their labor" and some of the value is being taken from workers and given to those who don't work? "socialism to mean the worker was entitled to the market value of their labor" How will the market value of labour in a syndicalist system differ from the market value of labour in a capitalist system? Marx also understood labour to be the primary source of value, Ignoring the role of entrepreneurship as well as time. Carl Menger understood value to stem from the marginal utility of the final product and that this utility is subjective. This makes it impossible to even determine the "market" value of labour without some degree of private property and competition (i. E. The hallmarks of Capitalism). Considering that a Syndicalist system has (strictly speaking) no private property it would be harder if not impossible to determine the market value of labour. So I put it to you, How would the price of labour be determined?